Intrigue in Court II [Fantasy Medieval/Politics/OOC]

[Khasinkonia]

I'd also like to propose a special class for clerics: +3 Diplomacy, +4 Renown. That reflects both the persuasive powers of a trained preacher, and the reverence with which the common people hold a class of men (and a few Puritan women) who have dedicated their lives to God. What do you think?

I think royalty should be suspicious of the Church, seeing as they may rival the crown for influence and power.

Or they could like it, since they could influence people indirectly by using ecclesiastical corruption.

[ApplePieistan]

I think royalty should be suspicious of the Church, seeing as they may rival the crown for influence and power.

Or they could like it, since they could influence people indirectly by using ecclesiastical corruption.

All the “good” social classes (ones that give more than 5 points) are by default disliked by someone. For gameplay balancing, clerics should be the same.

[Khasinkonia]

Or they could like it, since they could influence people indirectly by using ecclesiastical corruption.

All the “good” social classes (ones that give more than 5 points) are by default disliked by someone. For gameplay balancing, clerics should be the same.

I think they should more be disliked by the nobles than the royalty, for the aforementioned reason.

[The Imperial Warglorian Empire]

tag, are organisations allowed? Or only characters?

[ApplePieistan]

All the “good” social classes (ones that give more than 5 points) are by default disliked by someone. For gameplay balancing, clerics should be the same.

I think they should more be disliked by the nobles than the royalty, for the aforementioned reason.

Sounds fair.

[The Valyria Empire]

I think royalty should be suspicious of the Church, seeing as they may rival the crown for influence and power.

Or they could like it, since they could influence people indirectly by using ecclesiastical corruption.

Don’t forget the classic divine right, which always helps.

Anyway, since we have a main religion, I guess we should have some smaller religions. Perhaps a more pagan style religion for the Northern Territories. As well as a Tengri kind of religion for the Khuphate.

[Khasinkonia]

Or they could like it, since they could influence people indirectly by using ecclesiastical corruption.

Don’t forget the classic divine right, which always helps.

Anyway, since we have a main religion, I guess we should have some smaller religions. Perhaps a more pagan style religion for the Northern Territories. As well as a Tengri kind of religion for the Khuphate.

Don’t forget a predecessor for the main religion that always gets shit on.
Middle Ages are never complete without Judaism.

[Reverend Norv]

Don’t forget the classic divine right, which always helps.

Anyway, since we have a main religion, I guess we should have some smaller religions. Perhaps a more pagan style religion for the Northern Territories. As well as a Tengri kind of religion for the Khuphate.

Don’t forget a predecessor for the main religion that always gets shit on.
Middle Ages are never complete without Judaism.

As I mentioned in the lore, part of the backstory for Larconism is that its "angels" are sanitized deities that are still worshiped as full-on gods by people living in neighboring countries. So the Tengri-style religion for the Khuphate, the pagan-style religion in the North, and even an ancient minority faith might all be based on the worship of various gods whom Larconism now recognizes only as angels.

[Zelphos]

tag, are organisations allowed? Or only characters?

This roleplay is primarily focused on characters. Organizations would have to be managed through the POV of your character; the characters in this RP are mostly centered in the capital as well, so that's something to keep in mind. Short answer being, yes, they are allowed.
-
I find the concept of Larconism to be rather appealing to the story, so that's a green light. As for the class for clerics, it would have to be balanced by having a default relationship penalty, I believe, with the nobility class, due to the potential power struggles that might exist between the Church and the nobility.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Hey, if we're adding to the lore: I happen to know a thing or two about medieval property law. Should I weigh in with that?

[Tertuath Hath]

Full Name: Huwihaw Zabdas
House (Family) Name: House Zabdas
Title (if any): Warden of the Southern Marches
Sex: Male
Age: 57
Appearance: Warden of the Southern Marches
Court Role: Vassal
Social Class: Nobility
Backstory: Born the only son to the aging Zabbai Zabdas, Huwihaw was groomed at a young age to succeed his father as the head of House Zabdas. The House of Zabdas was a relatively minor family in the Southern Marches then, they had been direct vassals to House Pawl for centuries and had been granted the honor of holding lands and titles by one of the ancestors of that ancient and noble house. They were duty bound to serve them as their masters, as had been the way for more than 6 centuries. However, that changed around the time Huwihaw was a mere boy of 7 years.

After launching a devastating raid against some particularly bold tribes from the Southern kingdoms, the head of House Pawl was returning with the loot he had won when he was ambushed. Though his men were able to beat back the assault and inflict heavy casualties upon their attackers, the head of House Pawl had been decapitated. At only 23 years old, Lord Duwas Pawl had fallen in battle as the last male heir to House Pawl and the title of Warden of the Southern Marches. What followed was a few months of aggressive maneuvering from the other southern lords as each jockeyed with each other for the title of Warden, with more than a few shady deals made here there. Zabbai had been waiting and plotting for this moment for most of his life. Unbeknownst to many, he had poisoned young Duwas' father many years earlier, mixing in the lethal concoction into his liege's wine. The blame was laid upon a merchant who had had a strained relationship with him, the son of a noble house that had began to rival House Zabdas. Zabbai had danced in glee when he heard that that boy had been fed to a hungry pack of dogs. Before that, he had a spy disguised as a handmaiden give Duwas' mother a sinister tincture, one devised by his court physician to mangle the womb, rendering any future children nothing but stillbirths. And now, as the Southern Marches plunged into a disorganized orgy of despair, he finally saw his chance.

He quickly arranged for his son to marry the daughter of another equally powerful noble house, earning him the support he needed for the next few phases of his plan. Many of the smaller houses began to be pressured into supporting the claims of other houses to the title of Warden, with thinly veiled threats of violence and blackmail being thrown around to push their heads to action. Zabbai did the same, though he used the dowry from his son's wedding to bribe some of the houses who had yet to declare for any of the larger houses. Of course, he was forced to use violence, and he would repeatedly hold noblemen and women hostage until their families complied. When he had enough support, he had those loyal to him petition Brandon's grandfather to name the men of House Zabdas as Wardens of the Southern Marches...and his wish was granted.

Throughout all these events, Huwihaw learned first hand the subtle craft of manipulation and coercion, and though he would never be as crafty a politician as Zabbai, he at least became a competent web weaver. For the next few years, Huwihaw accompanied his father as Zabbai launched yearly raids into the Southern kingdoms, hoping to break the unruly tribesmen who plagued the empire's borders. He loved the wide open expanses of the South Lands; the cramped quarters of cities never truly captured his heart and mind, where men and beast alike were corralled into ever tighter spaces. The fresh air called to him, the the ever distant horizon had won over his soul. He disdained the plump noblemen who hid behind the marble of their estates, whose delicate lips had known nothing but decadence, whose wrinkled noses rebuked the scent of the wild, whose tender asses had known only the silken cushions from the far east. They liked to call themselves his equals, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

Unfortunately, his wife was of that decayed and craven stock.

After his father had passed, it fell upon Huwihaw to produce an heir worthy to succeed him as the future Warden of the South Lands. It shouldn't have been a difficult task; his wife Fariza was considered one of the most stunning women in all the empire. But her personality irritated Huwihaw to no end. She constantly complained about the size of their palace, the quality of their food, that there wasn't enough silk tapestries in their chambers, that the gardens were too small, that her handmaidens were too pretty. Whenever he was forced to return to this estate after conducting his affairs as Warden, he loathed to hear the voice of Fariza as she emerged from the bronze doors of their home. Nonetheless, they ended up having 4 daughters and 7 sons, though try as he might, most of his daughters became exactly like their mother and almost all of his sons became meek.

Huwihaw would later participate in the Sack of Desiq-ça at the end of the War of Sand and Stone, letting his soldiers run rampant throughout the city, pardoning whatever atrocities they had committed. His active encouragement of the mass murder and rape that engulfed Desiq-ça in those dark days won him the epithet "The Devourer."

Stewardship: 4 (2 Base, +2 from Nobility)
Intrigue: 6 (3 Base, +3 from Nobility)
Martial: 7
Diplomacy: 3
Renown: 8 (5 Base, +3 from Nobility)

TRACKING PURPOSES: Indiana

[Zelphos]

Hey, if we're adding to the lore: I happen to know a thing or two about medieval property law. Should I weigh in with that?

No need, but I thank you for the offer!

Full Name: Huwihaw Zabdas
House (Family) Name: House Zabdas
Title (if any): Warden of the Southern Marches
Sex: Male
Age: 57
Appearance: Warden of the Southern Marches
Court Role: Vassal
Social Class: Nobility
Backstory: Born the only son to the aging Zabbai Zabdas, Huwihaw was groomed at a young age to succeed his father as the head of House Zabdas. The House of Zabdas was a relatively minor family in the Southern Marches then, they had been direct vassals to House Pawl for centuries and had been granted the honor of holding lands and titles by one of the ancestors of that ancient and noble house. They were duty bound to serve them as their masters, as had been the way for more than 6 centuries. However, that changed around the time Huwihaw was a mere boy of 7 years.

After launching a devastating raid against some particularly bold tribes from the Southern kingdoms, the head of House Pawl was returning with the loot he had won when he was ambushed. Though his men were able to beat back the assault and inflict heavy casualties upon their attackers, the head of House Pawl had been decapitated. At only 23 years old, Lord Duwas Pawl had fallen in battle as the last male heir to House Pawl and the title of Warden of the Southern Marches. What followed was a few months of aggressive maneuvering from the other southern lords as each jockeyed with each other for the title of Warden, with more than a few shady deals made here there. Zabbai had been waiting and plotting for this moment for most of his life. Unbeknownst to many, he had poisoned young Duwas' father many years earlier, mixing in the lethal concoction into his liege's wine. The blame was laid upon a merchant who had had a strained relationship with him, the son of a noble house that had began to rival House Zabdas. Zabbai had danced in glee when he heard that that boy had been fed to a hungry pack of dogs. Before that, he had a spy disguised as a handmaiden give Duwas' mother a sinister tincture, one devised by his court physician to mangle the womb, rendering any future children nothing but stillbirths. And now, as the Southern Marches plunged into a disorganized orgy of despair, he finally saw his chance.

He quickly arranged for his son to marry the daughter of another equally powerful noble house, earning him the support he needed for the next few phases of his plan. Many of the smaller houses began to be pressured into supporting the claims of other houses to the title of Warden, with thinly veiled threats of violence and blackmail being thrown around to push their heads to action. Zabbai did the same, though he used the dowry from his son's wedding to bribe some of the houses who had yet to declare for any of the larger houses. Of course, he was forced to use violence, and he would repeatedly hold noblemen and women hostage until their families complied. When he had enough support, he had those loyal to him petition Brandon's grandfather to name the men of House Zabdas as Wardens of the Southern Marches...and his wish was granted.

Throughout all these events, Huwihaw learned first hand the subtle craft of manipulation and coercion, and though he would never be as crafty a politician as Zabbai, he at least became a competent web weaver. For the next few years, Huwihaw accompanied his father as Zabbai launched yearly raids into the Southern kingdoms, hoping to break the unruly tribesmen who plagued the empire's borders. He loved the wide open expanses of the South Lands; the cramped quarters of cities never truly captured his heart and mind, where men and beast alike were corralled into ever tighter spaces. The fresh air called to him, the the ever distant horizon had won over his soul. He disdained the plump noblemen who hid behind the marble of their estates, whose delicate lips had known nothing but decadence, whose wrinkled noses rebuked the scent of the wild, whose tender asses had known only the silken cushions from the far east. They liked to call themselves his equals, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

Unfortunately, his wife was of that decayed and craven stock.

After his father had passed, it fell upon Huwihaw to produce an heir worthy to succeed him as the future Warden of the South Lands. It shouldn't have been a difficult task; his wife Fariza was considered one of the most stunning women in all the empire. But her personality irritated Huwihaw to no end. She constantly complained about the size of their palace, the quality of their food, that there wasn't enough silk tapestries in their chambers, that the gardens were too small, that her handmaidens were too pretty. Whenever he was forced to return to this estate after conducting his affairs as Warden, he loathed to hear the voice of Fariza as she emerged from the bronze doors of their home. Nonetheless, they ended up having 4 daughters and 7 sons, though try as he might, most of his daughters became exactly like their mother and almost all of his sons became meek.

Huwihaw would later participate in the Sack of Desiq-ça at the end of the War of Sand and Stone, letting his soldiers run rampant throughout the city, pardoning whatever atrocities they had committed. His active encouragement of the mass murder and rape that engulfed Desiq-ça in those dark days won him the epithet "The Devourer."

Stewardship: 4 (2 Base, +2 from Nobility)
Intrigue: 6 (3 Base, +3 from Nobility)
Martial: 7
Diplomacy: 3
Renown: 8 (5 Base, +3 from Nobility)

TRACKING PURPOSES: Indiana

Another character involved with the Sack of Desiq-ça? This is going to be interesting.

Apologies if I have been slightly inactive, I will be working on a post later on tonight, and on the implementation of Larconism into the lore.

[Fuma Shogunate]

@Tertuath Hath: Would you be interested in Chelubey and your character knowing each other from War of Sand and Stone? I mentioned the Khan participating in this operation earlier.

I also think some kind of relationship between the leader of the Golden Falocn and the Khan as well.

Religious wise, the Blue Horde practices what is basically akin to notChristianity in it's Mongol versions that were at some time prevalent IRL wise, here known as religion of the Lord of Heaven, which I planned on being native to the Blue Horde. I imagine this could cause some tensions in the church in the long run; but at the same time multiple nobles would see the Blue Horde as integral element of empire's military machine, providing valuable cavalry formations to a nation that has an agriculture-oriented economy, thus reducing number of cavalry it can field (which historically was a constant issue for the Chinese) and playing an important role as force helping in keeping the Khuphate out.

That said, I already had a conversation with Zelphos, and I am waiting for the Emperor to enter and talk with the Khan .

[The Intergalactic Russian Empire]

This looks interesting. Tag for interest.

[Tertuath Hath]

@Tertuath Hath: Would you be interested in Chelubey and your character knowing each other from War of Sand and Stone? I mentioned the Khan participating in this operation earlier.

I also think some kind of relationship between the leader of the Golden Falocn and the Khan as well.

Religious wise, the Blue Horde practices what is basically akin to notChristianity in it's Mongol versions that were at some time prevalent IRL wise, here known as religion of the Lord of Heaven, which I planned on being native to the Blue Horde. I imagine this could cause some tensions in the church in the long run; but at the same time multiple nobles would see the Blue Horde as integral element of empire's military machine, providing valuable cavalry formations to a nation that has an agriculture-oriented economy, thus reducing number of cavalry it can field (which historically was a constant issue for the Chinese) and playing an important role as force helping in keeping the Khuphate out.

That said, I already had a conversation with Zelphos, and I am waiting for the Emperor to enter and talk with the Khan .

I'd love for Chelubey and Huwihaw to know each other, in fact, I was planning on having him waddle over to him and start a bit of reminiscing over the war

[The Intergalactic Russian Empire]

reserve on Marshal of the Royal Army, please?

[Zelphos]

reserve on Marshal of the Royal Army, please?

It has been reserved for you*

/edit

[The Intergalactic Russian Empire]

reserve on Marshal of the Royal Army, please?

It has been reserved.

By whom?

Seriously, who? I don't see any post of someone reserving it.

[Erhialam]

Things seem to have slowed a bit. What are our plans for rollin' on into the future?

[The Valyria Empire]

Things seem to have slowed a bit. What are our plans for rollin' on into the future?

We're waiting for Zelph to have the Emperor come in, so I'm waiting on him.

[Theyra]

Tag for the last vassal.

[Ruskland-Preuben]

Tag, former Co OP here.

[Reverend Norv]

Full Name: Martin Durant

House (Family) Name: Martin Durant is an orphan; his first and last names were both given to him by the friars who took him in, and so do not reflect any particular ancestry.

Title (if any): High Presbyter of the Vexian Church

Sex: Male

Age: 36

Appearance: A tall man, more muscular and weathered than one would necessarily expect of a cleric, with penetrating pale blue eyes and a deep voice. His dark hair is close-cropped and already noticeably graying. He usually wears the fitted dark blue woolen robe of a Larconist priest, with the ceremonial iron keys of the High Presbyter hanging from a broad leather belt.

Court Role: As High Presbyter, Martin Durant has a permanent seat on the Imperial Council.

Social Class: Cleric

Backstory:

One winter night, on the storm-wracked northwestern coast of Vexia, the friars of the Abbey of Colkirk discovered an infant left in a basket outside their door. This was not uncommon; many an unwanted bastard has been thrown into the care of the Church across the Empire. So they took the boy in, and named him Martin - after the local saint. His last name, Durant, means "of the rain" - an apposite name for a child received on that stormy night.

The friars of Colkirk were devout Puritans, and they spent much of their time preaching in the isolated villages of the rocky northwestern coast. From an early age, Martin traveled with them, and the bright young boy absorbed the key values of the friars: eloquence in preaching, a fiery concern for justice, a deep sympathy with the underdog, a love of learning, and a steely physical toughness that could support a life on the road. As he grew older, the friars gradually came to realize that the orphan possessed a spark of true genius: he was studying the Old Vexian original text of the Haridus at seven years of age, and preached his first sermon at nine. At twelve, he had outpaced the friars assigned to his education. Plans were made to send Martin to the university at Roselake to continue his studies.

Instead, a raid by the northern tribes struck the coastline. The abbey where Martin had spent the first decade of his life went up in flames, and the boy himself suffered burns the scars of which continue to trouble him today. One of his tutors managed to drag him from the charred wreckage of the library the following morning. Alone and in a soot-stained robe, the boy walked two hundred miles to Roselake, where he was accepted as a student.

There, despite the traumatic circumstances of his arrival, Martin excelled in his studies. He committed substantial swathes of the Haridus to memory; more importantly, he evinced a remarkable talent for analysis and argument. At fifteen, he was teaching informally as an assistant professor, and had a reputation as one of the Puritan movement's most promising young talents. But the trauma and displacement of his upbringing - he occasionally referred to himself as "twice-orphaned" - left him with a hard edge. As Martin grew older, a grim pragmatism came to match his principles. While his faith never wavered, he became ever more comfortable with the use of manipulation, coercion, and violence to achieve a greater good.

At sixteen, Martin was ordained as a priest of the Vexian Church. Like many promising young priests of able mind and body, he was assigned as a chaplain to an Imperial legion guarding the eastern frontier. The tribes of the steppe were then just beginning to unify under the Kuphate, and their attacks became more frequent and more aggressive. For four years, Martin served alongside the soldiers: marching endless miles across the rolling grasslands, taking his place in the shield wall when the tribesmen came galloping out of the night, comforting his friends when the fear took them at dawn, saying the prayers over their graves when they fell at last. In the end, Martin's legion was routed at the Battle of Karkhorin by the attack of thousands of horsemen: a larger and more disciplined operation than had ever been seen on the eastern frontier. The young priest was taken captive, and spent three weeks leashed to the saddle of a Kuphate warrior, being half-dragged behind his captor's horse. Eventually, Martin took advantage of a terrible thunderstorm to escape. Six weeks later, he appeared - emaciated and bloodied - at an Imperial frontier post: one of a handful of men to survive the Empire's first great defeat in a generation.

Already a hard man, Martin emerged from his military service imbued with an immense respect and appreciation for the common soldiery, and a bitter anger with the nobility and generals who had sent them to their deaths against a foe that was stronger than anyone in Windstard realized. The Puritan reformers of the Vexian Inquisition liked that righteous fury, and saw in Martin a natural hunter of vice and corruption. After he had recovered from his ordeal, they offered him a place investigating "sins of coin and callousness" in the Imperial bureaucracy and nobility. For the next seven years, Martin Durant made his name as a scourge of corruption in the great trading cities of the coast. When a tax collector extorted peasants to line his own pocket, Martin pored over his ledgers to find prove of the crime, and then denounced him before the provincial governor. When a major merchant inflated the price of grain to make extra silver off the poor, Martin interviewed farmers to figure out what the real price was, and then preached a series of sermons so blistering that the merchant gave away dozens of tons of free grain for fear of being lynched by a mob. When a nobleman raped the daughter of one of his tenants, Martin took statements from multiple witnesses; then he brought his fiery outrage to an outdoor pulpit in the market square, thundering God's fury until the nobleman apologized and paid damages to the family rather than risk a peasant revolt. At twenty-six, the young priest was named as Chief Inquisitor of the Central Coast - one of the most influential positions in the Inquisition. He was becoming the fastest-rising leader of the Puritan movement within the Church.

And Martin Durant knew it, too. Ambitious to continue rising through the ranks, he accepted an offer from his alma mater, the prestigious Roselake University, to return as the university's provost - second-in-line for the chancellorship - and chief professor of ethics. University leadership was the traditional fast-track to a seat on the Sophic Congress. Sure enough, Martin spent just three years at Roselake, though in that time he published two treatises on political ethics and Hariduic leadership that within a decade became regarded as classics of reformist Larconist thought. He also, for the first time, fell in love - though the relationship ended in tears when it became clear that Martin would never be content to remain as a simple university provost, and that his beloved had no interest in being the wife of a prince of the Church.

Instead, Martin continued his meteoric rise. The High Presbyter, a moderate Puritan named Cullen Reeve, named the thirty-year-old provost to head the Chancellery of the Erruchia: the office of the Vexian Church responsible for coordinating charitable works all across the Empire. It was a traditional proving-ground for candidates for the High Presbytery itself, since it served as a demanding test of leadership, stewardship, and organizing ability. Martin took to it like a fish to water, first purging the Erruchia of corruption through an office-wide investigation, then elevating local priests to lead public hospitals and irrigation projects in their areas. Costs fell, efficiency improved, and the local nobles grudgingly allowed the Erruchia to do its work once they realized that resistance would bring the wrath of one of the Church's most popular leaders down on their heads. After four years at the Erruchia, Martin Durant had proven his organizational skill; perhaps more importantly, he had won the undying love of the common people across Vexia. Despite his youth, he was clearly in contention to succeed Cullen Reeve as High Presbyter.

When High Presbyter Reeve did die, though, it was under unexpected and suspicious circumstances. Many believed that he had been poisoned by the nobles, who had long found his devout Puritanism irksome. The Puritan party in the Sophic Congress seized on these rumors, putting their Acolyte rivals on the defensive and all but ensuring that another Puritan would succeed Reeve; after all, to vote otherwise would be to suggest that one might have had a motive for killing him. After a short but vicious power struggle among various Puritan leaders, the Council voted by a narrow margin to make Martin Durant the High Presbyter of the Vexian Church. At thirty-four, he was the youngest High Presbyter in more than a century, and many Puritans hoped that he would secure their dominance over the Church for another fifty years.

Prominent nobles, who had hated Martin ever since his time with the Inquisition, had other ideas. Rather than allow the Empire's leading Puritan rabble-rouser to become High Presbyter, they attempted three times to assassinate him. Twice, the plots were discovered and exposed by the Inquisition, and Martin excommunicated everyone involved - a terrible sentence that condemned a man to suffer without end when he returned to the Infinite. The third time, Martin himself used his old military skills to fight off a dagger-wielding assassin, though he was seriously wounded in the process. After that, Emperor Jakar stepped in to prevent the situation spiraling further out of control, and the nobles bitterly accepted Martin's position - at least until Jakar was no longer around to protect him.

That was two years ago. In the intervening time, Martin has preached fearlessly against the opulence and corruption of the Imperial court; against the mismanagement of the army and the mistreatment of the common people; against the greed of the merchants and the cruelty of the nobility. Now, with Jakar's death, Martin is once again exposed to the full force of all those whom he has offended. But he has powerful resources of his own: the immense wealth of the Church; the loyalty of a tough, well-trained group of inquisitors and administrators; his own eloquence, which has brought down many a lord and baron in the past. And, most crucially of all, Martin is popular. His myth is irresistible to the common people: the handsome orphan who rose from nothing, who survived the massacre of the only family he ever knew, who fought for God and Empire and escaped from the Kuphate; the inquisitor who fearlessly opposed the wealthy and powerful with nothing but his faith and his words; the prince of the Church who spent its wealth on public works for the poor. How could one doubt that such a man has been touched by God?

Stewardship: 5
Intrigue: 3
Martial: 3
Diplomacy: 5 + 3 = 8
Renown: 4 + 4 = 8

TRACKING PURPOSES: Indiana

[Zelphos]

Full Name: Martin Durant

House (Family) Name: Martin Durant is an orphan; his first and last names were both given to him by the friars who took him in, and so do not reflect any particular ancestry.

Title (if any): High Presbyter of the Vexian Church

(Image)

Sex: Male

Age: 36

Appearance: A tall man, more muscular and weathered than one would necessarily expect of a cleric, with penetrating pale blue eyes and a deep voice. His dark hair is close-cropped and already noticeably graying. He usually wears the fitted dark blue woolen robe of a Larconist priest, with the ceremonial iron keys of the High Presbyter hanging from a broad leather belt.

Court Role: As High Presbyter, Martin Durant has a permanent seat on the Imperial Council.

Social Class: Cleric

Backstory:

One winter night, on the storm-wracked northwestern coast of Vexia, the friars of the Abbey of Colkirk discovered an infant left in a basket outside their door. This was not uncommon; many an unwanted bastard has been thrown into the care of the Church across the Empire. So they took the boy in, and named him Martin - after the local saint. His last name, Durant, means "of the rain" - an apposite name for a child received on that stormy night.

The friars of Colkirk were devout Puritans, and they spent much of their time preaching in the isolated villages of the rocky northwestern coast. From an early age, Martin traveled with them, and the bright young boy absorbed the key values of the friars: eloquence in preaching, a fiery concern for justice, a deep sympathy with the underdog, a love of learning, and a steely physical toughness that could support a life on the road. As he grew older, the friars gradually came to realize that the orphan possessed a spark of true genius: he was studying the Old Vexian original text of the Haridus at seven years of age, and preached his first sermon at nine. At twelve, he had outpaced the friars assigned to his education. Plans were made to send Martin to the university at Roselake to continue his studies.

Instead, a raid by the northern tribes struck the coastline. The abbey where Martin had spent the first decade of his life went up in flames, and the boy himself suffered burns the scars of which continue to trouble him today. One of his tutors managed to drag him from the charred wreckage of the library the following morning. Alone and in a soot-stained robe, the boy walked two hundred miles to Roselake, where he was accepted as a student.

There, despite the traumatic circumstances of his arrival, Martin excelled in his studies. He committed substantial swathes of the Haridus to memory; more importantly, he evinced a remarkable talent for analysis and argument. At fifteen, he was teaching informally as an assistant professor, and had a reputation as one of the Puritan movement's most promising young talents. But the trauma and displacement of his upbringing - he occasionally referred to himself as "twice-orphaned"
- left him with a hard edge. As Martin grew older, a grim pragmatism came to match his principles. While his faith never wavered, he became ever more comfortable with the use of manipulation, coercion, and violence to achieve a greater good.

At sixteen, Martin was ordained as a priest of the Vexian Church. Like many promising young priests of able mind and body, he was assigned as a chaplain to an Imperial legion guarding the eastern frontier. The tribes of the steppe were then just beginning to unify under the Kuphate, and their attacks became more frequent and more aggressive. For four years, Martin served alongside the soldiers: marching endless miles across the rolling grasslands, taking his place in the shield wall when the tribesmen came galloping out of the night, comforting his friends when the fear took them at dawn, saying the prayers over their graves when they fell at last. In the end, Martin's legion was routed at the Battle of Karkhorin by the attack of thousands of horsemen: a larger and more disciplined operation than had ever been seen on the eastern frontier. The young priest was taken captive, and spent three weeks leashed to the saddle of a Kuphate warrior, being half-dragged behind his captor's horse. Eventually, Martin took advantage of a terrible thunderstorm to escape. Six weeks later, he appeared - emaciated and bloodied - at an Imperial frontier post: one of a handful of men to survive the Empire's first great defeat in a generation.

Already a hard man, Martin emerged from his military service imbued with an immense respect and appreciation for the common soldiery, and a bitter anger with the nobility and generals who had sent them to their deaths against a foe that was stronger than anyone in Windstard realized. The Puritan reformers of the Vexian Inquisition liked that righteous fury, and saw in Martin a natural hunter of vice and corruption. After he had recovered from his ordeal, they offered him a place investigating "sins of coin and callousness" in the Imperial bureaucracy and nobility. For the next seven years, Martin Durant made his name as a scourge of corruption in the great trading cities of the coast. When a tax collector extorted peasants to line his own pocket, Martin pored over his ledgers to find prove of the crime, and then denounced him before the provincial governor. When a major merchant inflated the price of grain to make extra silver off the poor, Martin interviewed farmers to figure out what the real price was, and then preached a series of sermons so blistering that the merchant gave away dozens of tons of free grain for fear of being lynched by a mob. When a nobleman raped the daughter of one of his tenants, Martin took statements from multiple witnesses; then he brought his fiery outrage to an outdoor pulpit in the market square, thundering God's fury until the nobleman apologized and paid damages to the family rather than risk a peasant revolt. At twenty-six, the young priest was named as Chief Inquisitor of the Central Coast - one of the most influential positions in the Inquisition. He was becoming the fastest-rising leader of the Puritan movement within the Church.

And Martin Durant knew it, too. Ambitious to continue rising through the ranks, he accepted an offer from his alma mater, the prestigious Roselake University, to return as the university's provost - second-in-line for the chancellorship - and chief professor of ethics. University leadership was the traditional fast-track to a seat on the Sophic Congress. Sure enough, Martin spent just three years at Roselake, though in that time he published two treatises on political ethics and Hariduic leadership that within a decade became regarded as classics of reformist Larconist thought. He also, for the first time, fell in love - though the relationship ended in tears when it became clear that Martin would never be content to remain as a simple university provost, and that his beloved had no interest in being the wife of a prince of the Church.

Instead, Martin continued his meteoric rise. The High Presbyter, a moderate Puritan named Cullen Reeve, named the thirty-year-old provost to head the Chancellery of the Erruchia: the office of the Vexian Church responsible for coordinating charitable works all across the Empire. It was a traditional proving-ground for candidates for the High Presbytery itself, since it served as a demanding test of leadership, stewardship, and organizing ability. Martin took to it like a fish to water, first purging the Erruchia of corruption through an office-wide investigation, then elevating local priests to lead public hospitals and irrigation projects in their areas. Costs fell, efficiency improved, and the local nobles grudgingly allowed the Erruchia to do its work once they realized that resistance would bring the wrath of one of the Church's most popular leaders down on their heads. After four years at the Erruchia, Martin Durant had proven his organizational skill; perhaps more importantly, he had won the undying love of the common people across Vexia. Despite his youth, he was clearly in contention to succeed Cullen Reeve as High Presbyter.

When High Presbyter Reeve did die, though, it was under unexpected and suspicious circumstances. Many believed that he had been poisoned by the nobles, who had long found his devout Puritanism irksome. The Puritan party in the Sophic Congress seized on these rumors, putting their Acolyte rivals on the defensive and all but ensuring that another Puritan would succeed Reeve; after all, to vote otherwise would be to suggest that one might have had a motive for killing him. After a short but vicious power struggle among various Puritan leaders, the Council voted by a narrow margin to make Martin Durant the High Presbyter of the Vexian Church. At thirty-four, he was the youngest High Presbyter in more than a century, and many Puritans hoped that he would secure their dominance over the Church for another fifty years.

Prominent nobles, who had hated Martin ever since his time with the Inquisition, had other ideas. Rather than allow the Empire's leading Puritan rabble-rouser to become High Presbyter, they attempted three times to assassinate him. Twice, the plots were discovered and exposed by the Inquisition, and Martin excommunicated everyone involved - a terrible sentence that condemned a man to suffer without end when he returned to the Infinite. The third time, Martin himself used his old military skills to fight off a dagger-wielding assassin, though he was seriously wounded in the process. After that, Emperor Jakar stepped in to prevent the situation spiraling further out of control, and the nobles bitterly accepted Martin's position - at least until Jakar was no longer around to protect him.

That was two years ago. In the intervening time, Martin has preached fearlessly against the opulence and corruption of the Imperial court; against the mismanagement of the army and the mistreatment of the common people; against the greed of the merchants and the cruelty of the nobility. Now, with Jakar's death, Martin is once again exposed to the full force of all those whom he has offended. But he has powerful resources of his own: the immense wealth of the Church; the loyalty of a tough, well-trained group of inquisitors and administrators; his own eloquence, which has brought down many a lord and baron in the past. And, most crucially of all, Martin is popular. His myth is irresistible to the common people: the handsome orphan who rose from nothing, who survived the massacre of the only family he ever knew, who fought for God and Empire and escaped from the Kuphate; the inquisitor who fearlessly opposed the wealthy and powerful with nothing but his faith and his words; the prince of the Church who spent its wealth on public works for the poor. How could one doubt that such a man has been touched by God?

Stewardship: 5
Intrigue: 3
Martial: 3
Diplomacy: 5 + 3 = 8
Renown: 4 + 4 = 8

TRACKING PURPOSES: Indiana

You did an outstanding job on the background of Martin. I simply cannot wait to see what lies in store for him.

It has been reserved.

By whom?

Seriously, who? I don't see any post of someone reserving it.

Apologies, I may have phrased that wrong. It has been reserved for you*

-

Tag for the last vassal.

I'll take that as a reservation.

Things seem to have slowed a bit. What are our plans for rollin' on into the future?

Working on that. I'm thinking of introducing unrest into the storyline soon, which ends up in the city being under siege by upset peasants. I'm also looking to expand more on the Khuphate plot, and maybe bring it to the point where they near the capital, but that's just an idea at the moment. I'm welcome to ideas that shift the storyline in another direction.

[The Intergalactic Russian Empire]

Full Name: Martin Durant

House (Family) Name: Martin Durant is an orphan; his first and last names were both given to him by the friars who took him in, and so do not reflect any particular ancestry.

Title (if any): High Presbyter of the Vexian Church

(Image)

Sex: Male

Age: 36

Appearance: A tall man, more muscular and weathered than one would necessarily expect of a cleric, with penetrating pale blue eyes and a deep voice. His dark hair is close-cropped and already noticeably graying. He usually wears the fitted dark blue woolen robe of a Larconist priest, with the ceremonial iron keys of the High Presbyter hanging from a broad leather belt.

Court Role: As High Presbyter, Martin Durant has a permanent seat on the Imperial Council.

Social Class: Cleric

Backstory:

One winter night, on the storm-wracked northwestern coast of Vexia, the friars of the Abbey of Colkirk discovered an infant left in a basket outside their door. This was not uncommon; many an unwanted bastard has been thrown into the care of the Church across the Empire. So they took the boy in, and named him Martin - after the local saint. His last name, Durant, means "of the rain" - an apposite name for a child received on that stormy night.

The friars of Colkirk were devout Puritans, and they spent much of their time preaching in the isolated villages of the rocky northwestern coast. From an early age, Martin traveled with them, and the bright young boy absorbed the key values of the friars: eloquence in preaching, a fiery concern for justice, a deep sympathy with the underdog, a love of learning, and a steely physical toughness that could support a life on the road. As he grew older, the friars gradually came to realize that the orphan possessed a spark of true genius: he was studying the Old Vexian original text of the Haridus at seven years of age, and preached his first sermon at nine. At twelve, he had outpaced the friars assigned to his education. Plans were made to send Martin to the university at Roselake to continue his studies.

Instead, a raid by the northern tribes struck the coastline. The abbey where Martin had spent the first decade of his life went up in flames, and the boy himself suffered burns the scars of which continue to trouble him today. One of his tutors managed to drag him from the charred wreckage of the library the following morning. Alone and in a soot-stained robe, the boy walked two hundred miles to Roselake, where he was accepted as a student.

There, despite the traumatic circumstances of his arrival, Martin excelled in his studies. He committed substantial swathes of the Haridus to memory; more importantly, he evinced a remarkable talent for analysis and argument. At fifteen, he was teaching informally as an assistant professor, and had a reputation as one of the Puritan movement's most promising young talents. But the trauma and displacement of his upbringing - he occasionally referred to himself as "twice-orphaned"
- left him with a hard edge. As Martin grew older, a grim pragmatism came to match his principles. While his faith never wavered, he became ever more comfortable with the use of manipulation, coercion, and violence to achieve a greater good.

At sixteen, Martin was ordained as a priest of the Vexian Church. Like many promising young priests of able mind and body, he was assigned as a chaplain to an Imperial legion guarding the eastern frontier. The tribes of the steppe were then just beginning to unify under the Kuphate, and their attacks became more frequent and more aggressive. For four years, Martin served alongside the soldiers: marching endless miles across the rolling grasslands, taking his place in the shield wall when the tribesmen came galloping out of the night, comforting his friends when the fear took them at dawn, saying the prayers over their graves when they fell at last. In the end, Martin's legion was routed at the Battle of Karkhorin by the attack of thousands of horsemen: a larger and more disciplined operation than had ever been seen on the eastern frontier. The young priest was taken captive, and spent three weeks leashed to the saddle of a Kuphate warrior, being half-dragged behind his captor's horse. Eventually, Martin took advantage of a terrible thunderstorm to escape. Six weeks later, he appeared - emaciated and bloodied - at an Imperial frontier post: one of a handful of men to survive the Empire's first great defeat in a generation.

Already a hard man, Martin emerged from his military service imbued with an immense respect and appreciation for the common soldiery, and a bitter anger with the nobility and generals who had sent them to their deaths against a foe that was stronger than anyone in Windstard realized. The Puritan reformers of the Vexian Inquisition liked that righteous fury, and saw in Martin a natural hunter of vice and corruption. After he had recovered from his ordeal, they offered him a place investigating "sins of coin and callousness" in the Imperial bureaucracy and nobility. For the next seven years, Martin Durant made his name as a scourge of corruption in the great trading cities of the coast. When a tax collector extorted peasants to line his own pocket, Martin pored over his ledgers to find prove of the crime, and then denounced him before the provincial governor. When a major merchant inflated the price of grain to make extra silver off the poor, Martin interviewed farmers to figure out what the real price was, and then preached a series of sermons so blistering that the merchant gave away dozens of tons of free grain for fear of being lynched by a mob. When a nobleman raped the daughter of one of his tenants, Martin took statements from multiple witnesses; then he brought his fiery outrage to an outdoor pulpit in the market square, thundering God's fury until the nobleman apologized and paid damages to the family rather than risk a peasant revolt. At twenty-six, the young priest was named as Chief Inquisitor of the Central Coast - one of the most influential positions in the Inquisition. He was becoming the fastest-rising leader of the Puritan movement within the Church.

And Martin Durant knew it, too. Ambitious to continue rising through the ranks, he accepted an offer from his alma mater, the prestigious Roselake University, to return as the university's provost - second-in-line for the chancellorship - and chief professor of ethics. University leadership was the traditional fast-track to a seat on the Sophic Congress. Sure enough, Martin spent just three years at Roselake, though in that time he published two treatises on political ethics and Hariduic leadership that within a decade became regarded as classics of reformist Larconist thought. He also, for the first time, fell in love - though the relationship ended in tears when it became clear that Martin would never be content to remain as a simple university provost, and that his beloved had no interest in being the wife of a prince of the Church.

Instead, Martin continued his meteoric rise. The High Presbyter, a moderate Puritan named Cullen Reeve, named the thirty-year-old provost to head the Chancellery of the Erruchia: the office of the Vexian Church responsible for coordinating charitable works all across the Empire. It was a traditional proving-ground for candidates for the High Presbytery itself, since it served as a demanding test of leadership, stewardship, and organizing ability. Martin took to it like a fish to water, first purging the Erruchia of corruption through an office-wide investigation, then elevating local priests to lead public hospitals and irrigation projects in their areas. Costs fell, efficiency improved, and the local nobles grudgingly allowed the Erruchia to do its work once they realized that resistance would bring the wrath of one of the Church's most popular leaders down on their heads. After four years at the Erruchia, Martin Durant had proven his organizational skill; perhaps more importantly, he had won the undying love of the common people across Vexia. Despite his youth, he was clearly in contention to succeed Cullen Reeve as High Presbyter.

When High Presbyter Reeve did die, though, it was under unexpected and suspicious circumstances. Many believed that he had been poisoned by the nobles, who had long found his devout Puritanism irksome. The Puritan party in the Sophic Congress seized on these rumors, putting their Acolyte rivals on the defensive and all but ensuring that another Puritan would succeed Reeve; after all, to vote otherwise would be to suggest that one might have had a motive for killing him. After a short but vicious power struggle among various Puritan leaders, the Council voted by a narrow margin to make Martin Durant the High Presbyter of the Vexian Church. At thirty-four, he was the youngest High Presbyter in more than a century, and many Puritans hoped that he would secure their dominance over the Church for another fifty years.

Prominent nobles, who had hated Martin ever since his time with the Inquisition, had other ideas. Rather than allow the Empire's leading Puritan rabble-rouser to become High Presbyter, they attempted three times to assassinate him. Twice, the plots were discovered and exposed by the Inquisition, and Martin excommunicated everyone involved - a terrible sentence that condemned a man to suffer without end when he returned to the Infinite. The third time, Martin himself used his old military skills to fight off a dagger-wielding assassin, though he was seriously wounded in the process. After that, Emperor Jakar stepped in to prevent the situation spiraling further out of control, and the nobles bitterly accepted Martin's position - at least until Jakar was no longer around to protect him.

That was two years ago. In the intervening time, Martin has preached fearlessly against the opulence and corruption of the Imperial court; against the mismanagement of the army and the mistreatment of the common people; against the greed of the merchants and the cruelty of the nobility. Now, with Jakar's death, Martin is once again exposed to the full force of all those whom he has offended. But he has powerful resources of his own: the immense wealth of the Church; the loyalty of a tough, well-trained group of inquisitors and administrators; his own eloquence, which has brought down many a lord and baron in the past. And, most crucially of all, Martin is popular. His myth is irresistible to the common people: the handsome orphan who rose from nothing, who survived the massacre of the only family he ever knew, who fought for God and Empire and escaped from the Kuphate; the inquisitor who fearlessly opposed the wealthy and powerful with nothing but his faith and his words; the prince of the Church who spent its wealth on public works for the poor. How could one doubt that such a man has been touched by God?

Stewardship: 5
Intrigue: 3
Martial: 3
Diplomacy: 5 + 3 = 8
Renown: 4 + 4 = 8

TRACKING PURPOSES: Indiana

You did an outstanding job on the background of Martin. I simply cannot wait to see what lies in store for him.

By whom?

Seriously, who? I don't see any post of someone reserving it.

Apologies, I may have phrased that wrong. It has been reserved for you*

-

Tag for the last vassal.

I'll take that as a reservation.

Things seem to have slowed a bit. What are our plans for rollin' on into the future?

Working on that. I'm thinking of introducing unrest into the storyline soon, which results in a full-scale riot. I'm also looking to expand more on the Khuphate plot, and maybe bring it to the point where they near the capital, but that's just an idea at the moment. I'm welcome to ideas that shift the storyline in another direction.

Phew, thank God. I'm already about halfway through an app.