Dragaera

Sorcery and Loyalty at the End of the Interregnum.

asr at ufl.edu asr at ufl.edu
Thu Dec 16 19:32:42 PST 2004

I'm working on a RPG campaign which I plan on positioning at the end of the
Interregnum.  I'm using the HERO game system (as in CHAMPIONS).  My
implementation has run into a few interesting questions:

Spoilers by implication, I guess

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1) What kinds of things would be within the capacity of pre-empire sorcery,
   but not of imperial sorcery?

Seems to me that most things you could do with one, you could do with the
other, excepting specific meta-sorcery which imperial sorcery can't hack.


2) Is every pre-empire sorcerer also an imperial sorcerer?  

Since the Orb is designed to aid control, seems to me that everyone who can
wield raw chaos would also be a skilled imperial socerer.  Further, someone
who has developed the pre-empire skills would be an unsually puissant imperial
sorcerer. (viz. Aliera, Adron, etc.)


3) Does citizenship imply loyalty?  Can Zerika keep track of "everything" in
   these first days of the new Empire?

Clearly, Imperial subjects are capable of treason.  Clearly, Zerika can't just
read minds.  Seems to me that someone born before the Interregnum (and
therefore familliar with citizenship) who is alive at Zerika's emergence could
accept citizenship, yet go right on working against the good of the Empire.

Our dragons in loyal (ha) opposition wouldn't do that because it would be
beneath their dignity; but someone with a more flexible sense of honor would
certainly be capable of this.

But Zerika has many many fewer leigemen at the outset.  Maybe she can dead
minds, they're just so damn MANY of them now.  Might she be able to winkle out
opposition in a field of only a few tens of thousands of new citizens?

Grita does not do this.  Is that because she can't, because of 3), or because
it's not worth the effort, because her pre-empire skills don't really relate
to imperial sorcery, thus denying 2) ?  Or maybe it just didn't occur to her,
or maybe she's got some dregs of a sense of honor.  Or, or, or...



- Allen S. Rout