Alright folks, let’s get this party started!



Back in Town

As per usual the Winds of Fortune start with the Plenipotentiary post.

Summer – Meraud – The Eternal Meraud has turned down the offer of a Parley, but has offered something else. A massive sinecure that would give the owner the opportunity to harvest mana. The sinecure must be sited in a particular spot near a Dawnish estate, and when the title holder is a Dawnish Noble Enchanter the sinecure will produce more mana. He also refuses to have anything to do with creating an alternative to Knights of Glory, does not know anything about the new Eternal called the Cold Sun, or how to kill or destroy them, and will not do anything in regards to the Iron Confederacy. Meraud refuses to be bribed or to bribe on the matter of Amity, and appears to be annoyed by the Conclave’s ties with Sadogua instead of him. 

Day – Zakalwe – Zakalwe has agreed to attend a parley with the Archmage of Day and one other, if Skywise Gralka is no longer the Archmage then she must be the other person brought along. The Parley is set to take place at 17:00 on Saturday, and the decisions surrounding the Cold Sun debacle will be paramount in the discussion. After the message is passed on the herald leaves and they, and many like it, take up arms against the army of the Cold Sun.

Autumn – Prospero – Prospero has declined a parley, but has offered a private deal to the Archmage of Autumn. The details for this deal are not clear, but the eternal is apparently willing to turn over a particular magical item schema to the Wintermark Runesmiths if the Archmage disseminates a particular ritual and gives the eternal 10 rings of Illium.

Winter – Tharim – Tharim declines the offer of a Parley, but will be sending some of his heralds to the Hall of Worlds at 22:30 on Friday to seek out individuals at Anvil. Cassia Silkweaver, Olyva of Esther’s Sanctum, and Alessi Navigator on the matter of burials; Casimir Pakkenovic Mislova, Mayra Doubek, Kastya, and Enchantress Armand Remys on the matter of the rulers of the land of dark forests and cursed hills; and with Ematius the Archmage of Winter on the matter of the orcs. He has also said that he is willing to bind his magic to a particular ritual, but that he will be putting an assurance in place. 

Night – Janon – Janon accepts the offer of a Parley, and goes further, proposing to set up a sort of Ambassador position. This should be done through the Conclave. If they are placed under Amity before the Parley then they will apparently get to work on inspiring the people of the Empire. Back to the Parley, the meeting will have a maximum of 6 people, including the Archmage and the generals of the Green Shield and the Summer Storm (who the eternal has boons for, apparently) plus the General of the Burning Falcon. There is also one pot left for another person to visit. The Parley will take place at 23:00 on Saturday.

Spring – Arhallogen – Arhallogen does not wish to have a Parley, but is willing to meet with a maximum of 5 Navaar Vates and no others at 21:00 on Saturday. The eternal was apparently insulted by the tone the Archmage of Spring used in their plenipotentiary. They would like the Empire to remember that Arhallogen supports the Empire, but also supports the Druj and can cease supporting the Empire whenever they want. So don’t get uppity, basically.



Restraint

The second Wind of Fortune was an appraisal of “how the Empire can defend itself against raids, preferably without the construction of fortifications or the commitment of armies.”

1) The Senate could fund the hiring of Mercenaries to patrol the borders of the Empire. This would only stop small bandit groups, and would not prevent invasion from armies. It would cost 10 thrones a season, per territory, and need a Senate motion. There are currently 15 territories in the Empire under threat from this kind of raid.

2) Use a ritual to prevent certain kinds of attacks. There has apparently been an enchantment cast over certain territories in the Empire which has prevented the resources of a territory being plundered when they are attacked. The ritual has been cast by people unknown, and it is not known if the ritual is an Arcane Projection or a Ritual Text. A Wintermark Coven has offered up a magical artefact that gives the user an extra rank of Autumn Lore for two rituals a day for the creator of this ritual if they hand it over to the Conclave to be put into Imperial Lore. 

3) Connected to this idea of raids, the people of the Brass Coast are upset that Tharim was given leave to take from their Herb Gardens and Mana Sites. They have put forth a mandate that will reduce the amount of tax the Brass Coast gives to the Treasury until something is done about this sort of thing. 

A Design Note At the bottom of this page was a note from the Design Team saying that basically, raids are one of the ways that the plot gets shown to the players and that you cannot completely stop them or else the plot won’t happen, so please don’t try again.





A Question of Loyalty

Last event the Senate asked that the Research Department “appraise what further the League can do so that the Urizen in Spiral can remain there peacefully while preserving their culture, ideally without suffering undue financial hardship from not being in Urizen.”

Contrary to the wording of the appraisal the people of Spiral are actually more upset about losing their political strength in their home territory, rather than losing their culture. They are happy to move to elsewhere in Urizen if it comes to that.

The Urizen Assembly approved the mandates of Clytemnestra and Hector who told their people to “despise” the people who have taken the  territory of Spiral from Urizen, this has led to the potential for Spires in Spiral to set themselves up in Rebellion against the Empire. This would have been bad enough, but the Loyalty Assembly sent priests to the territory and they appear to have fanned the flames with hallowings that encourage people to follow their Loyalty. Not everyone is going to go down this path, but the pathway is open to any that do.

There are several groups among the people of Spiral;

  1. Those who are loyal to the Empire above all, see Spiral joining the League as a necessary sacrifice and will most likely be moving to the other Urizeni Territories in the near future. They want the Empire to move boldly to make up for losing their Territory, but are willing to wait and see what will happen.
  2. Those who are Loyal to Urizen above all, these people are angry that Urizen is being let down once more. That their powers are used when needed but that the rest of the Empire rarely makes choices that benefit the people of Urizen. To make it up to these people the Research Department believes that moving the Imperial Mint to a new Urizeni site and making it National Seat would go a long way to making up for the upset. A Senate motion would have to be put through to decommission the old Mint and to rebuild the new one, it would cost 45 wains of white granite, 90 crowns and take six months to complete.
  3. Those who are Loyal to Spiral above all, are incredibly angry and are moving to rebel against the Empire. Some of their number have already taken over Ankara and Cinion and declared them Urizen lands. They will only settle down if the Territory is given back to Urizen, which would be a lengthy and difficult task. It would probably also really anger the Apulian Orcs who might in turn rebel and cause chaos in Apulian, or go back to the Grendel lands.
  4. Those who are Loyal to their own Spire, Citadel, or other Home, have mixed feelings. They do not wish to leave, but the current state of affairs means that they will lose out monetarily. There is an offer from the Eternal Sung to shroud many of these Spires and allow them to interact with the Urizeni Territories through magic, but this would be costly. To help this the Senate could offer to buy the mana crystals and arrange for Covens to do the casting. This would have a 35 throne cost per Season and would massively reduce the amount of Mana crystals available to be bought. It would also mean that the resources under this shroud would not be able to be enchanted any other way.

The Rebels The aforementioned rebels who have taken over Ankara and Cinion have a lot of demands, but it is possible that they could be negotiated with. However, the National Assembly would not be able to persuade them tp stand down, though it could be used to persuade people to join them and to amp them up. 

The Black Plateau The Black Plateau becomes more active when there is violence happening in the Territory, currently it is stable, but if the state of things heats up then the Black Plateau may become more active – something that would be very, very bad for anyone nearby.





Landscape

Last Anvil summit the heroes of the Empire chose to blow up a mountain with the help of a cadre of Autumn Realm mercenaries. It turns out that that mountain was full of metals that the Empire could use.

Mithril

There is a particularly rich mithril seam in the mountain (or what’s left of it) however the damage to the mountain has left the area in a dangerous state so any mine built there would be more expensive than normal. There are two options for this, one which would see the mine become a public Bourse seat (sold at Auction) or a much cheaper option under which the seat would be a national seat for the Brass Coast, it would also provide 19 wains of mithril versus 16 for the public option. The cost for the two options are either 170 thrones or 50 thrones and would take 1 season to build.

Mountainhome

As well as Mithril there are Orichalcum and Weltsilver seams, there are also Bloodstones. A ministry could be constructed that would allow someone to buy these metals, it would require a commission 16 wains of mithril, 4 thrones and take 1 season to construct. The mercenary company that helped the Empire to blow up the mountain would like to stake a claim on this valuable area, The House of Fire and Flame would pay tax and rent the right to mine the area. This can be approved through a statement of concord through the Conclave. This opportunity is only available this season.

Jotun Threat The area is still under threat from the Jotun, though the collapse of the mountain has blocked many of the routes through the mountain pass. However, with the even greater wealth now on display it might become a more tempting target for attacks and raids.  The Wind implies that the area will be under major threat until a fortification is built in the area to protect it.



Resonance and Mitigation

This Wind of Fortune is looking at the effects of the recent major rituals cast on the Empire.

The general idea behind the Omnihedron project was to get a ritual cast for each realm of magic in the “right” order to maximise the ways they bounced off each other. This has created some benefits for the Empire, but it has also caused a lot of problems. The most recent being the fact that the soldiers of the Cold Sun found it easier to travel through Day Regios after a massive Day Ritual was cast. There is, even more, worry because the next one in the theorised “right” order is Winter, and casting a massive Winter ritual as we are going into the same season seems like a very bad idea because it will be supercharged. Also, the realm is a pretty scary one? That has the themes of Hunger and Ending, so it might not be a great idea to do it at all. 

Conclave There are some questions about the choices Conclave made in this matter, why did they support the casting of this ritual, why they didn’t give warnings to the Empire of the potential side effects (like an invading army of Day heralds) or anything like that. People want to know who is responsible and who is going to pay for the death and destruction that has occurred. 

Apparently, the Imperial Magistrates will be looking into the matter and seeing if it constitutes a Treasonous action. The Conclave could sway this by putting forth a Declaration of Endorsement on the matter and saying that they agree with the choice. This probably won’t stop people from being very angry, but it might stop there from being official repercussions.

Thresh the Fields The Marchers are angry, it was only a few short seasons ago that their Assembly was telling people to trust in the Conclave and believe that they knew what they were doing. This rather proves the opposite. The people of the Marches are watching, if nothing is done to bring justice to the perpetrators of this latest magical mishap then there is a threat of the Marches withholding their taxes from the Empire in protest.  While the Marcher Assembly is generally the best way to communicate with the people of the Marches, if the message is once again to be patient and wait to see what happens the people are not going to listen. The Marches want to see justice done, for this as well as the many other curses and major rituals that have caused problems before.

At this point, people’s minds turn to who should be in charge of getting to the bottom of all this trouble. There are several Imperial Titles who could take the lead on investigating this, and this could lead to a lot of passionate debate and interactions. But the Design Team would like everyone to remember that these individuals are real people and to treat them with the same kindness that you would wish to be treated. Check out the full list of Imperial Titles on the original post, plus in-character names and photos for finding them on the field. Again, be nice, they may not be prepared for the roleplay you want to do so check in first!

There is also a lengthy post about the military and political atmosphere in the Barrens, however, it is nearly 20,000 words and I think that deserves its own post, so I’ll get that done when I can. See you next time, K