House Fugue

Summary and Plot Hooks

House Fugue is a house that originated in the Gaplands, but now is starting to expand into the North Coast and the Astrals. Their main industry is the mining of etherite, a mysterious substance that is usually used as a drug. As such, they tend to expand wherever veins of etherite lead, and their settlements tend to have mining as their core economic focus. Some time ago, House Fugue discovered that etherite could be used to control the weather, given a lengthy bathing ritual in a giant bath in the shape of the appropriate rune.

Recently, a rival NPC house was suspected to be planning a raid on House Fugue's etherite mines. House Fugue struck a deal with House Maa-talia, in which House Maa-talia would help overthrow the rival house, in exchange for knowledge on how to harness etherite's magical properties. The rival house was destroyed, but there are still remnants of their family left.

At one point in the past, House Fugue had a particularly fierce miner rebellion. The miners rioted due to the extremely dangerous conditions that etherite mining entailed. They ended up hiring mercenaries from Kraken Society in order to quell the rebellion.

House of Tamer has a strained relationship with House Fugue. Many of their people are addicted to etherite, and House Fugue's monopoly on the substance has stymied House of Tamer's efforts at controlling trade routes.

First off, going with Gaplands as my region.
0 -5 10 15 -15 10

After that, I first spend 20 points in order to zero out my negatives, so 130 points left.

0 0 10 15 0 10

I'll spend 10 on each one, leaving me with 70 points.

10 10 20 25 10 20

Going to try to get as much land as possible, since that's something that you can't get with wealth, leaving me with 40 points

10 10 50 25 10 20

Now I'll also make population as high as possible, leaving me with 10 points.

10 10 50 55 10 20

The rest goes into wealth until I find a use for it.

10 10 50 55 10 30

Going to make some history now.

Seven events, time to roll em up.

A bit of a mixed bag.

Disease lowers my population and wealth.
10 10 50 52 10 27

Decay lowers my status and wealth.
10 7 50 52 10 24

Rebellion lowers my defense and population.
7 7 50 49 10 24

Ascent gives me +1d8 to three stats. Cool. I choose land, population, and wealth.
7 7 52 54 10 31

Descent lowers my Land and Power.
7 7 49 54 7 31

Victory gives me +1d4 to three stats. I choose the same stats as before.
7 7 53 55 7 32

And finally, Glory gives me +1d6 to three stats. Guess where I'm putting them.

7 7 57 56 7 35

That is a very... specialized? house. XD

Honestly, I'm curious how such a house would play. My general idea of the house is that it specializes in domestic development rather than military conquest. If you want me to reallocate some stats, I'll comply.

No no, go for what you want to do. If you get tired of it, you can just abandon the house and reroll a new one.

Cool, now I need to map out 57 cells.

House Fugue starts in the middle of the Gaplands. Turned out to be smaller than I expected, especially with how land is harder to gain than other resources.

Wow, that's 57 cells! Yeah much smaller than I imagined too

I have a feeling it's going to be pretty difficult to expand enough so houses border each other. I might end up redrawing the line somewhere more interesting just so I'm not in the middle of nowhere. I think something that would help is if the cell sizes were larger and less dense, it would make it easier to expand in a meaningful way, considering that gaining land is done through small increments.

That's 57 cells. I have 19 for my house, split between the Astrals and Crown Lands.
I don't have much space available xD

I'm sort of forward-proofing this as well, in case more players join up. BUT for now, we could count 2 cells as one land.

I see the point about forward proofing. Nice, time to count 114 cells.

Oh, and as for my house history, it's a house who sells a rare and valuable gem called etherite. In the distant past, House Fugue discovered the existence of etherite before anybody else. They quietly acquired land that was on top of the massive etherite veins running through the continent, and ran etherite mines in secret. When they were ready, House Fugue began to sell their etherite on the market.

As for the properties of etherite, it's salt that's iridescently colored, and exudes a very pleasant smell when dissolved in water. Not much else is known about the substance. Some will attest to etherite's ability to bestow significant increases to a person's physical and mental capabilities when consumed, but research is ongoing on the subject.

The current members of House Fugue are as follows:
Erik Fugue, head of the house, 40
Claude Fugue, first son, 19
Maria Fugue, first daughter, 16
Terry Fugue, adopted son, 10

Fantasy salt lamps? :D

Maybe bath salts, but they're "performance enchancing" drugs as well.

New boundaries. The idea is that they're following the veins of etherite that are flowing through the continent.

I didn't see your new borders until I selected some. I selected 4 cells in the corner at the border of Gaplands and Astrals with the idea it is a port and trading post given my house is a trading empire. I'm happy to remove them and go somewhere else, but you probably need a way to get etherite out to the world, so it might make sense for me to be there and you can expand by 4 more. What do you think?

Here's an idea, what the land was owned by me, but our houses came to an agreement where you could put up your ports there? It'll be a connection between our houses right off the bat for some more complex RP.

That's fine with me. Should we just establish that narratively? Although, I sort of like the idea of representing it mechanically somehow.

I've got an idea but let me know what you think and falconloft would need to approve. The land is control by both of us and is subtracted from our land stat but adds to our wealth stat. We can negotiate how big we want the port to be. For example, we decide 4 cells, then we both decrease our land by 2 and increase our wealth by 2. So you'll control 114 cells but have a land stat for other calculations equal to 55. I'll have 40 land + 4 adjacent water cells (which effectively doesn't do anything just for representation) so i have an effective land power equal to 20 instead of 22. And we both get +2 wealth. As the land owner, you'll have full control of closing the port, at which point we both lose the appropriate wealth. You'd gain the land and cells back, I'd just gain the land back but have to expand to new cells elsewhere if I choose to. This would mean you can't be attacked through the port, at least no more easily than through an other coastal cell.

Or that's way too complicated and we can just keep it narrative😂
I'm happy to do it either way, I just like linking the narrative to the mechanics when possible.

Honestly, I didn't get my head around most of that. How about we just do it narratively.

Simple summary is the port allows us to trade to trade land for wealth. But does make for more bookkeeping, so I'm happy to do it narratively.

I think the best idea is just to agree on the CURRENT borders, set that up narratively, and then if that leaves someone needing more land, let them pick it wherever they want.

Okay, I've updated my land to fit with House Fugue and we can deal with trading and transport of etherite narratively.

How long ago do you think we established our relationship? Both our final historical events are victory, so it could be related to that and be a relatively recent endeavor, or we could link it to your Ascent and my third Glory, which are both midway thru our histories and would suggest it has been a long standing relationship.

I like it being recent, since it can lead into the relationship being unsteady in it's newness. With the victory, maybe it could be that we allied against some outside force, and one of the conditions of the teamup was the port situation. Once the victory was won, then the alliance begins to grow weaker and more uncertain.

Sounds good. Let's look around for someone who has a recent event "bad" event because they could be who we were teaming up against, or if no one has that we can make up an NPC house.

One possiblity: Revelos history ends in scandal and my relationship with them is bad because of a disease outbreak that we both blame each other for in the previous event. Maybe that escalated to full on conflict but I have really weak Power, so I needed help. You agree to send reinforcements to repel Revelos in return I ship etherite to your customers. We'll need RoAries to help brainstorm why that's a "Scandal" but that's the only "bad" event that I came across in recent history so far.

Definitely open to other ideas.

Hmm, that doesn't seem right, considering that my power is lower than yours, and I'm mostly an industrial house. Also, I'm thinking that House Maa-Talia would be the one asking to setting up the port, since while House Fugue could, and probably has, their own ports, House Maa-Talia can't get etherite without getting it from House Fugue.

How about this, we worked together to dig up dirt on House Revelos, with House Fugue initiating the deal. House Fugue suspects that House Revelos is planning a raid on their etherite mines. Being a politically low profile house, House Fugue needs House Maa-Talia's higher status in order to run effective espionage, and eventually sabotage. In exchange, House Maa-Talia asks for the right to set up port next to House Fugue, and to get etherite at a discount.

The efforts of the alliance unexpectedly ended up uncovering a scandal of which RoAries can probably decide on. In order to stymie House Revelos' growth, the information about the scandal was leaked to the public.

I meant that I have low power compared to Revelos, not compared to you, but you have the biggest population and therefore highest number of military dice, so you could supply reinforcements. However, I agree with you I don't think my initial idea fits very well for a bunch of reasons. Especially given the mechanics, Revelos's higher power is insignificant and I actually have higher population than Revelos so if anything I might have a slight military advantage. Also, I don't think it fits the theme of "Scandal."

I also agree we should scrap the whole ports thing. Anyone who has coastal land probably has ports of some sort. I think what Maa-Talia offers narratively is efficient/high volume trade routes and market access with the trust of clients, which is reflected by land in various regions and a high status and wealth. This might be of interest to Fugue to help increase the volume/profit of their etherite trade and getting it to certain markets, particularly high profile markets, but might not be what you're looking for here.

I like your idea of my high status, representing access to information/leverage, in return for discounted etherite. I need to come up with an idea why Maa-Talia would want it. Just to make a profit is okay, that's definitely a theme of Maa-Talia, but sort of boring too. Maybe Maa-Talia have discovered that etherite helps a user see/predict weather patterns during the drug-induced experience, so they can way find along their trade routes better. I guess that's a bit like The Guild and Spice in Dune, but might be cool. Leaves a ton of hooks for later too. Maybe its addictive, so all the navigators get dependent. Or long-term exposure leads to weird side effects later. Maybe its purely recreational and Maa-Talia gets the high societies in the Crown Lands hooked. Any thoughts or input?

I was reading over Revelos's thread and it looks like they might already have ideas about what their Scandal means, so you might need to come up with someone else in your plot. You could suggest an NPC House to Falconloft. I'll let you work that out with RoAries, Falconloft or whoever. Regardless who it is, Maa-Talia probably has leverage over them politically and so helped orchestrate the plot with you in return for the etherite.

One of the ideas I had for the etherite was that, in proper mixtures, it becomes a steroid of sorts. I like the weather predicting capability, it's more interesting than what I had in mind at first. How about we just ramp that up to actually controlling the weather? That way, etherite is more than a really nice looking bath salt, and all the houses might be interested in it, at least if they knew about it.

As for the scandal, probably need to make up an NPC house, perhaps one that's already disbanded as a result of our efforts.

Weather control is a great idea. I haven't really added much magic to my story line yet, so this is a great opportunity! The importance of weather control can generalize to other houses too for things like agriculture or maybe even to use as a weapon or blockade/seige tactic. But i still like the idea of the method of use being bath salts or vapourized in saunas to trigger psychdelic trips and surreal out of body experiences. Turns out the users minds are temporarily becoming elements of the weather. So if done right the user can actually control the weather. This is not generally known, so it's pretty much used as a recreational drug for the rich, but Fugue has discovered what's really going on. Fugue is not offering Maa-Talia a discount on etherite, but the secret of what's actually happening during an etherite trip and how to use it. Long-term side effects like addiction, strange symptoms, etc. provide even more hooks. They can be revealed later in the game as interesting twists for any houses that start using etherite heavily ... Maa-Talia certainly will.

I definitely like the idea that our plot takes down another house. Offers hooks for revenge against either of us in the future. I think the house is a major industrial power that offers a serious threat to your operation. Maybe they are a major mining house and already control the market for other gems/metals, so if they were to get into etherite they'd have the potential to out compete you. But our plot destroys them, leaving Fugue with the monopoly on etherite for the near future. Just a thought, totally up to you.

That all sounds pretty good to me.

I don't know if I like the idea of some drug that makes the user able to control the weather. That seems more high-magic and weird to me than I pictured the setting. Not going to stop you from doing that though if you both like that idea

Really? I feel like influencing an already natural phenomenon is on the lower side of magic. Also, I don't think it's as simple as popping a pill and gain full control over the global climate. Definitely nothing world breaking. I'm imagining a slow guided drug-induced meditation that influences an element of the weather very locally, or slightly influences whole weather patterns that already exist. Like increasing the wind speed on a calm day, calming winds on a stormy day, break in the clouds if sun is needed, rain during a drought, or steering an existing storm off it's path. Maybe at it's most powerful directing a lightning bolt in a storm as a weapon, but that's not really more magical than a magic missile, in fact it's much less because you need to schedule a whole spa day to do it 😉

But I'm definitely open to input on this and happy to change if the general consensus is that this is high magic.

You could add severe secondary effects that makes the user think twice before using those effects, limiting the number of people using it like this. Something like organ failure that could easily lead to death.

Just checking out some of the other threads. I think weather control is on the lower side of magic compared to opening portals to other worlds to summon demons 😱

To me, just the fact that there's some drug going around that anyone can take and gain large magical powers if they practice a bit (even if the actual control about the weather is limited) already puts it into high-magic.

I think we just need to establish a baseline for this setting because I imagined this setting as very grounded so suddenly having weather control pills and demons and parallel universes or whatever is throwing me off a bit xD

Agreed. That also was pretty unexpected...

Those things are fine I guess but we need to establish the magic level of this world because I think we all have different ideas in our heads at the moment

How about it's more of a ritualistic magic, that takes days of soaking and meditation to do. Most people who partake in etherite bathing would find it to be simply relaxing, since they only soak for a relatively short amount of time, thus meaning common people probably wouldn't have the time to soak long enough to trip hard enough to influence/predict the weather. Sort of like how shamans trip out and have prophetic visions.

Those a good suggestions, I added it to the OCC discussion.

Etherite is probably related to runic magic somehow, if you need to connect it to a magic type. People who use without scribing a rune are just going to get a nice experience. Taking some of it and scribing a rune probably makes the rune stronger or something like that. Also, the veins you're following are probably like.... an inch wide.

I'm rethinking my history (with the help of random barbarian name generator :D) and there is one house tie I'm missing..
I'm thinking that I may have build an antagonistic relationship (still far from open aggression!) with house fugue as I'm trying to control some trade routes and these guys just seem to have cornered the market (or control major regions/routes) because they have exclusive access to that bloody thing that is getting the barbarians addicted. Maybe something along the lines of the opium wars?

Ooh, I like that. Kind of a growing tension as the exploitation goes on.

Also, each etherite vein may only be an inch wide, but I'll counter with my idea that they're a dense network of veins, like in the picture below.

The main idea is that it's hard to come by. There's a reason it's valuable. It should be rare.

Not necessarily. Salt is an abundant resource. The reason it was valuable long ago was because of high demand, and the fact that extracting and transporting salt was difficult.

I'm not going to imply that etherite is even close to salt's usefulness and demand, but I could emphasize the dangers of trying to mine a resource that's honestly not well understood, and with known psychogenic effects.

Also, House Fugue has a pretty strong hold on the etherite market, since no other house as of yet has been mining it. All etherite on the market comes from House Fugue's mines.

That I don't have a problem with, but if it's going to have any kind of magical effect, it either needs to be 1) very rare, or 2) take an awful lot of it to do anything. I'm fine with either of those.

I'm fine with the second one. What I was thinking with the ritual was that the bath itself would be dug out in the shape of a giant rune. Not only would it take a lot of resources, it'll take a lot of time to actually set up the specific rune for the task. Does that sound good?

Did you need to hire some mercenaries to help quell your rebellion ? You could have hired Kraken Society to help you...

Yeah, Saevikas, that seems good to me. I'm not going to be TOO picky. A lot of the flavor is going to be up to you; I'm just concerned with having the flavor match the mechanics.

Sounds good Deadpool. House Fugue hired some of House Kraken's mercs in order to quell a particularly persistent miner's rebellion.

Damn, I'm too late. One of my events is helping another house against a peasant revolution. Could have worked perfectly as a connection

A messenger is sent to Fugue...

To the head of House Fugue,
The Kraken Society invites you to an important meeting in Larimar concerning the future of the ship repair business.
Kraken's best troops will be there to assure your security during your stay, but feel free to bring your own if you feel the need.