@shylarah @CollectorOfMyst
Ugh, Having one of those nights where things aren't really clicking for me creatively. Post is halfway done but I'm kind of trudging through mud at this point. Will try my hardest to finish it tomorrow. Sorry, guys.

@Lovejoy Don't worry, it's fine by me.

@Lovejoy no worries -- believe me, I know the feeling.

Okay guys guys GUYS.

They're not finished yet.

@shylarah Holy moly! Those are incredible!

Who's the artist, if you don't mind me asking? I love their style! It's got kind of Disney vibe to it, which I adore.

Also, it's so weird seeing my "design" of Rodion used by an actual artist haha

@Lovejoy

>used by an actual artist
First off LISTEN HERE! You are most definitely an actual artist. Your art is wonderful. Okay? Okay.

The first image is by Baklava, who is on this very site! I don't believe she's currently taking commissions, but you can certainly keep an eye out for when she is. She says she wants to finish the ones she's got already before taking any more.

The second is the amazing Tricia Bayfield, who draws the most incredible stuff. I've learned so much from her and her livestreams, and she's a lovely person in general. Cannot recommend her highly enough. And I should note that gold stuff? It's shiny! She'll do deals on a certain type of art every now and then, and she livestreams speedpaints, and *general flailing* Definitely worth saving up to commission her. I've never been disappointed.

SPEAKING OF! Alexis Royce is a friend of Tricia's, a similarly excellent artist, a similarly wonderful person, and she's got a special going on as of today. I nearly mentioned her in my last post because *squealing* (I've commissioned her in the past with spectacular results) and I'mma shamelessly plug her too. She's a full time artist right now, so I try to signal boost her where I can. It's totally related! ...Right?



I can get bigger image of the examples, or there's a bunch of other examples on her site. _{Honestly I'm just a huge fan of these guys. Did I mention Alexis and her wife have webcomics? And that with Tricia and her husband they did one based on a WoD: Mage game? That Alexis ran? And Alexis is a mind-blowing DM? and--}

@deathbringer Awesome post! I have an idea for a collab scene between Astraea and Father Cillian at the war hospital. Will be a short conversation as she helps patch him up. Are you up for it?

Apologies thought id replied to this
Of course i am!

Huh... I am intrigued by this artist.

@CollectorOfMyst Which one?!

@shylarah 13.

@CollectorOfMyst @shylarah

Apologies for taking so long to finish that!

Feel free to respond in any way you want. If either of you want a more back and forth dialogue, respond to me in the PM thread.

Also, a note on these royal families. I know they haven't been mentioned before, but they've kind of always been part of the nebulous grey-area that surrounds the non-Varya nations, in this case, it's more of the governmental aspects that were never built upon. Not many people remember these sovereign houses anymore, except for the people of Lanostre, since it's only been twenty years.

@vietmyke @deathbringer @oppositionJ

Okay, you guys are up next!

@Lovejoy, what have you done? I love this old woman, and really wish Father Ilya was there for all of his reactions to this.

@Draken Haha, I don't think anything is really stopping him from popping up in the aquarium and going "Wow! You guys! HEY! Was just in the neighborhood. Sup?"

@Lovejoy Pfft. Ilya just dropping in~

Ohmigosh, this post. Right, where did we put the various ranks? We need to put it in a lore post somewhere easily findable... High Inquisitor is just the command tier, right?

I'm not surprised about the ladies being taken. I am surprised about the kids. I mean, why would Varya want royal kids of other nations? The houses aren't still in power, so it doesn't really legitimize Varyan rule (and I'm not sure that it would to start with). The kids are kept there, so they're (probably) not being raised as loyal Varyans -- that'd be more effective by putting them in a family. So why deliberately breed royal kids? It seems like this'd cause Varya more trouble in the long run.

*shrug*

Do our chars have any idea how long ago Ifrit graduated?

Now I wonder if that kid soldier knew about these guys. I'm guessing no. But it would explain the idea that people were coming here to find something. A little more odd that it's only Omestrians, but I guess they're more oppressed. Or maybe just noticed more.

I'm horrified by the implication that Essa extracted her own ether. Dear gods.

I wonder how long ago those kids escaped -- and if they're being hunted.

Nice way to avoid Ziotea killing people. Probably.

I do wonder, though -- oh! Three bedrolls -- the kids', not Essa's. Right. Cool!

@shylarah

"I'm not surprised about the ladies being taken. I am surprised about the kids. I mean, why would Varya want royal kids of other nations? The houses aren't still in power, so it doesn't really legitimize Varyan rule (and I'm not sure that it would to start with). The kids are kept there, so they're (probably) not being raised as loyal Varyans -- that'd be more effective by putting them in a family. So why deliberately breed royal kids? It seems like this'd cause Varya more trouble in the long run."

The Scarlet House is both a brothel and a strange sort of exotic sperm bank. It's not an official part of the Varyan government and it isn't meant to be a place that produces legitimate heirs, but instead it gives nobles and clergymen the opportunity to sire children who have blood that can be traced to royalty (which is, in itself, a largely Varyan fetish, since theirs was a nation that answered directly to their God, and didn't have an intermediary royal family of sorts). So all in all it's meant to be a fucked up fetishistic/exoticism thing. Imagine a place where horribly rich Americans can pay to be Meghan Markle, all while their version of Prince Harry was a genetic slave. There's also the "high class pleasure house" aspect of it, which is just, yeah.

Rose, Fie and Vahn were meant to be breeding material. Unlike them, most of the children born there are taken to live with their noble parents as like, third-born bastards (they're pretty much "trophy kids"), while those sired by members of the clergy are brought up in the Church directly as sort of "sponsored" individuals. Magnus was one of these kids.

As for Warband Ifrit, I'll just say that it's one of the old warbands who's designation isn't used anymore. Our characters wouldn't know about it, but if they wanted, they could readily find out more by asking around. I'll also say that yes, the name was intentional.

EDIT: Oh and as for High Inquisitors, they're pretty much military generals. I've also added the Inquisition Hierarchy to the First Post.

Assuming the train travels about as fast as modern trains, and assuming that it took a fairly direct path, three days of travel is roughly the time it took me to take a train from Chicago to California. This is ~ 2000 to 2500 miles -- and that's after leaving the city itself, which I suspect is massive, given that the city seems to include most of the populated area of Varya, more like a city-state than merely a simple city.

Assuming a generous 15 miles a day for the children -- who not only have shorter legs than the adult hikers I'm using for reference but were unused to hard labor, and who likely didn't have enough supplies at the start for the entire trip, and so on -- the trip would take ~ 133-167 days, between a third and a half of a year. Given these conditions, I expect the trip took half a year or more, perhaps even a full year. That is one AMAZING child, to have planned it and gotten the two through it. And kept them all from freezing in the process.

Wow.

@Lovejoy Come to think of it, would the ruling houses of a surrendering nation -- particularly T'sarae -- have been slaughtered in the first place? Then again, it might be spoken of as a slaughter, and recorded that way (history written by the victors, etc) and in reality the members not taken as slaves were just kept as "guests" (read: prisoners) and otherwise kept from having further children. It'd put an effective end to the family outside of the Scarlet House, and over time the truth would be forgotten.

It's more an academic point than anything else, though.

@shylarah

There are other less "official" ways to travel besides the Magnagrad train lines. Remember that, thanks to Mother Indira, there is a small subsection of the population who fight for the freedom of slaves. It is extremely likely that they had help, both in planning the escape and executing it.

As for your second point, sure, that makes sense. Killing the ruling families seems like a step too far, and I think that if the Varyan empire had a ruling family of its own there would've been some kind of mercy, but the empire is directly controlled by a God who is the personification of hunger and greed. Varya wants everything and isn't willing to share or compromise and, while not exactly being a tyrant, He rules through fear and brutality, so why lie about killing families and not actually just kill them? Remember also that apart from the Lanostran inquisitors, He had all the other clergy of the different nations put to death.

Also, just a clarification, but T'sarae and Lanostre were the only nations that officially surrendered, while Muraad fought back valiantly until the bitter end over a series of invasion campaigns, and the circumstances behind Omestris' fall are murky, with the Church saying that they stormed the city and captured it, but actual Omestrians know that the city itself was destroyed before the Varyan army could step foot within it.