Style Guide
Equality And Themes
Esharia
Culture
Politics
Religion
Military
The Magical Arts
Regions
Hashat
The Heights
The Wetlands
The Plains
Client States
The World
The Empire of Orrium
The Qeltan Sea
Petty Kingdoms
Whatever you want!
No but seriously, there's a broad range of play styles available. Generally speaking, PCs are people of importance within Esharia (that's how they get invites to palace!). What exactly makes you important can vary dramatically.
You could play a high ranking member of the military and pursue goals of glorious conquest. The Empire of Orrium is an ever-present threat, and some of the more unruly petty kingdoms may need to be reminded why Esharia is in charge.
You could be a revolutionary seeking to upend the social order, perhaps trying to install some strange idea like “democracy” rather than the permanent entrenched rule of the landed aristocracy.
You could play a bored noble scion, only interested in hedonism and showing off the fanciest of clothes at the latest ball.
If playing a powerful person with all this air of position and responsibility doesn't engage you, you might want to take the Precarious Position flaw. This represents you being someone who's been invited to the gatherings under less than accurate pretenses. You might be a political prisoner in the inter-house squabbles, a face put forwards by the criminal underworld of Esharia, or some other way for you to be in a dangerous position indeed.
Skills
Retainers
Valentina (Combat): Ikossian ex-mercenary. She serves as my bodyguard. I pretend that the reason I have her is because I like to show off something exotic, but the real reason is I don't trust Esharians with my life. Too many conflicted loyalties.
Quirks
Positive:
Negative:
0-point:
Background: Nominally, my family has ruled Mosta for untold generations. Indeed it was my noble ancestors who founded the city. I am the latest in this lineage. We are not just patrons of the arts, but artists ourselves, and I have studied under all the great masters my family’s not inconsiderable wealth could afford. Unfortunately, the real power in Mosta are the priests of Mosta, and I am but figurehead. If the priests were to turn the citizenry against me, I would need to flee the city with naught but what I could carry. I long to reclaim my natural birthright.
Mosta is a small but extremely prosperous city state, known to draw many practitioners of the fine arts, particularly painting, to its tranquil lands. The patronage of many nobles from across Esharia ensures that a great deal of wealth also flows into our lands.
Public Bio: Zuan da Mosta is the current head of the da Mosta house, founders and rulers of the small but prosperous city state of Mosta. Mosta is known for its fine arts and significant wealth. Zuan da Mosta is known far and wide as a great artist in their own right. Indeed, many of the finest portraits hanging in noble houses across Esharia were wrought by Zuan’s hand. Zuan is accompanied everywhere by their bodyguard Valentina, an Ikossian mercenary. They are also known for their piety, and following the will of the gods.
Skills
Retainers
Tia Di Mercurio (Combat): Equal parts stern and sarcastic, Tia serves as Nerina's bodyguard. She says little of her past, except that she has served many young nobles over the years.
Gilda Nenci (Religious Knowledge): Although of lower birth than Nerina, Gilda was one of Nerina's childhood friends. She entered university to study theology with the sponsorship of Nerina's family, and became her aide soon afterwards.
Quirks
Positive:
Negative:
0-point:
Background: The youngest child of many, Nerina learned early on that she was going to have to go to great effort to get any kind of attention from her parents. Helped by certain members of the household staff who took a liking to her, she taught herself to swear like a sailor and grab people's attention by force. This soon formed an unhealthy cycle: her parents despaired of her and gave her even less attention, Nerina escalated her efforts in increasingly desperate attempts to get noticed.
Eventually, she managed to funnel this drive into something more productive: the study of magic. Nerina excelled, and soon found herself at the top of her class at Badosir University - although she never lost her penchant for being loud and abrasive.
She pursued further study for a while, but soon found herself bored of the monotony. In search of a new pet project, she relocated to the Heights and vowed she'd make its one failing university an institution to rival Badosir. Unfortunately, the way she set about doing this has set her at odds with one of its local powers.
Public Bio: Nerina, youngest child of House Piccarillo, is best known for her steady stream of dedicated, but decidedly unremarkable, magical research. Well, that and her frequent shouting matches with other scholars over some textual nuance or other - the language she uses! She's recently relocated to the Heights, saying she'll 'turn that pig's ear of a university into a halfway decent institution if it's the last thing I bloody well do.'
Skills
Retainers
Sofia Silvestri (Stealth): Valente's spymaster. Surprisingly chatty, but has a way of talking a lot without giving away much at all.
Rett Lillo (Performance): Somewhat mangy, and you can't seem to get rid of the stench after touching him, but a fine actor. And those have their uses.
Quirks
Positive:
Negative:
0-point:
Background: Valente is one of the lesser-known scions of House Toqare. He mostly keeps to himself, and has enough older siblings that inheritance has never been a prospect. Free of a lot of the attention and responsibility bestowed on his older siblings, Valente found himself somewhat directionless.
Court politics failed to grab his attention, and he was never a great scholar. After attending universty, he spent a brief period in the army. He found it incredibly fulfilling, but was forced to leave after taking a severe wound to the gut - one that still gives him trouble. Seeing few options remaining, Valente tried the priesthood, and it was there that he finally found his place. He quickly rose to become Priest of the god of Zolfo Pass, a small settlement split between two sides of an impressively carved bridge. Both the village and the bridge can be dated to before Hashat rose.
Valente is gruffly enthusiastic, vehement, and dogmatic. He much prefers condemning bad practice over encouraging good, and is always willing to cast a discriminate eye on his followers - when he isn't passing his time gambling, that is. The one problem he's found with his position is that opportunities to condemn heresy are in surprisingly short supply. To this end, he employs Rett Lillo, a hired actor and former con-artist to “test the peoples' spiritual strength,” and Sofia Silvestri to provide a listening ear if they happen to succumb to temptation.
Public Bio: “Negligance! This town is full of it - you can feel it in the air! I'd wager there's no god in Esharia as neglected as Zolfo Pass. You do not Understand, and worse: you do not even try to Understand. Laziness and distraction has snaked its way into the population, it writhes around your very feet, it chokes your breath! Do you even see where you are? Do you lift your head from your own toil, your petty concerns, your frivolities? You see nothing but the noses in front of your faces, nothing of the place you inhabit. Negligance!”
- An excerpt from one of Valente Toqare's sermons.
