IMO I hope very few join Luria as they are already quite huge
I think you understate the case when you consider characters departing to Westfold, as well as internal lurian reforms. Luria will probably be hurting the most after they're done. The difference is they'll keep finding something to do, which attracts nobility, instead of sitting around, which repels nobility.
That's the thing I've been trying to convey. It seems to me that many sit around waiting until they 'have enough' nobility to do something. The problem is, it doesn't work like that. If you do that, you lose nobility because there's nothing happening to keep their interest. The best thing to do is to just go do *anything* that engages the players, even if its a risky gamble, and lo and behold, you'll find players trickling, or gushing, into your realms. Wars and just talking to your realmmates (serious planning, silly downtime, narrative roleplays, rebellious conspiracy, power-grabbing geopolitics, anything but another game-generated realm report!) are the best ways. You know this because D'Hara is good at talking to each other and you make the occasional military campaign to keep something in front of your nobles. And not just you. D'Hara has kept one of the better density rates with Swordfell and Luria for *most* of the last couple years on Dwilight. But this is what Madina and Fissoa needed to do, as Arnor, AQ, ME, HD etc. have been doing with success up north and growing.
...aren't even in a position to see their internal/external politics. They're far more fragmented than they let on to the outside.
Hey, hey, hey! Our secrets!
It doesn't help when D'Harans wander in babysitting the Emperor's adopted children (I tease) and start dueling/killing our uppity Rangers. Twas a good week.
Personally I wouldn't say Luria is bad, just big. They eventually ended up that size because of the wars and whatever. Now with the empire mechanics that would trim the empires something might happen to Luria, which would be a shame, at least to some degree that they fall to game mechanics, though the RP of such an event would be cool, wish I could be part of it.
They ended up that size because that was the extent of their realm previous to the invasions, which was the extent of 3-4 realms before that. Yes, it happened successfully because of the war with an incredibly-close refit and player communication to attract more nobles, but I just want to stress that the lurian borders are also roleplay based. Hence that thorn, Flying Hongrns, with Swordfell.
Luria's been planning to reduce itself when it was done with the foreigners for awhile anyway. It's now being forced to do it a lot faster than the players planned. So we've been setting up background roleplay in some circles here and there for months now with various small preparations and political maneuvers.
