(Commentary Thread) Ruceeglaelsktinag: A Study in Applied Christian Theology of War

[Draco Dei]

Asking questions in the OOC can perhaps help with that? Maybe? I realize sometimes one 'does not know exactly what it is that one doesn't know' so that might not always be sufficient, or even applicable. It can be a bit of a balancing act.

Applicable skills for determining the age of a building:
Appraise, Knowledge[Architecture and Engineerng], Knowledge[History] (not very accurate in many cases due to styles changing slowly), and a variety of Craft skills.

[ForrestGump]

Sorry I had to post the two separate responses on the IC thread, wanted to add some stuff after looking over it, and the editing cap caught me.

Also, would I be able to help at all with the age thing, I have a little in appraise, and I was wondering if knowledge(local) would help, since I might know about building practices, or would that be more for the now, and not applicable?

[Draco Dei]

I don't have any inherent problem with double-posting. Everyone please do it whenever you need to.

When and if the subject is brought up In-Character by Thomas's character those would both be applicable in some way or another. Knowledge[Local] wouldn't help with the age per se, but would tell you other things about the building on a good enough roll.

[Thomas Maltuin]

Well... THIS is interesting. As you get out into the more open countryside it develops that you are headed for a fortress. The orphan-keeper confirms that that really is the orphanage. Okay, so they took over an unused fortress? The orphankeeper says she assumes so. The orphanage is arch-roofed, rather than having separate walls, to provide at least some defense against fliers and rocks dropped by them. Arrow slits can be seen at strategic locations, and a single watchtower pierces the roof near the front.

The children meet her at the gate, eager for the fresh fruit she has with her (and in one cases a mended doll). There are 5 orphans of various ages, 4 hobgoblins, and one halfling.

((You are now just inside the orphanage... what do you all do? I feel like my description was sorta sparse, but I can't think of what to add to it particularly, so REMEMBER RULE NUMBER ONE!))


Fortress--
((Dangerous? Why would it be dangerous? Am I missing something?))

noun
1.
a large fortified place; a fort or group of forts, often including a town; citadel.

Everything my imagination comes up with right off the bat says, not a place for unattended children. Pictures of fortresses just in general are full of ledges.

I'm standing in character looking right at this thing. I don't want to know an exact age, but i would like to know out of character, does it look abandoned?
or just unused (seems a bit MORE than odd)? are their any obvious agings such as broken slabs of stone jutting up from the floor?
Does unused really imply that the place looks new and no one ever used it? seems a bit impractical.

anyway, no Draco, I assume you're not missing something, but i get the feeling I'm missing more than I should. I personally don't see how a fortress wouldn't be a dangerous place for children if they were left there by themselves.

I don't want to seem stupid but I also don't want to keep making endless incorrect assumptions either. So, was it ever stated exactly what she had intended for us to do. I get that we are acting as body-guards, but she apparently left the children by themselves since all the guards were with her and no one else is there. So are we actually just guarding her? are the children to be transported? Or, as far as our characters know are we simply setting up to guard this place indefinitely? (which is a totally valid answer, I'd just like to know which so I know the correct in-character thought process)


--Now that school is out for me, although it's now the holidays, I should be able to check this more often. Thanks for your patience.

:3

[Draco Dei]

I have rolled Knowledge[Local] for Thanatos, and that plus Appraise, and Profession [Miner] for Razzik. None of them made the DCs 15 to 17 needed to discover anything additionally about the fortress beyond the fact that you don't see any seems of any sort in the stone. It is like it was carved out of a single piece of solid rock. Of course, as you look the place over, live in it, and, especially, run some drills, you may discover certain things... oh, and ask the orphan-keeper some more questions, especially within her area(s) of expertise.

Does anyone have any other rolls they think I should be making?

Actually, would anyone mind if I retconned in, during the walk to the fortress, one of the pre-existing guards feeling you all out to make sure you WEREN'T on the side of the Hobgoblins (as opposed to Ruceeglaelsktinag or neutral between the two and just trying to 'do the right thing'?). Because that is going to happen as some point before the contract gets signed.

OOC note: Don't try to mislead them on this point, whenever it comes up, it will cause the whole adventure to crash and burn.

Well... THIS is interesting. As you get out into the more open countryside it develops that you are headed for a fortress. The orphan-keeper confirms that that really is the orphanage. Okay, so they took over an unused fortress? The orphankeeper says she assumes so. The orphanage is arch-roofed, rather than having separate walls, to provide at least some defense against fliers and rocks dropped by them. Arrow slits can be seen at strategic locations, and a single watchtower pierces the roof near the front.

The children meet her at the gate, eager for the fresh fruit she has with her (and in one cases a mended doll). There are 5 orphans of various ages, 4 hobgoblins, and one halfling.

((You are now just inside the orphanage... what do you all do? I feel like my description was sorta sparse, but I can't think of what to add to it particularly, so REMEMBER RULE NUMBER ONE!))

Fortress--
((Dangerous? Why would it be dangerous? Am I missing something?))

noun
1.
a large fortified place; a fort or group of forts, often including a town; citadel.

Everything my imagination comes up with right off the bat says, not a place for unattended children. Pictures of fortresses just in general are full of ledges.

Ah, good thing you brought 'ledges' up. See, the thing is, those pictures are almost certainly all of one of two things:

1. Real World fortresses.
2. For fantasy settings that aren't as high-powered and/or realistic as this one.

Now, such things DO exist in this setting, but they are the middle-grade stuff, not the high-quality ones. A REALLY high grade fortification in this setting looks like a giant stone egg embedded pointy-edge-up into the ground to the depth of its greatest circular perimeter.

This place isn't QUITE that good, but it does form a shell of solid stone with only the necessary holes.

One key factor you have to remember is that Sorcerers, Wizards, and, perhaps more importantly, druids (higher AC usually) can all summon flying creatures from spell level 1.

For the really insane, there is Featherfall combined with a catapult (also 1st level). Cast it too soon and you might go sailing right over the target, or at least give the defenders an extra round to shoot at you without cover.

At spell level 2 for arcanists one has Levitate and Spider Climb. Both of those only work at the ranges where a scaling ladder would, but they are potentially faster, especially for anyone wearing anything heavier than light armor, and they don't require you to actually carry around a huge unwieldy ladder while advancing under arrow fire.

Once one hits spell level 3, things get REALLY nasty for anyone standing on top of normal battlements. Fly, Fireball, and several others.

Of course, once one is building a solid shell rather than a series of walls as one's outer-most stone defense* then one USUALLY might as well shrink the perimeter/surface area you are defending by filling it with structures, rather than leaving any large vertical spaces.

*Counting moats as "an absence of stone" rather than "stone".

tl;dr Ledges aren't 'a thing' in this sort of architecture.

Note to self (highlight to read, PCs will discover this soon enough): Include a pump to coat top of dome with lamp-oil and a mechanical sparker that has a 50% chance of setting ordinary lamp oil alight per full-round action provided a full-round action is ALSO taken to operate the pump that round. If something more volatile but non-hypergolic is used then it has a 75% chance if the pump ISN'T used, and a 100% chance if it IS used that round.
I will admit that no guards being left behind is a bit of a plot-hole... I'll PROBABLY say that there is a fifth and perhaps sixth guard that were on duty and are now also packing their things. At least one of them would have been up in the watch-tower (yes, the children might STILL have been left all alone).

What do y'all think?

I'm standing in character looking right at this thing. I don't want to know an exact age, but i would like to know out of character, does it look abandoned?

Ah! Much easier to answer! It doesn't look worn down from abandonment. Whether that is because it was never abandoned, or if it was just well renovated you can't tell.

or just unused (seems a bit MORE than odd)? are their any obvious agings such as broken slabs of stone jutting up from the floor?

Well, it is obviously in-use NOW, if probably very much under-occupied. No obvious things wrong with it.

Does unused really imply that the place looks new and no one ever used it? seems a bit impractical.

That is a good question to be researching IC...

anyway, no Draco, I assume you're not missing something, but i get the feeling I'm missing more than I should. I personally don't see how a fortress wouldn't be a dangerous place for children if they were left there by themselves.

You should probably ask about the armory in your next post... which will also let me describe what I have in that note up above.

No guards having been left behind

I don't want to seem stupid but I also don't want to keep making endless incorrect assumptions either. So, was it ever stated exactly what she had intended for us to do. I get that we are acting as body-guards, but she apparently left the children by themselves since all the guards were with her and no one else is there. So are we actually just guarding her? are the children to be transported? Or, as far as our characters know are we simply setting up to guard this place indefinitely? (which is a totally valid answer, I'd just like to know which so I know the correct in-character thought process)

I think I may have timed things wrong... y'all haven't actually seen the contract under which you will be employed yet. When you do, please remind me to give further information regard the question of what it seems you are specifically supposed to be protecting.

I think that all you know about that sort of thing so far is as follows:
1.) The orphan-keeper has a budget for people of your skills, and appropriate for your capabilities.
2.) One of the old guards told the orphan keeper to tell you to "consider carefully what is worth protecting, and do not shy away from mission creep".
3.) The duration is definitely "indefinite" (hah! funny!).

--Now that school is out for me, although it's now the holidays, I should be able to check this more often. Thanks for your patience.

:3

Just (continue to) give advanced notice when cramming+testing periods begin.

[Thomas Maltuin]

School is over for now. I will have an associates and will be waiting to continue school for a bit. I'm transferring but me and the wife have also decided to move... out of state, so therefore, I'll be trying to figure out school pricing and trying to actually get moved. However this also means no cramming and homework meltdowns. So yay for that. I will try to do better about giving advanced notice if I'm going to be slow however.

Do I need to look out for anything particular on the way to the watchtower or announce that my character arrives?

[Draco Dei]

To answer your question: The first could be good, and the second would be required in most cases.

[Draco Dei]

So, I recently got the very rare chance to speak to one of my cousins. The one who is a Catholic priest. We VERY much enjoy our conversations, despite our theological differences*. The subject of this campaign came up.** Anyway, I mentioned to him how I was a bit embarrassed that I might have used the word "genocide" in connection with the previous incarnation of this campaign. He said that based on his knowledge of Greek that it actually was fine since "genus" can just mean "kind" which could be anything from an ethic or religious group to an entire species***. Which does make it a rather broad and often imprecise term. The best I can come up with for the moment would be "species-cide", "theocide" (as opposed to deicide, which would be the killing of a god***), and "culture-cide"... and that is without getting into the idea that the "-cide" suffix might be seen as assuming one of the major points we are investigating: That such actions are wrong.

Not that I think we were, but I wanted to spread around the linguistic insight that my cousin provided.

*The days when we enjoyed them BECAUSE of our theological differences are behind us. Seasons change, no big deal.
**I've only played D&D with him for an hour or two in our whole lives, but apparently he ran some really good games in MUCH earlier editions, and we talk about it D&D a lot.
***Which in D&D is actually a really weird idea given that you can have creatures that can't breed with eachother (elves and halfings for example), but which can both produce fertile offspring with several different third types (dragons, celestials, fiends, etc). Best just to say that in this setting the definition of that has been re-written to work around such weirdness, such that dragons, halflings, and elves are all different species despite such quirks.
***Which means that most of your characters would probably be misusing that term if it ever came up, what with being monotheists and all?

tl;dr We should all try to avoid using the word "genocide" if possible.

[Draco Dei]

Y'all's characterization is very good so far (has been since the start of the game). Keep it up if you can!

Problem:
I have mentioned this before, but one thing I find pretty frustrating is that it seems like you are all narrating your characters actions and ESPECIALLY speech in a very linear way...

See, as far as I am concerned, PbP social scenes (as opposed to combat and 'dungeon' exploration) is one of the very few exceptions to that being a good idea. If you aren't saying enough that people's responses end up interspersed with your own, to create the actual conversation the characters are having, then you are PROBABLY slowing the game down. The other way it can work is if everyone is posting within minutes or hours of eachother instead of days, but that doesn't seem to be the situation we have here. Naturally, a short post now is better than a long post at later. Just don't have any fear of double or even triple posting!

That said, I realize that this may just be my personal bias since most people's brains probably don't run on branching paths as much as mine does. This combined with some of you being new to the game, and, if I might hazard a guess, ALL of you being new to this more tactically rich sort of campaign* means that I may be asking you to walk before you can crawl.
*Is this true?

Solution I would like y'all to attempt (or at least comment on, preferably in detail):
In addition to your IC posts and other OOC discussion, if all of you could post some "To do items" including but not limited to "things that we should try to find out in-character" as often as you think of them that would probably help A LOT. It might get the ideas flowing freely enough to accelerate your thinking, but without disrupting the linear narrative that y'all seem to need. It might be a bit difficult for some people to keep track of everything that has been brought up, but that is what occasionally going back and re-reading is for... or, y'know, employing Rule Number One.

[ForrestGump]

What I'm afraid of is posting something too hurriedly, and it not being in alignment with what the other characters are doing or saying.

[Thomas Maltuin]

So, we as players need to have a little discussion on what could be going on to figure out what is going on :P

Temmis = Me

[6:12:39 AM] Draco Dei: Okay. I need to double-check the campaign background I gave y'all...
[6:14:08 AM] Draco Dei: But I will say, that in this particular case, tactics will not be enough to understand the situation. Strategy will also be necessary.
[6:16:11 AM] Temmis: right, however, i have no idea in the least what is going to happen. our characters have no knowledge of anything except that we are to protect orphans. from what we don't know, from where, we don't know, why, we don't know
[6:16:24 AM] Temmis: so, I may be missing something big as usual
[6:16:31 AM] Temmis: but from my current understanding
[6:16:57 AM] Temmis: we don't have much to build off of for a strategy
[6:17:14 AM] Temmis: kinda like setting up the board for chess when the game is actually stratego
[6:46:40 AM] Draco Dei: Err...
[6:46:56 AM] Draco Dei: You are still thinking too small.
[6:47:07 AM] Temmis: indeee
[6:47:10 AM] Temmis: indeed
[6:47:32 AM] Temmis: maybe i'm misunderstanding the term strategize
[6:47:57 AM] Draco Dei: Well, it is sort of a continuum as far as I can tell... from "tactics" to "strategy".
[6:48:34 AM] Draco Dei: What you need to do is forget about your characters and the mission entirely for a moment.
[6:49:02 AM] Draco Dei: Think about why the situation as a whole exists.
[6:49:39 AM] Draco Dei: Go back in time and ask "How did events line up this way? Where did each piece of the puzzle come from?"
[6:49:53 AM] Temmis: *nods
[6:56:14 AM] Draco Dei: And by "go back in time", I mean YEARS.
[6:56:29 AM] Draco Dei: Or, at least, possibly years.
[6:56:36 AM] Temmis: lol what
[6:56:44 AM] Temmis: when did we get this information
[6:56:49 AM] Draco Dei: Which information?
[6:57:05 AM] Temmis: how do we have information from years back
[6:57:16 AM] Temmis: is this to be gathered from exploring the fortress
[6:57:24 AM] Draco Dei: Stop. Thinking. In. Terms. Of. Your. Characters.
[6:57:56 AM] Temmis: as a player i don't have any clue as to how we would have come to guard orphans in a fortress
[6:58:28 AM] Draco Dei: No. That still contains the word "we". "We" means the character.
[6:58:35 AM] Draco Dei: Forget the characters exist.
[6:58:46 AM] Draco Dei: Or, at least the player characters.
[7:00:20 AM] Temmis: so there is an orphan keeper who usually gives a shrug when asked questions, some guards who just lost their jobs because the keeper didn't trust them and gave a cryptic riddle/hint that no one seems to get. some orphans are being kept in a cliffside fortress for some unknown reason
[7:00:36 AM] Temmis: I don't know how to apply this to the surrounding situation
[7:00:39 AM] Temmis: or the history
[7:00:59 AM] Temmis: I'll post some questions in the ooc thread
[7:01:06 AM] Temmis: hopefully some player discussion will happen
[7:01:26 AM] Draco Dei: That would be good. But perhaps you could copy-paste this dialogue in before that.
[7:01:37 AM] Draco Dei: In fact, please do.


So what are you guys thoughts on our characters' situation. how did they end up here. How does this fit in to the rest of the game world.

Draco has told us to pay close attention to all of his words and to ask questions. Personally I'm having trouble with rule #1 because I wouldn't know where to start.
But, we do know that he has left hints for us in little things throughout. Ideas?

[Draco Dei]

Here is another hint (at least I HOPE it is a hint, rather than something that I utterly failed to explain) : Can someone please explain back to me the role of Democracy in this campaign setting?

[Rational Gaze]

I am refraining from posting at the moment because I'd rather wait for things to develop a bit more before continuing. If you like, Draco, you can post something to advance the plot to include my character if you wish. Unless you'd prefer me just to make a post advancing what my character is doing myself. :-)

[Draco Dei]

Well, it has been three days and nobody has jumped in to say anything, so I think you had better advance the plot yourself.

... or that is what I WOULD say if I weren't going to do a bunch of copy-paste to make sure that some information is communicated... and if someone would have just responded to my question in post #102 then that would have REALLY helped, even though I suspect the answer was "Well, you never really went into much if any detail..."

Anyway, here is a BUNCH of copy-paste from my last instance of this campaign which happened on a completely different site.

General:
The world is BIG. Epic class levels (to say nothing of high hit-die and ECL creatures that ALSO have class levels), are out there. Most major countries are ruled by dragons, due to their long life-spans and super-human mental abilities making them ideally suited for the task.

The Kingdom of Ruceeglaelsktinag is more the Great Britain, Germany, France, or Japan of this world than the USA or China.

The War
The game will start in an area that is in the last stages of being conquered for the third time in the last two hundred years by King Ruceeglaelsktinag*, a gold dragon who rules over a kingdom he has named after himself. The goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, orcs, kobolds, etc etc who form the loose alliance called the Vedag that populated the area claimed each time that wicked rulers had mislead them into attacking The Kingdom of Ruceeglaelsktinag. King Ruceeglaelsktinag took the high path each time, and allowed them to work their way back to independence... his patience has run out, and he has enforced a very new form of government on them, known as 'Representitive Democracy' (see separate selection later in this same spoiler). Since the citizens will be responsible for the selection of the government officials every year, any evils of the government will fall on the heads of the people... there will BE no such thing as a civilian in the next war if it comes. The clerics of the hearth goddess, Allurehn(see separate post on her, the mepholk, etc), are even now conducting their studies to determine if, in such a sad eventuality, the young orphans of each race from that fourth war will be closely monitored and sterilized at the first sign of Evil (via Detect Evil more than via particular acts in most cases, if they find Evil to be strongly in the blood, rather than cultural in the local populations), or allowed to live as equal citizens, dispersed throughout the Kingdom of Ruceeglaelsktinag. In other words the question of "Why the 'always' in 'always chaotic/neutral/lawful evil'?" is something that is being researched on a case-by-case basis in-universe, although in this case it is a "usually" for most of the races in question.
*In all fairness, the king did only a tiny fraction of the actual fighting, mostly acting a high-commander.

The Origins of Democracy
One note that I should make earlier rather than later. When King Ruceeglaelsktinag starts talking about the deaths of tens of thousands of his county's future enemies as if it was a minor measure to prevent a bothersome recurring chore, that is not because he actually lacks empathy or doesn't deeply mourn that it may become necessary. It is just that he is talking to someone who he is trying to set at ease (the poor guy is utterly convinced he's about to be tortured to death for high treason, despite the fact that he did absolutely nothing wrong, and King Ruceeglaelsktinag is perfectly aware of that), and who does their best smarter-than-supra-genius thinking when they are treating people as abstract words and numbers on paper (meaning the sage). In other words, it is BECAUSE the king has empathy (as evinced by his alignment, huge diplomacy modifier, etc) that he is talking that way.
Your characters wouldn't NECESSARILY know the details of these events without at least 4 TOTAL ranks in Knowledge(History) and Knowledge(Nobility and Royalty), but you have all seen various bits and pieces of the RESULTS first hand.

There was this sage, and since this is D&D, I can actually throw some numbers at you... Variant Expert class (which I really should write up some time... wouldn't take more than an hour...), let's say 15th level.
Born rich, or earned enough money to retire and just sorta sit around pondering the universe and chatting with his collegues, and have all the magic he found actually useful for his "Whenever I get a little money, I buy books. If there is any left over I buy food." (Which is some greek guy, although I may be mis-quoting the translation).
Anyway, that sort of lifestyle.
Maxed out Int. 18 base, maybe a fat racial modifier, +6 enhancement item, +5 from a tome, 3 from level-up, Venerable +3, Gray Elf +2
Wisdom... 12 base, maybe a +4 item.
Charisma... actually irrelevant, but let us say 8.
Total nerd, no spellcasting.
Put all his feats into Skill focus on various knowledge skills.
Ok... So he's sitting around (and perhaps functionally immortal, but that is a whole other can of worms).
And so, in his theoretical ponderings of this that and the other, he up and invents Democracy, blowing right past the Greek City States, on past The Articles of Confederation, and straight into something as robust as what the British have...
Because when you have a brain that makes... well, Einstein was in a totally different field, and I don't know if Thomas Locke was more about the Int or the Charisma, but basically whoever is the smartest guy for analyzing governance and tweaking it... the greatest politicial scientist in the entire history of the human race... that guy was a drooling moron next to this guy.
And, having a 12+4=16 Wisdom, he was extremely careful about who he told about this, because he's just fooling around, fulfilling his love of pure knowledge and so on. He honestly (and correctly) believes that having King Ruceeglaelsktinag leading the country is better than anything he could come up with.
He doesn't want to go overthrowing any monarchs here. But he does have a few friends that he trusts, and he consults with them, and they all enjoy his little thought experiment in theoretical governance.
But King Ruceeglaelsktinag's spymaster is no slouch himself, and he finds out about this. So there is a nice little scroll examining what is known of the situation sitting in a little cubby, and it ends with "Status: Threat Minimal, Continue Monitoring".
Well, then the third war is looming and our sage gets a summons to talk to King Ruceeglaelsktinag.
The sage figures that this is about some area of current policies that The Good King feels that this great sage could give a useful perspective on, so he shows on up in a brand new silk robe, and very flattered that he was even noticed at this level.
So, the chamberlain directs him to the magical, self-cleaning, teleportation based toilets just before his appointment.
Our sage figures "Hey, they figure we might run long, and King Ruceeglaelsktinag doesn't want his time wasted while I go off for a potty break, nor me distracted from trying to hold it."
So he comes before The Good King, and King Rucee asks "So, I've heard you invented this system of government where the peasants are actually in charge by dint of sheer numbers... do tell me about it?"

Trevor Williams: Oh s***

Draco Dei: And our sage falls to his knees and starts begging for his life, and yes, it would have quite literally been "Oh s***", if the chamberlain hadn't been exactly the sort of person that 30+ racial hitdice and 20+ class levels of pure "I'm just better than you" would have as a chamberlain.
Rucee says "No, its quite alright, I know that it was merely a theoretical exercise, but I think I might actually have a practical use for it. See, as I'm sure a scholar of governments like yourself is well aware, another dratted war with the Vedag is all but inevitable at this point, and I actually think you could help me come up with a way of ensuring the peace. You see the problem is that there is a tendency for the citizens to realize just how much trouble they are in when our troops roll into town, and being... well, /adaptable/ in their approaches to how to treat other people, they not only start making up excuses, but they start honestly and truly BELIEVING them. And the excuse is always that it MUST have been the fault of their rulers."
"And for that period of time there is a desire to comply with the laws of nations, and, since it IS sincere at that time, I can't very well make them into slaves or wipe them out."
"But it never lasts, I mean this is going to be the THIRD time in the last TWO CENTURIES I've had to deal with this dratted nonsense."
"So, what I'm going to do is put EVERYONE in charge, and that way they will know that if this happens again, it is going to be EVERYBODY'S who has reached the age of majority and gave any support to the government fault, and EVERYBODY in that /rather/ large catagory is going to die. I'm already discussing with the Allurehnites how to design an orphanage system robust enough to handle the results should it come to that."
"But orphanages are neither here nor there! Let's try and figure out what your theoretical construct might look like in actual practice given these slightly modified goals and conditions."
And there was probably a beta-test version with replacing a corrupt minor noble with a system of elected officials, just to work the kinks out... And then Democracy was unleashed on the Vedag.

Trevor Williams: Gods help us all.

Draco Dei: So... questions, comments?
It is an idea I've had for a long time to keep the "Medieval Nobility" feel of a high-magic D&D game, where communications is fast enough, and enlightenment great enough that Democracy logically SHOULD be "a thing". Of course, that rather gets turned on its head in this campaign to an extent, because you are in the one area of the world where Democracy actually IS a thing.

Trevor Williams: 1. This story shows that metallic dragons can be just as much of an ******* as chromatics. They just have better PR.

Draco Dei: Hey, I SAID "Good is not Soft" in my world... The casual way he was talking about the potential huge number of deaths was mostly to set the sage's mind at ease, and not at all that he didn't take the matter gravely.

Trevor Williams: 2. How close is Rucee to his subjects? Unless he is really distant as to how things work on the ground, he should know that fighting thousands of years of tradition in the Vedag tribes would be an uphill battle.

Draco Dei: 2.) It utterly bizarro to the Vedag, but actually a lot less harsh than how he set things up the last time around.

Trevor Williams: What happened last time?

Draco Dei: I dunno...

Trevor Williams: That might be important. There would be some fighting for democracy so that they NEVER have to go back to that.

Draco Dei: PERHAPS a period where there were no secrets allowed of the new Vedag rulers... their bodyguards were all from Rucee, and if they tried to hold on to a scroll handed it to them by a visiting peer from outside the Vedag when their head bodyguard tries to snatch it before they can read it them-self, their bodyguard would kill them on the spot, then apologize to the visitor for the shock and mess, and suggest that they come back in half an hour when the heir to the throne would be able to meet them and pick up where they had left off. In other words, they could theoretically make their own decisions, but the Kingdom of Ruceeglaelsktinag, by law, knew everything.

Trevor Williams: Wow, that's brutal, but also in keeping with the theme. Furthermore, what if there was a caste system put in place like in British India? Good races on top as the leaders, with all the goblinoids and such living as second-class citizens.
Maybe we could do Indian-themed hobgoblins? Their love of order and discipline could go well with such a culture.

Draco Dei: Well, I don't know nearly enough about that culture, but... maybe I could learn? And even if I screw up my research, maybe the result would still be workable and unique? Not sure. I might not have the time and energy to do that though...

Trevor Williams: Keep in mind that you don't have to represent the culture PERFECTLY. Just understand the five different tiers of the caste system, use Indian-style weapons, architecture, and ranks, and have a strong monk/war elephant/conscripted elite guard for potential allies and/or enemies.

((Getting back to the original question)) Draco Dei: I suspect that in many locations, the Constitutionally Mandated Yearly Elections happen like clockwork, and every year the same people who were the heirs to the people who were executed for ordering the attacks on the country of Ruceeglaelsktinag are elected, because the people just can't imagine it any other way... and as long as they follow the letter of King Ruceeglaelsktinag's insanity, he doesn't seem to mind if they utterly violate its spirit (note that this is without any sort of coercion such as you described as happening in Africa). ((See Question 3... I'm editing the original logs to put the answers with the questions, whereas originally it wasn't as neat as that.))
Draco Dei: So yeah, that is what an ultra-lawful and varying degrees of Evil society would look like here. And King Rucee is saddened by this, because he's pretty sure what that ends up looking like some time in the next century, but, hey, they are choosing their own fate, and there is only so much that it is possible to do about that.

Trevor Williams: 3. The "representative democracy" system in the Vedag is prone to abuse. For example, in the orc tribes, "officials" would be "elected" in the same manner as African warlords... through force, bribery, and blackmail. However, I'm going to assume that the social experiment has not gone on long enough for that to be apparent.

((See earlier point... this either has already happened, or is fully expected to happen. The best that can realistically be hoped for is that every time said orc leaders start getting certain ideas about foreign policy or treatment of visitors the orc on the street remembers a few things from their oral traditions and realizes that however scary their leaders are, there are worse things out there, and there is a violent coup and King Ruceeglaelsktinag sends in some military and/or humanitarian aid, especially if the rebels do the "crazy" thing and sell the breeding toys (AKA female orcs... the SRD doesn't include it, but the full Monster Manual implies something like this... I'm away from book, and I forget the details) of the defeated to their allies, rather than pulling their teeth, cutting off their hands with red-hot irons, and then adding them to their own harems... See section on Allurehn however.))

Trevor Williams: 4. Have the good races instituted their own democracies? Or are they still beholden to the edicts of King Rucee?

Draco Dei: 4.) There is exactly ONE Barony (or something... don't know the size or the names for the sizes) in the kingdom of Ruceeglaelsktinag where there is democracy... its chugging along quite nicely, thank you, but everyone else (especially the higher ranking nobility) is just waiting for the "inevitable" disaster, and perhaps discretely forming betting pools on when and in what mode the failure will occur...

Probably some scattered towns also have it. Since it does have certain advantages, and King Ruceeglaelsktinag is pragmatic like that... Just to be clear: That one democratic Barony (as in, assuming it used to be ruled by a Baron/ess) is ONLY a democracy at the level up to that where the original Baron ruled. The President(?) and legislature still reports to a Count and they provide all the requirements of fiefdom. Said Count is, as should be obvious on a little thought, one of the few with a wager in the pool for "Never going to fail as a system of government".

Trevor Williams: 5. <<Draco Dei sez: Redacted because there is a smallish plot hole here, of a kind that is endemic to the D&D rules system, and I acknowledge that it is a plot hole, and we are just going to ignore it and move on. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.>>
Trevor Williams: 6. I'm guessing that since Rucee is a dragon, he doesn't have the insight to know that humanoids have very short memories when it comes to learning lessons as a society?

Draco Dei: Wrong. King Ruceeglaelsktinag is the $#$%# Diplomancer (except, usually, without any reliance on using spells on other people... he's totally loaded up on permanent items of all the juicy social buffs instead), which means that he understands most races better than they understand themselves. It is just that MY social skills are in many ways slightly subpar for a real world human, which puts me several orders of magnitude less than Rucee, so I need a bit of help playing him.
It is a matter of there is no claiming "He made me do it! He tricked me from his position of power because he has all the control!" when you voted him into office... vote wisely...
Also, very rapid election cycles. All of this Constitutionally mandated. And required as part of the conditions for "Ok, we will stop attacking you now."

Alec: So, no one election cycle could lead up to a remotely viable war?

Draco Dei: Something like that. More like drift from the election platform or outright ignoring what you said and doing something completely opposite has little time to build up steam. But yes, if there is a fourth war, there will be MUCH head chopping. And, in the King's personal case, head chomping.

Alec: One wonders why "I'M PERSONALLY APPOINTING EVERYONE WHO RUNS THIS ****" didn't work...

Draco Dei: Partially because the locals were probably more loyal to the "you hold onto a scroll, I kill you" government than such a "thinly veiled puppet government" regardless of the races of the appointees. In fact, to the point where the King may have never actually tried that particular direction.

Alec: Fair enough.

The Universe
Cosmology:
The "gods" give varying stories on if they actually ARE gods per se. For the most part, the Neutral wrt to Good/Evil "gods" refuse to speak, and the Good "gods" claim to serve a higher class of being (singular or plural, they will not say). However, some theologians point to the idea of "one big lie" and claim theories that creatures exist beyond the bounds of reality as mortals know it whose least trace of effect would drive mortals mad to look upon. They claim that the Good gods, even the most Lawful of them, do mortals a kindness by perpetuating the lie that there is an even higher power or powers. (Translation: Real and fantasy religions exist and are somewhat independent of the D&D pantheon. You could theoretically have a believer in Star Wars's "Force" who respects Obad Hai(sp) but gains no power from him arguing theology with a Catholic Priest who also just randomly happens to be a cleric of Pelor before the latter is called away by a Muslim Paladin of Heronius(sp) to stop drug addled hippies from taking out several buildings when the shop they are meeting in explodes because they tried to summon a lantern archeon and an imp into the same space at the same time)... I'm not sure if the board rules will let us explore this, even if the players wanted to, but I'm throwing it out there just in case.

The common name for the divine entities who are known (Pelor, Vecna, Allurehn, etc) is "warders". Warders cause the balance of all the planes to continue to exist in a relatively stable way*. However directly intervening in a specific case (such as healing or protecting any set of individuals) would require finesse that is as beyond them as setting a newborn mouse's broken leg would be for the average man. What they CAN do is provide much easier access to a pool of magical energy, commonly referred to as "divine", with each having their won areas of specialization. Mortals can learn to access this on their own, but it requires much more work. (Translation: Most Clerics/Favored Souls/Paladins/Crusaders follow a warder/god, and access domains normally if there class grants domain*s, although there are rare exceptions who follow no warder). Being a follower of the divine is less like answering to an extra-planar boss at the top of your organization, and more like seeking to join the Red Cross (or a terrorist organization... or a non-profit that advances scientific research without regard to practical applications...) and being told "Great, here is the keys to the warehouse of supplies, we can't be bothered to pay you, so just sell some off to get whatever cash you can... and you all are going to have to police yourselves for the most part, although we will know about any misuses of certain types... feel free to tell us if you see on of your colleges misusing their power and we will consider invalidating their key-card, or even having the next rocket launcher they pick up explode in their face as soon as they get away from the warehouse."... by this analogy, class level would be how big of a truck one owns to pick up the supplies.

*Some of the very most Chaotic might seek to invent new laws of physics and impose them but most just limit themselves to such relatively minor changes as causing the strength and direction of gravity to suddenly alter, or making all mammals suddenly grow parasitic lobsters scaled to their frames out of their ears. In either case, the others generally move to stop them when they try to act outside their own home planes.

Afterlives
There are afterlives, and it is possible to plane shift to some parts of them. HOWEVER, there is no empirical proof that everyone goes to one of those. The Good warders tend to claim that there is one or more afterlives that AREN'T those that most people go to, but are silent on anything more than that (cf Real World Religions for possibilities here). Some of the neutrals and evils agree with this, while some claim the standard D&D afterlives (getting turned into the least of evil outsiders or whatever) exist.

For a few lucky and unlucky individuals, this is not the case. Note that in most or all of these cases, full memories and class levels are retained.
1.) If you are sacrificed to fuel an Evil ritual you can end up in one of the "hells" that it is actually possible to plane-shift to ("prison-camp liberations" by high-level Good adventurers are very much "a thing").
2.) Similarly, if you are killed on an altar of Good for your crimes then it doesn't generate nearly as much mystical energy, and it is considered "suspect" to do anything other than allow that energy to dissipate without effect. Regardless of if the energy gets used, such wrong-doers end up being tormented by outsiders created by the gods of Justice. "Liberation missions" by Evil groups are somewhat rarer in this case, but still happen.
3.) If you are especially beloved of a given god/warder, and die in an area where that warder has a strong influence (or especially in a "temple" of theirs) then you will end up in their accessible afterlife.

[Thomas Maltuin]

The role of democracy in this setting is to make the individuals of the nation inalienably responsible for the actions of their people. That way, when the offense is made, there can be no excuse made to point blame at others as the events would have been their own decision, but those who chose not to back the governing body or the masses who chose the offending path would be exempt from punishment as it would clearly not be their fault. (I assume this would be where the interrogation or mind reading would come into play, a means of determining who back the offenders and who withdrew.)