Difference between revisions of "Talk:Odessa"

Revision as of 01:12, 20 September 2009

Kib Absold uses a polearm, and an attachment is growing around that style of soldierly combat. Perhaps this could become canon for the Odessan armed forces in general (the Swedes of this Realm)?

-

Afraid the pole arm is spoken for: you're looking for the Sentinel of Alexia. Odessan armies are longbow-fueled. (The kingdom, in the far past, had an alliance with the elves). Though, as it turns out, it's widely known the Doge of Alexia, and pretty much Alexia itself, is actually an Odessan puppet.

-

ODESSA RULES.

I can dig that. I'll just presume that I led pole-armed infantry divisions that supported the longbowmen.

-

Currently, Kib's origin is "somewhere in Odessa". Can we nail that down any? I'd picture him as probably being from the capital, or from the metropolitan area of the capital, given his father's past and current achievements and predicaments, but what would that place be like? Is it an inland city with a large river access, or is it a port town? Has it been the capital for quite a long time, or is the seat of the Monarchy relatively new to the area? What's the racial make-up of the area? Is everyone Alexandrian, or are there significantly large groups of people who worship something else? - Slitherrr 23:26, 18 September 2009 (EDT)

- I think I accidentally deleted Matt's text? Eh, who cares. He's been getting a little bit cheeky lately.

Man, way to keep me honest! I warn you, as Matt can attest, questions like these have a 60 percent chance of summoning a Wall of Text that lasts for one turn per level. As it turns out, some of these actually have canonical answers.

Capital of Odessa is Cebridon. I have included a map that should answer most of your questions. [1] It has been the capital for quite a long time. Generally speaking, the world is conceived, essentially, as static one, where institutions cling together in a moribund stasis until the center cannot hold and a general realignment occurs. Like shipwrecked sailors clinging desperately to ever shrinking amounts of usable flotsam. War here is a Game of Kings more often than Total War, which means political borders do not change frequently and strong, stable cultures have developed in most non-borderlands.

All of the nation states are more or less continuous from their origins in the far past, although that does not necessarily imply an unbroken rulership, and there were certainly Kingdoms of Antiquity that were broken by the Ubrekt. (Some modern states, mytically or in actuality, claim origins from these barbarian kingdoms) Odessa, Flannary, and Gildenhome have straight lines of succession for a fuck-long time, thousands of years before Alexandria, only one (flannary) is more or less an absolute monarchy. The Fresian culture goes back to Alexandrian time, but their level of decentralization means that there's not really an unbroken line of anything for any amount of time. Celestia was founded a generation before Alexandria's birth or so. Ubrekt, despite being the oldest human nation, is actually not descended from the Ubrekt at all, but rather from the Human refugrees from Human Hakan displaced after Alexandria ceeded the Gnomes back their homeland. Prior to that, it was run by the priests of Maya, the demigoddess of peace, who was ceeded the territory after the last Ubrekt was killed. Which means that the Gnomish homeland, along with Alexia, are products of the Prophet's War and Alexandria's direct intervention.

In this current alignment, the ties that bind are the Alexandrian Church, which was cobbled together by a coalition of the disparate (and now godless) clerics of the world, the original sidekicks (AKA High Level PCs) of Alexandria), and the Dwarven Clans that abandoned Arek during the Prophet's War**. (Who were given free reign to do their own internal Tokugawa-style realignment.) In its most early stages, it essentially parlayed dwarven gold and monopoly on divine spellcasting into a strange sort of temporal control. Since direct contact with Alexandria is utterly non-existence, the church is left to be a pretty much self regulating and self policing group. 1400 since the inception of the church, there is essentially no other game in town. Alexandria's Crusade was such a vast affair, it left no society untouched, and it plays a role even to the non-Alexandrian peoples of Petara and the Ulan.

• • Dear Matt - Remember all those times I have alluded to some Serious Compromises required by the Stand in order to close the deal? The Dwarves as a whole were essentially double down on Arek by this point, so some distasteful alliances needed to be made, even with the assistance of The Lost. (Whose assistance, Dwarven scholars insist, is greatly overstated by the writers of the Testimonals.) -gm

• • Sayid approves of serious moral compromises when the goal is to cement absolute power. -Msallen 00:17, 20 September 2009 (EDT)

Awesome, I love it. I also had a question about King Aden, but evidently I edited it out for some reason. How do Odessans feel about the King? Does he delegate a lot of his authority, or is he very hands-on? Would Kib know what the guy looks like (possibly, seeing him at from the ranks at a military ceremony, or from nearby as his dad is awarded the title he used to hold)? Is he about as militant as everyone else in the incessant struggles you mentioned above, or is he more or less aggressive?

Also, I'm going to make up a borough that is kind of an extension of Cebridon, like Westminster is an extension of London, or Brooklyn of New York, unless you already have that planned out. -Slitherrr 01:12, 20 September 2009 (EDT)