Situational Clarification (Part 1)
Posted by Pax on 12/04/19
Hi! So, we're hearing a lot of arm-flailing about things. People seem to think a) staff has mandated that Pravus /must/ be a new Great House, b) that no one is allowed to react negatively to it, c) that various houses are getting to leave the Lyceum and take their land with them, and d) that the Faith doesn't need to be involved in this process to any extent.
None of these are really wholly accurate, so let's clarify a bit and hopefully calm things a bit. Warning: this is a typical Pax writeup, which means it might get Wordy. (Spoiler: it did, which is why this is broken into two posts. Paxes gotta Pax?)
So, to begin: staff has /not/ mandated this. Staff has confirmed that Pravus has managed to build up their domain to a point where they're economically on par with the Great Houses, militarily stronger than most of the Great Houses and, in short, /far/ stronger than any other duchy. Just for comparison's sake, while Sanctum has somewhat more farms in their resources than Setarco, Setarco has established considerably more mines and lumber operations than Sanctum's. When it comes to military, Pravus has built up more of literally every type of military unit than Valardin has, in some cases to a level more than twice as many.
In other words, in a one-on-one fight right now, Pravus could take any one of the other Great Houses and win fairly decisively. (Mind you, any given Great House would far outnumber them if they called the banners.)
This is, needless to say, a fairly substantial force, enough that they now do have a fairly solid shot at conquering the Saffron Chain. This is an effort that's taken them years of investment and a number of actions, among other factors.
As such, Pravus approached Alaric and said that they intended to set out and conquer the Saffron Chain for the Compact, and wanted to become a sixth Great House. Alaric asked staff if this was feasible, and we told him that yes, he could confirm that Pravus had built up the military and resources at this point that it was at least a possibility they might be able to take and hold that territory (albeit after a not-exactly-short campaign in order to do so), and that if they /did/ control that much territory they would pretty much have to be a sixth Great House because their 'duchy' would at that point be as large as one of the other entire fealties. So far as I understand it, Alaric decided to just jump to the ending point and elevate them /now/ so that the conquest of the Saffron Chain is done in the name of the Compact.
However, we also noted that any elevation would need to be /rewarding/ Pravus' long effort, not working like a /punishment/ to Velenosa and the Lyceum; setting it up that way would be basically saying "you are being punished for not stopping Pravus and blocking their RP", which is not the path we want to take. We /never/ want to set up a situation where a given org will feel that they're going to be punished if they don't set out to ruin some other group's RP efforts.
Any house that wants to go seek their fortune in the new fealty will need to give up land within the Lyceum; they can't just take patchwork chunks of another fealty with them. Aside from the fact that it doesn't work well from a thematic (or practical) standpoint, it would be unfairly punitive to Velenosa's players, as mentioned. And if Alaric tried to push that one through as a precedent that /would/ touch off a civil war, flat out.
(Technically there's actually some ground to argue that Pravus doesn't have legal right to take /Setarco/ with them either -- you could argue the position that each vassal effectively holds land in trust from their liege, and so technically Pravus holds Setarco in trust from Velenosa -- but with the whole situation being touched off because Pravus built that territory up to Great House status, it's unlikely anyone could make that stick.)
As such Pravus will either have to give up some of their current land/resources to provide new holdings for any vassal (as with any domain that creates entirely new vassals), start conquering territory in the Saffron Chain pretty much immediately to distribute it to said vassals, or try to set a precedent for (temporarily) landless vassal houses.
Further, no house outside of Pravus' own vassals can go with them /at all/ without being formally released from their oath of fealty in order to swear a new one, in addition to giving up that existing land. Someone who just abandons their liege would be considered -- and rightly so -- an oathbreaker, which is a Very Big Deal in the Compact.
Now, if some house wants to go with Pravus and Velenosa (or any other fealty) /chooses/ to give up territory to this new fealty for whatever reason, fine, but staff is certainly not saying they have to; in this case, all the power is with the existing fealty.
Side note: I would personally prefer no fealty give up territory, just for the sake of my sanity in the map code. Mixing patchwork chunks of one fealty into another and making fealties that are non-contiguous because they're scattered in chunks across the map gives the coder a headache, and I'm already going to have to rework the map-generation code -- and draw a new map -- just to make the Saffron Chain an actual viable location to place domains and landmarks and whatnot. However, if it's what a given High Lord decides she or he wants to do, staff won't /stop/ it. Even if I will quietly weep as I redesign how the map data can be divided into territories to make it more fine-grained. (At this point, I may just want to make it an entire world map for future-proofing...)
None of these are really wholly accurate, so let's clarify a bit and hopefully calm things a bit. Warning: this is a typical Pax writeup, which means it might get Wordy. (Spoiler: it did, which is why this is broken into two posts. Paxes gotta Pax?)
So, to begin: staff has /not/ mandated this. Staff has confirmed that Pravus has managed to build up their domain to a point where they're economically on par with the Great Houses, militarily stronger than most of the Great Houses and, in short, /far/ stronger than any other duchy. Just for comparison's sake, while Sanctum has somewhat more farms in their resources than Setarco, Setarco has established considerably more mines and lumber operations than Sanctum's. When it comes to military, Pravus has built up more of literally every type of military unit than Valardin has, in some cases to a level more than twice as many.
In other words, in a one-on-one fight right now, Pravus could take any one of the other Great Houses and win fairly decisively. (Mind you, any given Great House would far outnumber them if they called the banners.)
This is, needless to say, a fairly substantial force, enough that they now do have a fairly solid shot at conquering the Saffron Chain. This is an effort that's taken them years of investment and a number of actions, among other factors.
As such, Pravus approached Alaric and said that they intended to set out and conquer the Saffron Chain for the Compact, and wanted to become a sixth Great House. Alaric asked staff if this was feasible, and we told him that yes, he could confirm that Pravus had built up the military and resources at this point that it was at least a possibility they might be able to take and hold that territory (albeit after a not-exactly-short campaign in order to do so), and that if they /did/ control that much territory they would pretty much have to be a sixth Great House because their 'duchy' would at that point be as large as one of the other entire fealties. So far as I understand it, Alaric decided to just jump to the ending point and elevate them /now/ so that the conquest of the Saffron Chain is done in the name of the Compact.
However, we also noted that any elevation would need to be /rewarding/ Pravus' long effort, not working like a /punishment/ to Velenosa and the Lyceum; setting it up that way would be basically saying "you are being punished for not stopping Pravus and blocking their RP", which is not the path we want to take. We /never/ want to set up a situation where a given org will feel that they're going to be punished if they don't set out to ruin some other group's RP efforts.
Any house that wants to go seek their fortune in the new fealty will need to give up land within the Lyceum; they can't just take patchwork chunks of another fealty with them. Aside from the fact that it doesn't work well from a thematic (or practical) standpoint, it would be unfairly punitive to Velenosa's players, as mentioned. And if Alaric tried to push that one through as a precedent that /would/ touch off a civil war, flat out.
(Technically there's actually some ground to argue that Pravus doesn't have legal right to take /Setarco/ with them either -- you could argue the position that each vassal effectively holds land in trust from their liege, and so technically Pravus holds Setarco in trust from Velenosa -- but with the whole situation being touched off because Pravus built that territory up to Great House status, it's unlikely anyone could make that stick.)
As such Pravus will either have to give up some of their current land/resources to provide new holdings for any vassal (as with any domain that creates entirely new vassals), start conquering territory in the Saffron Chain pretty much immediately to distribute it to said vassals, or try to set a precedent for (temporarily) landless vassal houses.
Further, no house outside of Pravus' own vassals can go with them /at all/ without being formally released from their oath of fealty in order to swear a new one, in addition to giving up that existing land. Someone who just abandons their liege would be considered -- and rightly so -- an oathbreaker, which is a Very Big Deal in the Compact.
Now, if some house wants to go with Pravus and Velenosa (or any other fealty) /chooses/ to give up territory to this new fealty for whatever reason, fine, but staff is certainly not saying they have to; in this case, all the power is with the existing fealty.
Side note: I would personally prefer no fealty give up territory, just for the sake of my sanity in the map code. Mixing patchwork chunks of one fealty into another and making fealties that are non-contiguous because they're scattered in chunks across the map gives the coder a headache, and I'm already going to have to rework the map-generation code -- and draw a new map -- just to make the Saffron Chain an actual viable location to place domains and landmarks and whatnot. However, if it's what a given High Lord decides she or he wants to do, staff won't /stop/ it. Even if I will quietly weep as I redesign how the map data can be divided into territories to make it more fine-grained. (At this point, I may just want to make it an entire world map for future-proofing...)