Beneath the Jade Moon (pre-NES)

Still looking forward to this, Starlife! Even if I have forgotten some of what I was planning on doing.

Thanks NK. It hasn't been that long. Are you still mile high?

EDIT: I mean, location-wise... in retrospect, that came out all wrong.

Here is what I'm thinking a finished profile will look like:

House - Player
Lord _____
Heir
Family
Wealth
Military
Manpower
Holdings
Retainers (major retainers only)
Description

Lord will list the current lord of your house, and his age.

Heir will list your lord's heir, and his age.

Family will list notable family members, and their ages (notable members only, such as young, unwed virgins and jealous brothers).

Wealth will show your... worth, basically, and what you can spend. Wealth comes in many different shades. You can basically assume that this encompasses a general economy, including food and everything you need to maintain a military -- as long as you use enough points. I thought about having different mechanics for agriculture-based societies vs more urban lords, but I think streamlining it like this is more efficient.

You spend your wealth on raising and maintaining soldiers and engaging in a variety of special projects. Open-ended is good.

Military

For all intents and purposes, we are going with a roughly late medieval tech level. I say "roughly", because I envision this world to be a bit different from Earth's late medieval. You can still visualize European to Byzantine castles and architecture, but with a slight exotic flair (jade, socio-religious specifics, etc.). I was not imagining guns for our environment. Additionally, seeing as there was not really a plague in this timeline, populations are swelled -- yet, not as much as you might think in some places, given the horrors of the recent war.

Castles
There will be hard, concrete prices for the construction and maintenance of castles. The reason I am giving hard prices for these in the game is that I feel they will be commonly built, and so, no reason in dancing around prices and losing track of what I told the player before you. Despite this, the given price will be a base price for the most average type of castle of the small variety. Doubling that will obtain a larger castle, and then beyond that, you get into fortress territory and other architectural specifics. You should build on base prices, but you don't have to write out a massive, detailed summary of your castle's design a la Castles II: Siege and Conquest. Concise descriptions are always good -- but of course, I won't discourage you from putting more detail into it, especially because such details might be essential for storytelling (which I love).

I thought about having different "levels", but it all just got too insane. I think it is better for each location to have its own unique description and purpose, any way, and not turn it into a board-game with castles of different levels. Besides, such levels would in no way indicate the usefulness of the fortification -- and anyway, it's not the size, but how you use it. The map has two different castle icons, just as it has two different religious site icons and two different settlement icons. The designation is not necessarily based on size or population, though I guess 90% of the time it is; sometimes that designation is also due to importance, strategic location, or because it is the seat of a major house.

I also thought about informing players how much their castle will cost to build/maintain on a case-by-case basis, but that would just swamp me.

Oh, and, please note that small, minor castles likely dot the landscape -- the ones on the map, and the ones we spend money on and care about, are the ones that are truly strategic and in an influential position.

Castles: _____

Soldiers (a lot of this from EoE):
Levies: 10 for 1
Infantry (Homegrown): 5 for 1
Infantry (Hired): 5 for 2
Cavalry (Homegrown): 1 for 1
Cavalry (Hired): 1 for 2
Ships: 1 for 50
Siege Train: "1" for 500

There are two "types" of infantry and cavalry: homegrown and hired. Homegrown soldiers are raised and trained locally through your house and its retainers. These troops are cheaper than hired infantry, though they come with baggage: the house providing your homegrown troops could turn against you (in the worst-case scenario). These are professional soldiers, trained by your house and its brethren, and of better quality than simple levies. Meanwhile, hired soldiers (mercenaries) are there for the money and glory -- you pay them, they fight for you, without any added baggage. Hired soldiers are generally better quality than homegrown, though are also more expensive. I say "generally" because this depends on a lot of factors, and while I was tempted to add some sort of "experience" mechanic to militaries, I think we'd be better served by interesting descriptions of militaries after they have been raised and sent into battle.

I may or may not introduce "special" mercenary soldier types that come in packages of companies (well-known, famous mercenary groups). I also may or may not have a total mercenary manpower, indicating the total number of mercenaries that exist in the world.

There will be a manpower stat for each house. The other benefit of mercenaries is that you can buy and supply them, regardless of your manpower. Undoubtedly, there will be some houses that rely mostly on hired soldiers, rather than homegrown.

When you send an army on a campaign, you should expect to spend 1 wealth point per 10 soldiers.

Holdings will list your notable castles and settlements (as in, the ones on the map). Your house and its retainers surely occupy a variety of small hamlets and farming villages scattered throughout the countryside, unless you are playing a more urbanite house. I'm not going to attach an amount of wealth or anything to settlements -- kind of silly, in my opinion.

Prestige

The question: do we have a prestige stat? And my answer for now is "No". I don't think it serves a purpose. "Prestige" is subjective, often defined by those in power, and therefore is rather pointless for this NES. I'm willing to hear counter-arguments, but I just don't see any practical purpose for having this as a stat. Additionally, influence is a weird one to give a number or descriptor to, because I feel a lot of how well you influence others depends on how well you NES.

Now of course, I understand some houses should have baggage from the get-go. But isn't that what starting descriptions are for?

Retainers will list notable / major retainers.

I am thinking about this:

Manpower / Loyalty
I was hesitant to give major retainers a loyalty stat (I was also kind of hesitant to give them a manpower stat). Lords did not have spreadsheets indicating how much their retainers loved them; they had to know what their actions would spawn. However, lords did have advisors, and so think of your loyalty stat as a briefing from an advisor about the relations between your house and your retainers. Every major retainer will have both manpower and loyalty. The manpower section of this represents how much they contribute to the total number of able-bodied men in your realm. There is no set method to increasing a retainer's loyalty.

Click to expand...

I'm still hesitant to include a loyalty stat because each retainer has a unique, unquantifiable situation. Additionally, by designating manpower for each retainer, we are getting kind of heavy on the micromanagement. On the other hand, it does make sense for you to know what losing a retainer will cost you -- or what someone else's disloyal retainer could offer you.

Thoughts and suggestions are always welcome, as long as you keep in mind what kind of game I want here (which is not a glorified war board game).

Oh, also, I made this last night, and I think I'll make a series of them, gradually encompassing the whole map. This is just a test -- I'll include house info on a finalized one. I can't do one big one for the whole map, because this website does not support that kind of image size. Additionally, I chose to zoom in on regions for this type of system, so it is not so unbearably crowded (though it still is a little bit tight).

I'm seeing that image at 1cm square...

EDIT: never mind, it seems fine now.

INteractive map !! oh wow !!
just WoW !!

I think a prestige stat would be useful in noting how player houses are perceived by NPC nobility, and would help players not to act wildly out of character toward those out of favor, for instance.

Wealth will show your... worth, basically, and what you can spend. Wealth comes in many different shades. You can basically assume that this encompasses a general economy, including food and everything you need to maintain a military -- as long as you use enough points. I thought about having different mechanics for agriculture-based societies vs more urban lords, but I think streamlining it like this is more efficient.

You spend your wealth on raising and maintaining soldiers and engaging in a variety of special projects. Open-ended is good.

Click to expand...

So wealth, although coming from a variety of disparate factors, will be consolidated into a singular, easy to use stat like gold, right?

I think a prestige stat would be useful in noting how player houses are perceived by NPC nobility, and would help players not to act wildly out of character toward those out of favor, for instance.

Click to expand...

Noted. I thought this, too. But then I considered the different personalities of nobility. One NPC noble might consider a lord's actions to be prestigious, while another would consider those actions to be dishonorable. I find a prestige stat to be dependent upon an idealistic view of the realm, in which the more "prestige points" a player has, the more content NPCs will be with that player -- even though the actions that gained those points could have been directly opposed to that NPC's goals and aspirations. Though I suppose, on the other side of that argument, one could say that NPCs with low prestige would be attracted to players with low prestige? I suppose it could be useful from the symbolic point of view that you mention, in that it describes how one is perceived -- but I can't help but think that one house would perceive some actions as despicable, while another will not (there would, then, need to be a general moral basis, i.e., "backstabbing lowers prestige" and "honoring an alliance raises prestige" -- still not making sense to me, considering honoring an alliance will not necessary be viewed favorably by all NPCs and players).

How would a prestige stat prevent players from acting out of character, and why would we not call such a player out on those actions if we were to not have such a stat?

It would be interesting, though, to have prestige sort of "reset" if the heir's actions are dramatically different from his predecessor. But that still doesn't really require a stat.

So wealth, although coming from a variety of disparate factors, will be consolidated into a singular, easy to use stat like gold, right?

Click to expand...

Yup. I wrote a lengthy note in there to dissuade those who might attempt to convince me to make this more complicated than it needs to be.

It might be cool to have certain natural features part of the interactive map. But whatevs. Lookin' good.

I love the interactive map. MAKE EVERYTHING CLICKABLE!

I grew annoyed with the islands off of my west coast having no story or claim so I decided this:

They are the Lumi Islands. They are basically pretty sparsely inhabited, but they are known for producing a liquor made off of a fruit. It's a really high alcoholic drink (think a really hard cider). They basically have a relatively minor lord in charge and have split alligience between myself (House Sotulyn) and the people across the sea. That would that be Alex, I believe.

Would it be too late for me to try to re-join using my old application plus whatever else I need to add on?

You can add stuff on to your original post, unless it contradicts with what other players have posted. It isn't really "re-joining", though. This is the same NES it was before. You are still on the map. Any other information you want to give me is potentially useful.

Please, if anyone has some suggestions for decent names of geographical features, go ahead and attach labels in a separate image or post ideas.

Suggestions in yellow:

This is still on? Excellent...

Also, you missed an icon for The Summer Palace

Some generic names:

The Timbershroud
Crosstimbers
Skysteppe
Wanderwell
Fowl's Sound
Prinsilmont
Highmanshall
Languid Sea
Tepidstream
Somberspire
Staidbrush
Phlegmire
Eastlinger Islets
Sanguine Sepulcher
Steeps of the Kralkus

Thanks, you two. Most players, including yourselves, put geographical details into their proposals. I'm mostly struggling with those who did not. I don't want to name something and have it be so far from what people imagined. Names, for me, should either have something to do with lore (i.e., I will often use ancestor or history information from houses; but I don't want to just throw those names around, so I only use them when somehow relevant), or should inadvertently describe the feature, whether through literal or ironic means. I also enjoy creating names that could potentially have a rich story behind them, but not necessarily clear-cut and explained from the get-go (and could be explained via an aside in a major arc during our NES). The point is, I don't much care for random names that have nothing to do with the features themselves. Additionally, names that are in English or are amalgamations of English words can be assumed to be in English for our benefit (just as our dialogue and stories will be), but are presumably in one of our realm's older dialects.

Geo map thus far (updated to most recent):

The Spine makes me feel like I'm in a Wheel of Time book.

I'd like to rename at least my portion of that range to be the Godspire Mountains.

Thlayli said:

The Spine makes me feel like I'm in a Wheel of Time book.

I'd like to rename at least my portion of that range to be the Godspire Mountains.

Click to expand...

Right -- because the name "Godspire" has never been used in fantasy literature / fan-fic. My guess is that Robert Jordan used "The Spine of the World" because many RL mountainous and hilly areas (or singular mountains) are called "The Spine", "Mountain Spine", and so on and so forth.

Still, I'll definitely change it for you. And the eastern portion will perhaps become "Earthsjade" or something along those lines.

How about the Jaded Mountains?

The Seat of the Moon? The Jade Mountains? Heaven's Home?