Setting Design: Earldom of Confidences

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Dec 13, 2019 2:41 am

This is a rough draft. I'm curious as to what should be modified to improve upon this setting.

Additional question - I want the artifact to have a destruction condition that requires several hours of being in one place somewhere on the same plane, and said condition is technically preventable through destruction; like the artifact must be soaked in a certain spring, and thus the condition can't be met if the spring is destroyed in some fashion. However, I want the Earldom to have chosen not to remove this condition, but I don't know what that would require.
Earldom Organization An authoritarian regime with a very strong panopticon. The government has an artifact that can bestow a mark upon a person. This mark has the following properties:
[*] Any one Tome fiend feat, ignoring every prerequisite but level
[*] A glowing rune in front of your forehead, it can only be covered with a bulky hood/helmet or straight-up illusion magic
[*] You act as a scrying sensor to the artifact, with full audio and visual anywhere from 10' to your own LoS; there is no visual effect if you are being actively used for scrying, though detect scrying will notice
[*] Telepathic bond to the artifact
[*] Removal of the mark is death, and can be revoked by a user of the artifact
[*] The mark is attached to your soul, so it will follow you through resurrection

Becoming a Citizen is like applying to the government, and they even offer a pension, though you are forever one of the eyes and ears for the Earldom.

The ruling body of the Earldom is the Directorate, consisting of four Confidences that individually control a branch of the government; said branch as a whole is itself also called a Confidence. Blanks will have never seen a Confidence, and even Citizens don't get to truly meet a Confidence.

A Citizen is the lowest level, but if they’re not personally exceptional in their Confidence’s jurisdiction, then they’re at least good at managing Blanks who are. Next up the chain of command is a Thane, who organizes/manages some number of Citizens within a geographic region. Above the Thane is a Masque, who is the public face of their Confidence and essentially second-in-command.

[*]Confidence of the Land Manages production and distribution of food, and the one the village deals with for the most part due to its industry. Rumours persist that the Masque of the Land is a fey queen.
[*]Confidence of the Hand Took over the crafting guilds, but also controls the banks and other aspects of commerce. Citizens tend to be foremen or tax-collectors, and rumour is that the Confidence is a dragon.
[*]Confidence of the Fist The military, Blank conscripts are used for basic guard duty when necessary, and Citizens are either be squad/police commanders or part of specialized strike teams (eg. adventuring parties). A lot of the more monstrous sapients are part of this Confidence, and they get the more flashy powers with their mark - a centaur with four arms, a halfling who gets to be 20' tall, etc.
[*]Confidence of the Mind You’d interpret this as the Ministry of Truth, but it’s essentially the branch that manages the scholars, artists, diplomats, investigators, and clergy. Citizens act much like Men in Black. Simply knowing why lead is a controlled substance will get a Citizen of the Mind occasionally keeping tabs on you. They’re the only ones known to ever practice hiding their mark, which normally requires either very bulky helmets/hoods or illusion magic. They clash with the Hand and Fist over jurisdiction. They're the spookiest, and a couple feel like the Masque is a vampire or something, from how creepy they are in aesthetic.

Executions are decided behind closed doors, usually followed by an announcement made by a Citizen of the Mind (eg. town crier). If it’s a Blank, typically they are dragged out into the public square and a Letterhead with one of the more aggressive marks then executes them (breath stealing, acid spines, etc). Citizens aren’t generally executed in public, but instead just spontaneously die as their mark consumes them (some say it’s like a screeching bale fire, others think they kind of...shut off)

The gov't has developed a suite of various magical effects and items that interface with the artifact. It allows for recording functions, the ability to view/operate multiple different scrying sensors and telepathic communications, etc. Full access to such is too difficult to manage with one person, and so the artifact requires a minimum of four people to "man" it, which was the foundation of the four Confidences.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Fri Dec 13, 2019 2:52 am

An earldom doesn't sound like it'd be a large area. Intended?

Possible reasons for the condition to be available - maybe there's a prophecy that the Earldom will last as long as the spring flows, or similar. Or maybe the condition is something like being submerged in the deepest well in the earldom; dig a deeper well and you can arrange this, but who knows how deep the Directorate has dug?

The Earldom doesn't sound like a nice place to visit, let alone a nice place to live. You'll need a solid reason for the PCs not to leave.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Fri Dec 13, 2019 3:16 am

I was intending the fact it's called an Earldom as a historical holdover, much like the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The use of Thane for a step above Citizen is for the same principle.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Fri Dec 13, 2019 11:35 pm

If we are ruling out the idea that the Earldom actually can't remove the condition even if it tried, I can think of two... no, three... well maybe two and a half reasons.

#1: if the original destruction condition is rendered impossible, the cosmos will simply remove its invulnerability to more tedious manual destruction.

#2: The thing that can destroy the artefact is a key asset in its own right. I was originally thinking that the artefact can't be operated without dipping it in the spring and the destruction ritual is to "overload" it; however this could be like how Sauron wanted to continue forging things in Mount Doom even after forging the One Ring.

Dogbert · Post by **Dogbert** » Sat Dec 14, 2019 2:31 am

Answer A:
The things to improve it would depend on what are the PCs supposed to be doing there.

Are they tourists? Are they citizens? From the outside, however, The Only Safe Move Is Not To Play. Sounds like a shittier Shadowrun where PCs are SINners by premise, and thus not very fun unless you're a shitty GM. Fantasy Paranoia.

Answer B:
Nuke it from high orbit.

Answer C:
Run it with Bearworld, then setting and system would be conductive with each other.