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1

Far East Island / A Kingdom Divided: Cathay

« on: January 19, 2014, 04:47:01 AM »

Late this day, reports began streaming in of an entire Duchy flying new banners of a newly formed realm where the city of Colasan stands.  Shortly after, it was made known that another region and it's lord pledged new allegiance to Kindara.  Thus leaving the Kingdom of Cathay, more aptly a Queendom in the last many months, in a precarious position.

With it's former King Galiard Scarlett and his short-lived successor, Queen Kasia Kain so suddenly making their departure from the realm many months ago, it appears the identity and spirit of Cathay's nobility at large have suffered enough blows to morale from the consequent disappearances and other mysterious, but gradual, reports of other longstanding key figures also vanishing from the public eye. 

Rumours abound that without a more convincing leadership to have held the realm together in trust and spirit, it was a justified course of action to secede and let Cathay fade away into shame of what it has now become.  Others assert that the realm has arisen before because of the strong values and principles in which the realm was founded upon, and that as long as they breathe and live these virtues, they will persist onwards. 

Whichever way it appears the go, one thing is at utmost clear; Another realm of the Free Peoples is now officially out of the running to present any comparable resistance to the Empire as the once proud, united, Free Kingdom of Cathay it could have once claimed of itself before, but now no longer.

~

I think these quotes summarize quite well what seems to have happened in Cathay:

Only appearing to be outmatched. In reality, they had a remarkable ability to swell their ranks once the war actually started. Not only that, their ruler did an excellent job of gaining sympathy and swaying others to their side. Their political maneuvering was almost perfect.

And yes, [...] did not perform very well in that war. We had several key figures either go inactive and autopause, or outright leave/quit soon after the war began. [...]

The defectors have pretty much destroyed that. Most of them won't be allowed back into
[...] when the war is over. Many of them won't even be allowed to remain in the Far East.

It really seems to have unfolded just as the above quotes laid out; The onset of the war, attributed to the character named Galiard Scarlet by quite a few others now, began with influential political swaying that brought several realms together, but all too soon after the war's starting, began to unravel in different ways.  Perhaps one of the key highlights was when Cathay's rulers, both the characters Galiard and Kasia of the Scarlett and Kain families respectively, both left or had their characters die off while the war was still going on strong.  The latter was supposed to have been the expected successor/leader in following through with the war and keeping Cathay whole, but with her own disappearance/death, the following months drew many more mysterious disappearances (pausing/deleting, mostly permanent deleting and quitting of Battlemaster entirely) of other really quality, key, and influential characters of the realm; from Dukes to Lords, to Knights having been part of Cathay's history from after the era of Toupellon, to some even older than that; to when Cathay was still in it's first era after having just evolved from a Lasanar Colony on the heels of the Antoza Commonwealth war. 

All these characters, in a very short time I think, since say just the last 3-4 months, sort of got up and left week after week in a very silent manner (though a good handful at least posted small OOC messages or leaving messages).  Then arrived nobility from Ohnar West, along with a spattering of other new families and nobles NOT related to Ohnar West, and during this time Queen Stephanie Greyson also rises to power, and so began the chapter that seems to be what we are seeing today.   

I'll admit that as a player, from the time the player's of Galiard Scarlett and Kasia Kain deleted their characters, up until about the character Queen Stephanie Greyson really seemed to get into the groove of starting something going, there was a really dead silence in the realm; so many characters and players had paused/left the game after Galiard and Kasia's characters went poof so suddenly, that there was literally no activity in the realm chatter; it really seemed an identity crisis, or at least that the realm was about to disband right then and there.

But over the last month or so, things picked up again as things began to seep through that Cathay's Queen was secretly negotiating with Arcaea's Emperor, keeping the details mostly hidden from the realm, and then at last the banning of the Ohnarian 'defectors' seemed to finally trigger a string of activity, heated debate, discussion, and chatter in the realm again; leading up to the somewhat explosive events of Colasan seceding to form a new realm in the north, and Haul joining Kindara in the south.

I have to say, it was nice to see lively discussion again in the last weeks or so even though it was more internal strife and roleplaying/conflict between characters than ever seen before; where as most of Cathay's roleplaying history and atmosphere was based more on a realm vs realm, team vs team spirit, under characters like Galiard Scarlett, Ranulf Miles, James Blazeral Harker, Hamish O'Ways, etc.  The amount of internal strife that was allowed to reign so freely this time around was a very interesting dynamic for my character in Cathay. 

2

BM General Discussion / Expecting the wrong type of Roleplaying game

« on: May 09, 2011, 06:47:33 AM »

I'm wondering how many others may agree or disagree with what this topic entails.

Battlemaster isn't a peaceful roleplaying game -- you aren't sitting around a Dungeon and Dragons game where all your characters are on the same team and your roleplaying out an experience working together against some non-human entity, that would be a form of non-competitive roleplaying.  Battlemaster is a type of roleplaying game where your competing against other players; your making plans to take over other realms controlled by players, carefully stepping your way up the social ladder to rise above others in glory or personal ambition, or leading a conquest of personal honor or the unification of all lands and factions.  Perhaps you could throw the words 'peace' in there someplace, but it really doesn't seem to fit into Battlemaster as either a long-term concept or even natural concept to consider in the Battlemaster lore.

Yet for all that, I've seen a fair few situations around the Battlemaster community over the years where people seem to reveal they don't see Battlemaster as... well Battlemaster.  From the discussion mailing lists to IRC tidbits, to the wiki and, more recently, the forums located here -- people have discussed in a combination of OOC and IC around how Battlemaster could be a peaceful roleplaying game.

Some realms try to use the path of 'peace' as an in-game roleplaying characteristic and motivator for realm actions/direction, others try the so-called 'honor' and 'compassion' in which characters never resort to any form of violence and openly champion their characters in-game to oppose all war in politics, diplomacy, and even day-to-day roleplaying. 

Roleplaying is quite limited only by your own imagination, but even Battlemaster has eventually developed a few firm, over-arching 'Rules of the BM Universe'... and I think strong non-competitive aspects can hardly be something to take seriously as either a long-term, serious realm-related direction, or as a heavily active characteristic and trait of player characters.  Everyone is fairly free to roleplay their characters as they see fit, as per the naturally set out game rules...

... but serious, non-competitive roleplaying in Battlemaster really seems to be... contrary.

Like I said, this isn't some little corner of the internet where your roleplaying about happy fairies and saving dwarves while conquering evil hordes of demons, whilst at the same time drawing rainbows and having tea and cookies... Battlemaster strikes me as a little more competitive and rich in player vs player politics.