[Interest Check] Realm Civil War Play by Post Epistolary Game [Ex2]

[wonderandawe]

Ever since I discovered the now defunked Mage Epistolary Game in the Play by Post forums, I've been intrigued by running a similar game for Exalted.

What is a Epistolary Game?

An Epistolary Game is where each player plays in their own location, yet share a common goal. The PCs share no scenes and have no contact with the other players except though letters. Each PC has actions they wish to accomplish over a certain time period (a week, a month, a season). They send these actions to the ST, who replies back with complications to the player's actions. The player decides how their character solves these complications. The character then writes a letter to their fellow PCs, explaining what they did over the course of the month and how they forwarded the PC circle's goals.

The players have almost complete control over the NPCs and location. The ST only provides the main goal and the complications. A game of this type seems to solve many of the issues in a Play by Post game. Combat can take place but will be summarized in the letters, thus players will not lose interest due to weeks long combat scenes. There are no scenes to be run, so if a player disappears, you can skip over them in the letter cycle.


The Game

The PCs will be part of a conspiracy to set their preferred NPC heir on the Scarlet Throne. They have been recruited into the conspiracy by a Nellens Patrician located in the Imperial City. It is RY 767. The Scarlet Empress has been missing for four years, yet the Jade Prison is a year from being broken. A political game should be ideal for this type of game play.

The PC letters will cover a month of in game time. They will write letters back and forth, scheming together to discredit one heir or work on researching how to break into the Imperial Manse or some other scheme to achieve the group's goal. The letters will be written in code assisted by either a Sorcererous or Solar shenanigans, so the players can feel safe in speaking openly about what happened.

Ideally, I want a good mix of splats, leaning towards a Dragonblooded majority. Dragonblooded, Lunars, Sidereals, and maybe a Solar or two. (No Abyssals or Infernals due to setting timeline) I have an idea of balancing the Dragonblooded with the Celestial Exalts with political power. Dragonblooded can openly use their Exalted power, while the Celestial Exalts are trying to pass as Mortal. Since each PC is in their own city, I hope this would solve any potential balance issues. If not, we can decide if we want to stick with Dragonblooded only. If you submit a Celestial Character concept, have a Dragonblooded backup character.

All characters should be pragmatic enough to work with each other despite being Dragonblooded/Anathema. All characters should be settled on the Blessed Isle or a Realm controlled territory (except the Imperial City). All characters must care about the future of the Scarlet Empire. No Lookshy spies or other characters that just want to watch the Realm burn. Let's try to avoid Player vs Player conflict if possible.

Four possible Experience points will be given per letter. One for participating. One for revealing details of your character. One for revealing details of your character's setting. One for advancing the game's metaplot.

Once we get a good group of players, we will decide how often we will post letters and who the PCs are going to support for the throne.


Character Creation Rules

• Create a Starting Character of either Dragonblooded (preferred), Lunar, Sidereal, Solar. Character should be less than 50 years old.
• Character must be based in either the Blessed Isle or a Realm Controlled Territory (except the Imperial City). Characters can not be in the same location.
• Character must be pragmatic enough to work with Dragonblooded/Anathema. Your character must be wiling to participate in an Eclipse Oath
• Celestial Characters must be passing as mortal.
• Character must be part of the conspiracy to control the Scarlet Throne.
• Character must care about the fate of the Realm. No Lookshy Spies or any other character that just wants to watch the realm burn.

Other Character Creation Notes

• All Characters regardless of splat will be using the Solar Bonus Points table on page 85 in the Ex2 core Book.
• All Character regardless of splat will be using the Solar XP table, on page 274 in the Ex2 Core Book.
• All Backgrounds will be rewarded by the ST based on your letter writing.
• Sidereal Character Astrology College Ratings will be based on their Ability Score in the college's corresponding ability.
• Sidereals will get one free Scope 2, Duration 3 (10 years), Endurance 3 Resplendent Destiny at Character Creation. Any Additional Resplendent Destinies will require Astrology Rolls.
• Lunar Knacks will cost 10 XP per Knack with a 1 Month Training time.
• Lunars get two animal forms in addition to the totem form at character creation without buying the Heart's blood Background. (Free one point Heart's Blood Background)
• Dragonblooded may buy backgrounds up to four without spending Bonus points.
• Solars, since they are not fresh from the Jade Prison, do not have First Age Past Life Memories to draw from.

If you wish to join the game, do the following:

1. Fill out the spoilered questionaire on your potential character(s). If you don't know something, you can leave it blank
2. If playing a Celestial Exalt, have a secondary Dragonblooded Concept. If the game grows too Celestial Heavy, we will switch to all Dragonblooded to make things fair.
3. Create a Ex2 character based on starting character rules. Use the 2.5 Adjusted Character Creation in Scroll of Errata pg. 7. Post a pdf of the character sheet linked to google drive or some other cloud storage. You can use an Anathema Character Sheet or one of Mr. Gone's Interactive PDFs.

Name:
Character Concept: One Sentence Summary of your Concept
Location:
Splat:
Aspect/Caste:
House/Faction/other organizational membership:
Motivation: I'll let you adjust this over the course of the first few letters.
Backstory: Where does your character come from? How did they Exalt? What is important to them? How did they get to their current location? Any other backstory information

Backgrounds:
Inportant NPCs:
Strongest Attribute:
Weakest Attribute:
Strongest Skills:
Other Details: Anything else you want us to know about your character?

Player Characters thus far

Mnemon Aisa - BlueWinds
Dragonblooded - Air Aspect
Heptagram, Isle of Voices, Blessed Isle

Ferem Quelaana - Eura
Dragonblooded - Wood Aspect
Cheraki, North

Whispering Twilight - Volivat
Solar - Twilight
House of Bells, Arjuf, Blessed Isle

Ledaal Catala Akashan - Exthalion
Dragonblooded - Air Aspect
Imperial City, Blessed Isle

Contarini Carmela - Guancyto
Dragonblooded - Fire Aspect
Pahua Basin, Blessed Isle



??? - AtG

??? - Builder

??? - Kell_Tamer

(I'm going to cap the game at 10 players. )

Anyone interested?

[wonderandawe]

In hindsight, I don't think the ST had much input into the PC letters except for answering questions. Much less work for me.

[AtG]

I'm interested. Thinking up some character ideas now.

[BlueWinds]

I am so completely interested in this. I have a PC I played in a long-term PbP game which unfortunately ended who's perfect for this.

Mnemon Aisa, Air Aspect Sorceress, heptegram prodigy and Realm's most eligible bachelorette, at your service. Aisa is at one of two locations:

She's at the Heptagram, recently returned from the Scavenger Lands, where she wandered for a couple years after graduation and dealt with all sorts of interesting folks. She's back at the Heptagram as 50% guest lecturer (she's seen all sorts of things), 50% Mnemon's agent (depending on who the group will be supporting, either honestly or dishonestly). Also, people there don't look at her so weird for being a sorceress.

If another player really likes the idea of being present at the sorcery school, she could instead be at the Mnemon family manse, showing herself off socially (everyone wants to marry Mnemon's super-high-breeding granddaughter), making connections, and, of course, scheming.

[LazzerusThanatos]

I am very interested in this, and considering how often I do come to these fourms, I could actually reliably post too. Question though, how solid of a rule is the "be in a realm-controlled or blessed isle location? Cus I have a pretty nice character concept for a Sid, but she's more or less a Queen of Randan (the 3e book had nothing about it, and it was on the map already, and I wanted a custom setting city in the west for an NPC in a game I'm running, so I made Randan that location.)

[wonderandawe]

I am very interested in this, and considering how often I do come to these fourms, I could actually reliably post too. Question though, how solid of a rule is the "be in a realm-controlled or blessed isle location? Cus I have a pretty nice character concept for a Sid, but she's more or less a Queen of Randan (the 3e book had nothing about it, and it was on the map already, and I wanted a custom setting city in the west for an NPC in a game I'm running, so I made Randan that location.)

The rule is more so your character has both an interest in who gains the throne and the ability to influence the Realm. If you are say, the son of the Governor of Lap, you could affect the realm indirectly by encouraging rebellion or diverting resources to a particular individual.

Remember, you control your PC's location and NPCs in that location. I am afraid you will just be writing letters about your city with no connection with the other characters. If you think you can find enough to write about to assist the conspiracy from your location, then you should be good.


To all players, give me the location you are thinking about setting your character along with your potential character concept. If it is a custom location, give me a short description of the setting (including where on the map your location is). I'd strongly prefer all characters be set on the Blessed Isle or in Realm controlled territory.

[wonderandawe]

I'm interested. Thinking up some character ideas now.

Awesome! I look forward to seeing your character concepts.

I am so completely interested in this. I have a PC I played in a long-term PbP game which unfortunately ended who's perfect for this.

Mnemon Aisa, Air Aspect Sorceress, heptegram prodigy and Realm's most eligible bachelorette, at your service. (everyone loves ambitious sorcerous high-breeding DBs willing to do anything for power, right?)

That character sounds perfect for this game. Especially being willing to do anything for power.


Also, two events that will happen over the course of game:

1. The Realm Civil War will break out, possibly started by the PCs.
2. The Jade Prison will be opened. Probably not by the PCs. (I doubt even other Solars will want more Solars running around ruining their plans.)

Both of these events will happen when dramatically appropriate. (Normally, I wouldn't tell the PCs this, but the PCs in the game have more creative control than most games. )

[wonderandawe]

I added a mini character background questionnaire to the first post. Below is an example NPC to show you what I am looking for.

Character Sheet.

Name: Nellens Ryo
Character Concept: Conflicted Bureaucratic Spy
Location: Imperial City, Blessed Isle
Splat: Solar (Maybe change to another splat based on PCs)
Aspect/Caste: Eclipse
House/Faction/other organizational membership: Thousand Scales
Motivation: Increase acceptance of Celestial Exalts in the Realm
Backstory: I don't have a good backstory for this NPC yet.

Backgrounds: Contacts, Allies, Backing, Low Resources
Important NPCs: Gateway playing friend (totally not a Sidereal), Wife, Wife's Dragonblooded Lover, Two School Aged Children, Pet Cat
Strongest Attribute: Charisma
Weakest Attribute: Strength. This is not going to be a combat character.
Strongest Skills: Bureaucracy, Larceny, Linguistics (Forgery), Socialize, Stealth (No presence)
Other Details: All details of this character may change based on player characters. The purpose of this NPC is to feed the PCs information about the Scarlet Court.

[BlueWinds]

Darnit, the site ate my post. Here it is again.

Character Sheet: Here.
Pictures: Here and here.
Name: Mnemon Aisa
Character Concept: Innocent but ambitious sorceress
Location: Heptagram, Blessed Isle
Splat: Dragon Blooded
Aspect/Caste: Air
House/Faction: House Mnemon! House Mnemon for life! Heptagram graduate (and in contact with many others)
Motivation: Be acknowledged as an important figure in the Realm
Backstory:

Aisa is the darling of the Dynasty. Granddaughter of Mnemon, great granddaughter of the Empress, breeding to make other scions of the house green with envy. Bright, energetic and impudent but with a core of inner discipline that makes those traits charming rather than unbecoming a Prince of the Earth. No one minds if you Exalt off-aspect when you do it at the age of 13.

Idolizing Mnemon, naturally she attended the Heptagram. With her lineage, naturally she was top of the class. She toured the Scavenger Lands for several years after graduation before finally deciding that the Realm is the only place she can satisfy her true ambition - to live up to the legacy of her bloodline.

Backgrounds: Breeding. More Breeding. Artifact (a couple of useful, and very secret, tricks). Henchmen. Family (Mnemon). Reputation (Ambitious prodigy). Connections (Heptagram graduates).
Important NPCs:

• Mnemon (notice a theme here yet?).
• One of her sorcery professors at the Heptagram (totally not a sidereal).
• Childhood friend who unexpectedly failed to exalt. May or may not secretly resent Aisa. Quiet, demure, unfailingly polite.
• Another graduate of her year, V'Neef Iphen, halfway in love with her (unreciprocated). Currently back at the Heptagram for additional studies.
• Jal'Kaith, the Jokun (Retainer). Earth elemental bodyguard that Aisa summons repeatedly and continuously (except for rare "vacations"). Technically bound to the task "protect me", but always willingly. He considers himself Aisa's bodyguard, having taken a liking to the foolish little dragon. Almost always nearby dematerialized.
• Ai'Zul, the Cloud Person (Retainer). Air elemental that Aisa summons repeatedly and continuously (except for Ai'Zul's "vacations"). Technically bound as a servant, but always willingly. Curious and flighty, Aisa has caught her continued attention by dint of being just so darned interesting. Often used as a dematerialized spy.

Strongest Attribute: Intelligence
Weakest Attribute: Strength
Strongest Skills: Socialize, Occult, Lore, Presence, Stealth (she's a bit sneaky).
Other Details:

It doesn't come across in the backstory very well, but she's A) willing to deal with just about anyone (anything) and B) actually quite a bit innocent and a little naive. Everything so far in her life has gone her way - no experience with real hardship (other than a little physical while traveling the threshold).

"Oh, of course it couldn't be me! I'm much too young, barely older than the Scarlet Empress when she ascended, I'm nobody... but no one hates me like they do Grandmother... and I am direct matrilineal descendant of the Empress... and hmmm... I don't say anything, ok? Of course I'm supporting Mnemon." (smiles disarmingly) "...I wonder..."

It's outside your initial pitch for the game, but I'd be quite pleased if Aisa were the candidate the conspiracy were putting forth. Everything you said still applies - if I fail to post or disappear, it's no bigger a deal to make her an NPC or ignore her (busy with other things) than any other character.

[wonderandawe]

It's outside your initial pitch for the game, but I'd be quite pleased if Aisa were the candidate the conspiracy were putting forth. Everything you said still applies - if I fail to post or disappear, it's no bigger a deal to make her an NPC or ignore her (busy with other things) than any other character.

I am not opposed to a PC candidate, but we will need agreement from the other players. Your character being the candidate would put a lot of spotlight on her and I don't like to do that unless all the other players agree. Also, I would want to see what concepts everyone else comes up with.

[LazzerusThanatos]

The rule is more so your character has both an interest in who gains the throne and the ability to influence the Realm. If you are say, the son of the Governor of Lap, you could affect the realm indirectly by encouraging rebellion or diverting resources to a particular individual.

Remember, you control your PC's location and NPCs in that location. I am afraid you will just be writing letters about your city with no connection with the other characters. If you think you can find enough to write about to assist the conspiracy from your location, then you should be good.

We should be fine then, as she has plenty of motive to want a hand in the realm, and exactly who she wants as the new "empress".

Name: War-Waging Comet
Greater Astrology Alias's: The Silver-Winged Star, Ragara Herma
Character Concept: Sidereal who hates heaven almost as much as Thulio
Location: Randan, Western Islands
Splat: Sidereal
Aspect/Caste: Chosen of Mars
House/Faction/other organizational membership: Randan Aristocracy, House Ragara
Motivation: Destroy Heaven alongside Thulio, using their own resources and mistakes as the catalyst. / To watch the Maiden of Battles suffer.
Backstory:

Bright-Eyed Comet was a young child of aristocratic heritage in an expanding eastern kingdom whose name has been lost. Upon her 13th birthday, she was supposed to be named the next official heir of the kingdom and begin her true training on how to run a nation. Instead, she was taken from her home, and introduced to a Red-clad woman with the stature of an amazon and a voice that shifted like fire. She was told the woman clad in red had been her selected teacher for learning her duties as a ruler, and that she would be studying abroad. She left that same week, and saw her kingdom for the last time.

Three years later, during her combat studies with a sifu of one of the Red Woman's, she awoke into a power unlike any she'd ever felt, physically, spiritually, or emotionally. It was then that the Red Woman explained she was Mars, The Maiden of Battles, and that Bright-Eyed Comet had been selected to be one of her chosen.

At first she was estatic with the notion. The chance to truly make her kingdom one of the greatest in creation when she finally went back. However that request was quickly shot down. She was told she would not be remembered. As part of being a Sidereal, one gives up their old life. Bright-Eyed Comet was not ready to do such a thing, and went back on her own volition.

What she came back to were only ruins. Burned buildings, meat-stripped bones, the brief but frequent wails of the damned souls still lurking around the destroyed kingdom that she had called her home. She was upset. She had felt that heaven had done her an injustice. Like if she had been here a year earlier, than she would have been able to do something. And thus, she felt resentment towards the Celestial Bureaucracy. Resentment towards Yu-Shan. Resentment towards the Maiden of Battles. And she made a decision there.

Centuries would pass. War-Waging Comet, as she was now known due to her battle tenacity, had the hate she harbored grow. She still did her duties unquestioningly as to not raise suspicion to her feelings, and did them well. All thought she was merely an excellent warrior but none thought her to be a scheme-laying tactician, despite being a Chose of Mars, which is exactly how she wished them to think.

11 Years before the vanishing act of the Scarlet Empress, War-Waging Comet adopted the persona of The Silver-Winged Star, and laid her sights on the Western City of Randan; The Maiden of Endings had said it would likely soon come to an end. She stepped up, and with a convoluted plan that involved: taking over the city through political and social influence, ousting anyone of of the city that didn't have wings, faring a horrible Wyld disease that killed 70% of the city's remaining population, making a deal with a Raksha Prince that cost the other 30% one of their arms, welcoming all those who had been ousted back into the city with open arms as long as they could contribute to the welfare of the city, telling the new populace that she had predicted a tragic event to befall the city soon and felt that it was the responsibility of her and her people (they were all pretty much normal humans but had been born with wings as a wyld mutation, but they classified as a separate race) to face the brunt of it and deserved to be the city's nobles due to their noble sacrifice, and having an economic boom rock through Randan due to the sheer amount of new ideas and high quality products that were exported including the best Maiden's Tea that one could find in Creation.

Five years before the vanishing act of the Scarlet Empress, she was approached by a Sidereal that she had heard the name of all too often in the Bureau. Rakan Thulio approached her in her bedroom unannounced, stating that he knew who she was, and he knew how she felt about heaven. He offered her the choice to join his ranks, with the ultimate goal of bringing a war to all of heaven that they could be unable to win. He said that she would be the perfect candidate to lead the charge when the time was right. She was hesitant, up until the point that he told her he would make sure Mars was taken alive and kept that way until the end of the war, so she could watch everything she had help build crumble around her. War-Waging Comet accepted his offer hastily, loving the ironic idea of watching the woman who had taken her childhood from her suffer as everything around her burned the same way Bright-Eyed Comet's kingdom had.

Thulio's first objective for her was that they would require plenty of resources. He was aware of her subtle and tactile ways, and believed she could use them to amass large amounts of Jade. He cared not how she did it, he simply wished it done in 11 years time.

9 years have passed since that day, and the deadline grows ever closer. War-Waging Comet still attends to her duties in heaven, but when she's not, she's running Randan as The Silver-Winged Star, or she's manipulating a major playing force in the Realm. She plays the part of Ragara Herma, adviser to one of the leading Dragon-Blooded of House Ragara, Ragara Amon. She wishes to manipulate and help his way onto the Scarlet Throne, with which she can then use to recruit the forces of the entire Realm for Thulio, as well as gain access to the treasury that the Scarlet Empress had left behind, with 50,000 jade talents, and possible talents of other materials. The deadline ticks ever closer, and she swore to herself she would not fail.

Backgrounds: Allies 2 (Rakan Thulio)(Ragara Amon), Artifact 4 (Starmetal Coins), Backing 4 (House Ragara), Command 3 (Randan Hire-able Army), Contacts 1 (Rakan Thulio's Forces), Influence 5 (Ruler of Randan), Influence 3 (Adviser to Ragara Amon), Resources 5 (Randan's Trade and Taxes), Retainer 4 (White-Winged Majesty)
Important NPCs: Ragara Amon, White-Winged Majesty, Gillub Crefex
Strongest Attribute: Dexterity, Charisma. Quick in a fight and good at getting what she wants.
Weakest Attribute: Stamina, Awareness. She has never gotten a good grasp on sustaining her physical stature. Always give it your all. Thus, she runs out of steam quickly. And she's extremely good at focusing on one or two tasks at a time, but tends to get tunnel vision easily.
Strongest Skills: Bureaucracy (Numbers and Prices), Socialize, Melee (Short-Sword), Resistance, Presence (Powerful Ruler), Dodge,
Other Details: Simply hearing the name of the kingdom she grew up in (Verastil) tends to make her agitated, angry, and depressed.
_____________________________________________
I shall work on the other NPCs later today, but I have a bit of business that I am required to take care of for now. Hopefully her backstory isn't TOO much for the sake of this.

[BlueWinds]

I am not opposed to a PC candidate, but we will need agreement from the other players. Your character being the candidate would put a lot of spotlight on her and I don't like to do that unless all the other players agree. Also, I would want to see what concepts everyone else comes up with.

Of course! I'm not going to push the idea and won't be bothered if we all decide not to go that route either, just wanted to put the idea on the table. If I don't mention it then no one will know what I'm thinking

[Eura]

I'm interested I'll edit a character in this post later.

[BlueWinds]

I shall work on the other NPCs later today, but I have a bit of business that I am required to take care of for now. Hopefully her backstory isn't TOO much for the sake of this.

This sort of brings up a question wonderandawe : how "big" are you expecting the characters be? Aisa is a just-graduated Heptagram sorceress who hopes to be someone important. War-Waging Comet is a centuries-old Sidereal with connections of some of the setting's most powerful NPCs, ruler of a nation and plotting to overthrow heaven.

War-Waging Comet eats a dozen Aisas for breakfast every morning.


There's a little bit of a mismatch in scale - either can be fun, but we'll have problems if we're expecting different things. It'd be helpful for prospective players to know what sort of game you'd like to run, so we can make characters that fit together better. Aisa could have already gathered more power when the game starts, for example, or War-Waging Comet could be 50 years old and Thulio's pawn rather than equal. (not speaking for Lazzerus here, just an example)

[wonderandawe]

LazzerusThanatos Your character is awesome, but overthrowing heaven is outside of the scope of this game. Due to the amount of control given to the players, the scope of the game is quite narrow. You can do almost anything you want as long as your character's main goal is controlling who goes on the Scarlet Throne. I'm not saying your character can't have side plots, but I don't see how overthrowing heaven can be a side plot. That's it's own game. (Which I do have a Slums of Yu-Shan game idea rattling around in my head, but that game isn't really suited to letter writing. I got a quest to run in addition to this game. I can't do all the things. )

(I totally understand having a kick-ass Sidereal concept, but have it be too old for an Age of Sorrows game. I had a Chosen of Serenity concept that lived though the Contagion and was a Bronze Faction Loyalist... until his son Exalted as a Solar. I ended up breaking the character up into two. One was a younger Chosen of Serenity with a dead Solar son. The other became my Shogunate Quest character.)

This game is going to cover about a two year period in-game time. A letter per in-game month would be 30 letters total. If we do a letter a week, we should be playing for a little less than a year (with a break for the holidays and other real life stuff). I want this game to have a end. Not sure what the end will be yet, but it will end. Not peter out. (Hopefully)

I am expecting starting characters less than 50 years old. Do not underestimate 'Young" characters. By the end of the game, your character will have over 100 XP. As BlueWinds points out, the Scarlet Empress was in her 20s when she founded the Realm. The Realm Civil War is a conflict that forces people to grow up fast.