Azazeal's archive

[Azazeal849]

You guys are the bane of my free time, but I'll see what I can do.

[Azazeal849]

BUSINESS IS WAR

As per the requests on the previous page, I have put together a few thoughts on the very first RP I ran on this site, detailing some of its major NPCs. I haven't got round to editing the IC posts of Business into a readable novel yet (to my shame) but the original story thread can be found here.

I should probably take a moment to explain the central theme of my story, as a lot of the NPC characterisation grows from it. Business was a very dark RP, characterised more by slivers of hope than true happy endings. With such a pessimistic RP, what would be left to root for? I chose the value of human life, and a blog entry on my thought process can be found here.

I took a very conscious approach to this theme by humanising every character I could, including the villains, and especially the regular guards and mooks who would normally be just shot and forgotten about by the players. I didn't want any death to seem trivial, and even those of the worst characters would have to struggle for justification. Of course, I didn't tell the players this until I began writing their first fight scene. Thus, I started the players off with a blank slate to commit mayhem, and then rammed the actual consequences down their throats (even during the initial phase of the story where their characters were essentially under mind control - I hoped that this would create a suitable sense of horror and resentment).

This approach of guilting my players ala Spec Ops: The Line might not have been particularly fair, but it did occasionally have surprising consequences. One player, for example, complained "Oh great, now my character has to kill a woman." I was pleased to see such discussion being generated, although I did feel compelled to ask him why he thought killing an innocent woman was any more or less heinous than killing an innocent man. Meanwhile, the illustrious PaintSerf (who has been a solid contributor to almost all of my RPs) told me later that he made a complete U-turn in his character, changing his planned arc from that of an ice-cold psychopath into one of the most sympathetic characters in the story.

In the end I was very pleased with how the players responded to my intended moral, with several running with it to produce great character studies, and one completely disregarding it to create one of the scariest antagonists I have ever seen.

Spoiler: Chief Executive Marco Xenakis 

"Now really isn't a time for half measures."



Xenakis was the CEO of EuroCorp's energy division, an ex-mafia boss of the Neapolitan comorra, and the story's primary antagonist.

The original Syndicate game ran on the satirical premise of the world's big businesses being run by criminals. I've included as many nods to the original game as I could (including a joke regarding the persuadertron - which appears, but the character who suggests naming it as such immediately gets shot down in favour of something less silly) but this is the main one. In a way, the premise makes a twisted kind of sense. With mass privatisation essentially encouraging and rewarding greed, and with deregulation stopping governments from acting except to bail out companies which are "too big to fail" (whether that means letting them get away with incompetence or with bald-faced criminal behaviour) it does almost seem like the logical extreme of modern neo-liberalism.

A massive influence on Business, and on Xenakis in particular, was Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano - an in-depth look at the Italian comorra clans (who are much like the better-known mafia, but are based mostly in Naples instead of Sicily). One point the book made was that comorra bosses would indeed make good CEOs. They are intelligent and effective businessmen; they just don't let the law, morals or human decency get in the way of results. Xenakis is this philosophy embodied at the helm of a powerful corporation with its own hit squad of cyborg assassins. However, unlike the syndicates in the original game he is not omnipotent. There is a ray of hope in that politicians with enough courage could still defeat the corporate lobbyists, the controlled media and the corrupt judges, and dismantle EuroCorp - a corporation, at the end of the day, cannot stand up to a government (with an army!) if the latter refuse to be bribed. As such, one of the syndicates' main concerns in Business is keeping their more brazen criminal activities out of the spotlight.

I pretty much set Xenakis up as morally bankrupt from the get-go, opening the story with him having a subordinate shot and ordering the PCs be conscripted for a new batch of agents, but I was a bit worried by how little time he spent "on camera". He was explicitly mentioned as being behind the civilian casualties that kicked off the EuroCorp-Sonbushi mob war, but as this happened mostly offscreen I didn't feel that it was enough. I attempted to rectify this towards the end, making sure he portrayed all of the brutality and ruthless self-interest of the bosses in Gomorrah - and I hated him for it. Even with my RP's main theme being the value of human life, I couldn't resist giving Xenakis one of the most graphic and humiliating deaths of the story.

Trivia: I have done a major disservice to one of my good work friends, by giving the book's main villain his surname (the only connection is that I was casting about for a Greek name, as I envisioned the CEO as Greek-Italian). If he reads this, I hope he will forgive me.

Spoiler: Executive Alex Starikov and Jr Executive Vladimir Dobrynin 

"If Marco Xenakis wants a blood war, then by God we'll give him one."



These two guys represent the Tao syndicate, which in the original game controlled most of Asia through the front of a corporation called Sonbushi. In the moral scale of the story's villains they stand somewhere in the middle - perhaps not as bad as Xenakis; perhaps worse than some of the minor character executives (who turn a blind eye to the agent program and its fallout, but occasionally call out their superiors). Although both men show the same ruthlessness in their actions, not to mention the same callous disregard for the humanity of their agents, between themselves they are far more affable. Starikov forgives Dobrynin with a smile after a failed mission (in direct contrast to Xenakis, who had his operator executed - although admittedly the stakes were different), and Dobrynin is in a functional and loving relationship, talking about taking his girlfriend out for dinner once their business is concluded. The death of Dobrynin, and of his girlfriend, are a large factor in Starikov declaring war on Xenakis and EuroCorp. Even then, he is horrified by the massacre perpetrated by a rogue agent in the story's climax, even if most of it is driven by the realisation that he might be held responsible.

These little shows of humanity were intentional. I gave both men redeeming features because for me it was important to make them seem "real". Small humanisations make the darker sides of a character stand out even more, because they remind you that real people could do these terrible things - and it's a sad fact that real people sometimes do. Small redeeming qualities hopefully also stop you from simply dismissing their deaths when they happen - in spite of their evil actions - which fits in with the main theme of the story.

Trivia: Starikov's offhand line about having an informant killed and then disposed of in a burning car is lifted straight out of a phone call recorded in Gomorrah. One of the most shocking things about that book was the accounts of how crime bosses could discuss torture and murder in completely conversational tones - business as usual.

Spoiler: Researcher Lisa Asari 

"They're controlling you. They're controlling everyone."



Lisa was a British-Indian EuroCorp scientist specialising in CHIP design, who defected after deciding she wanted no part in a technology that straddled a line between gadget and dangerous drug. I imagine her as speaking with a Leicester accent, although in the story I simply described it as "British" to avoid confusing people.

Lisa is an idealist confronted by reality. Although her intentions are good, her initial attempts to go it alone fail and she comes to believe that the only viable way to execute her plan of freeing the world from the syndicates and their CHIP control is to make a deal with the devil. It's an interesting question - how far is it permissible to go when systemic changes are necessary, and what changes are actually needed (or rather, what changes would actually be effective?). It's not my intention in Business to preach an answer to the reader - more to provoke them into making up their own mind. Lisa's heart is definitely in the right place, but she tries so hard to believe she can make a difference that she's willing to try even the worst and the most unlikely of her options. Admittedly those options are very limited, but she is still naive in that she doesn't see or doesn't want to see the potential consequences. Her passion is both her strength and her weakness. This was an important part of her character, and I fully expected the players to call her out on it, although it also served a secondary purpose of showing that there would be no quick fixes in this RP.

To Lisa's credit though, she must have learned something by the end of the story. At the end, she fought to dissuade another character (who seemed to think that he was in a more traditional overthrow-the-evil-empire plotline) from making the same mistakes that she had. This was partly to show Lisa's character growth, and partly because I was very consciously trying to subvert the idea that violence could be solved with even more violence (which would break the whole premise of the story). In the end, several of the characters had differing - and potentially valid - ideas about what to do next, and this is why I gave an ambiguous ending to the final scene where Lisa considers her next move. I leave the reader free to draw their own interpretation.

Trivia: I named Lisa after my girlfriend, although as with Xenakis it's possibly a disservice, as the real Lisa is far less naive than Asari. I made the character asian British instead of white British as a celebration of UK multiculturalism - something that I sincerely hope won't be damaged by the reactionary anti-immigration rhetoric that is being thrown about these days.

Spoiler: Executive Britta Engel 

"To stop the bloodshed? Whatever it takes."



Britta was one of the junior executives of EuroCorp, responsible for handling the PC agents, and her journey throughout the story somewhat mirrors that of the players. It is a sad fact that meaningful change only seems to happen in the wake of tragedy (even if people have been shouting warnings from the rooftops for years) and Britta's character arc follows this pattern.

As you can hopefully see from her profile picture, I conceived Britta as silk covering steel - the perfect controller to send the PC agents on their missions. However, there is a limit to how deep that steel runs. When I was first planning out the story, I was actually undecided whether Britta was going to implement real changes at the end, or simply be revealed as another Xenakis out to secure personal power. However, after one scene put her face to face with the human consequences of her work there was only one way to go without losing all faith in humanity, and this was cemented later on by the very personal loss of a family member. In the end, Britta was able to kid herself about the dirtier side of her job, and might even have fancied herself as another Xenakis, but she succumbs to human decency when confronted with the reality. This partial redemption is to her credit, and with Britta's afore-mentioned inner steel, there was at least a sliver of hope at the end of Business that she and the remaining PCs could change things for the better.

Britta is in some ways a counterpoint to Lisa, or at least to Lisa as she appears at the start of the story. She doesn't believe in quick fixes, and she knows the limits of her own power. This was my reason for subverting the sweeping changes that some readers might have been hoping for at the end, instead having Britta settle for the more realistic goal of a ceasefire between EuroCorp and Sonbushi. Nor did she go with Lisa's plan of scrapping the CHIPs (which were a form of subliminal manipulation, but also a drug-like escape from a bleak world that was embraced by a large percentage of the population) although she did attempt a compromise. This wasn't just a desire to preserve the status quo, but an awareness of how badly forcing people to kick an addiction all at once could have gone. Like most of the characters in Business, I will let the reader decide if she was right.

Trivia: A major part of Britta's "silk" persona was describing her as having a soft Stuttgart accent. The stereotype of German accents is "harsh", but the ones I have actually heard in person - especially those from the south of the country - are rather pleasant to listen to. Even if, as a Stuttgart-born friend once admitted to me, other Germans have trouble understanding their dialect!

[dakkagor]

I loved the characters and NPCs for Business is war. its clear you worked hard to make each one fit into a point on the moral scale between Black and White, with Xenakis being the worst by far. Its always good when you hate your villains, but its better when you can get your players to hate your villains. Xenakis's death was well deserved.

So, question on PC/NPC progression. Some PC's have alluded to it in Prophet in Silver. . .but do you think Marc would make a good Inquisitor? And if he did make the rank, what would be his style?

[Azazeal849]

It's interesting that you should ask that, because it's something I thought about and decided to explore in Prophet. Essentially, the essay from the intro sums it up:

Anyone can apply logic abstractly. Ask if it is right to let one man die when it is the only way to save ten, and any logical person will tell you that yes, it is. But what do they say when that one man is standing right in front of them? What do they do when they hear his children plead for their father's life? What if this one man is someone they know - a friend, a brother, a lover? Suddenly the arithmetic doesn't look so simple.

That is why most men will never be inquisitors.

Marc is loyal to people rather than to principles. People like Kelly, Kally and Vincent are his motivation and his moral compass. While he can be ruthless, he lacks the ability to be objective and impartial enough with that ruthlessness. Is this a strength, or a weakness, or both? I will hopefully get the chance to show you in Prophet and Penitence.

[Azazeal849]

I've been wanting to get this guy's inner workings down on paper for a while now...

MAGUS GAIUS OCTAVIUS

"I'll find out who did this to you. cousin. And I will make them scream."



Featured in: Eternum: Of Gods and Demons, Eternum: Blood of the Gods, Eternum: Rise of Kronos

Gaius is my study in self-destructive obsession. To punish the people who murdered his cousin and her children, he goes to more and more extreme lengths as the world conspires against him. While countless books and films will tell you that revenge is a great motivator, comparatively fewer will tell you how it eventually burns people up inside and damages both themselves and the people around them. It is clear, however, that it is a flaw that turns up over and over again in real life. The reasons for it are always unique and complicated, and so I knew from the start that I couldn't preach a clear-cut answer on the subject.

As such, I've deliberately tried to write Gaius as a character who can be interpreted sympathetically and unsympathetically - on the one hand, you might decide he does what he does because he fears his wife and son could be next, and note that he recognises the threat of a demon army and puts it before his own desires. On the other hand, you could say that the way he repeatedly abandons his family shows that they're just his self-deluding excuse for his actions rather than his reason, and point out that he ignores the suffering of both Southerners and his own people at various points in the story. Either way, the one thing that I wanted to make clear was that his pursuit of revenge only ever made things worse. In my experience, this is pretty much the truism regardless of how sympathetic one's reasons are.

It is definitely worth noting that almost every decision Gaius makes in the story turns out to be a mistake, and the reader often has the information at that point in the story to be aware of it. This generates some considerable dramatic irony, but the really telling mistakes are the ones Gaius makes consciously - going down the same route as a fallen predecessor, when that predecessor's mistake resulted in dozens of deaths. The chance of reaching his goal matters more to him than the potential consequences. This is where the "multiple interpretations" philosophy got difficult, as it was something of a battle trying to keep Gaius on the right side of sympathetic for the majority of the story (grounding his obsession in a desire to protect his son, for example, and almost immediately feeling sorry after having an unwarranted go at his wife). I'd be quite interested in finding out if and when other readers stopped rooting for him.

In retrospect, I have to say that Gaius' character study didn't work out as well as I had hoped. The main reason for this was the late curveballs that got thrown into his storyline (or rather, how quickly they followed each other). His overconfident repetition of his predecessor's mistakes in the first book played out relatively well, as did his unholy alliance with the demon-using queen of the South. The latter also introduced an unexpected sub-plot; a friendship with one of the queen's demon servants that challenged his perception of demons in general, and added a bit more depth to his otherwise one-track storyline. Shortly after, however, he was required to screw over his allies by sacrificing a pair of the queen's children to an unknown (but guessable) fate. This most likely destroyed his sympathy for some of the readers (or at least, did so a bit earlier than I had intended), as well as wasting the friendship subplot (and the accompanying dynamite revelation that said demon friend had - willingly or not - stolen his memories and used them to screw over his home empire). Aware of this, I tried to shift focus onto his ruthless and self-hating side. But shortly after that, it was revealed that the Satan of the setting had been manipulating him all along and was responsible for all the obstacles that drove him to his current fate. While suitably tragic, I couldn't help but feel that it undermined his original arc, as well as forcing me to switch his focus yet again to a broken and fatalistic outlook. While I would like to hear your views on how the story as written stands up under its own merits (and extra scenes in the final novel may yet improve it) I'm still not quite sure where I'm going to take his story from here.

Trivia: If I were to pick a song that captures Gaius' story throughout Eternum perfectly, it would definitely be Danse Macabre by The Agonist. One more reason to love those guys!

Spoiler: Gaius' profile 

Name: Gaius Octavius

Age: 42

Race: Namorian

Rank: Namorian patrician, former mage

Godly Parents: N/A

Appearance: Gaius is a man of average height and wiry build, with chiselled but slightly gaunt features. His skin is a typical Namorian olive and his hair is dark and curly, though cut short. He has intense, calculating eyes. He has been mutated by Kronos, who marks him as his pawn with a pair of stubby horns at his forehead, although Kronos has also gifted him with demon-like strength.

Personality: Though he loves his family and serves his empire, Gaius is a man of many flaws. His temper can be short, and he is determined to the point of ruthlessness and obsession. While he knows the dangers of his current actions, when pressed he will break almost any rule to achieve what he feels he must. A trained mage, he understands better than most the perils of demons, but that same understanding leaves him prone to overconfidence.

Background: Undermined by technological innovation, the power of the mages' guild in Namor has been waning for decades. Their prestige fell further when rumours surfaced of mages abandoning the empire to find work and influence in the rebel South. Gaius, a graduate of the guild himself, and his wife Seppia became a minor scandal in Emor when they sent their son Titus to study at that same guild. It was during Titus' studies that one of the guild's masters finally went too far, flooding the ancient tower with demons after attempting to harness their power for his own. Titus miraculously escaped, but Gaius and Seppia were left shaken.

Cousins with Decius Marcius through his aunt's marriage to Decius' father, Gaius enjoyed a close relationship with the family. He was more than willing to help his cousin's wife Lycinia investigate the fall of the mages' guild, and to aid them both in planning to defeat the many foes who now threatened the empire. The brutal murder of Lycinia and all three of her children, just a few short months afterwards, hit him hard. Outraged, and fearing that his own family could easily be next, Gaius swore to find and kill the murderers - even if the magic that would enable him to do so had been banned as a result of the guild's fall.

His hunt led him into a steady spiral of dark alliances and reprehensible acts, but his alliance and eventual betrayal of the demon-using Odinsen family only played into the hands of Kronos, who revealed his whole plan to Gaius before setting him free in Combrogia. Seemingly unable to defy Kronos' will whatever he tries, Gaius instead focused on the old enemy that had been placed right in front of him: Korzan's Avengers, his cousin's murderers.

Faction: Namorian empire (rogue)

Loves: Knowledge, power, and (his interpretation of) justice

Hates: Snow, demons, feeling powerless or manipulated

Weaponry / Armour Though Gaius carries no physical weapons, he can cast a formidable variety of offensive and defensive magic, and wears a protective amulet of Mars woven with additional defensive spells.

[Azazeal849]

I'm writing this one in anticipation of an old RP that's about to be revamped!

TRIBUTE REAP CORTES

"Don't look 'em in the eye, darlin'."



Featured in: Death of Korzan's Hunger Games - original, revamp (pending)

As an engineer, I love building things. RPs which offer "create-your-own" construction options therefore tend to catch my eye. I was very disappointed that Falling Skies folded before I could submit my idea for an AEWAC mobile suit, even though I usually have no interest in mecha stories. Perhaps it was a similar "create-your-own" skills template that drew me towards another franchise that I had never particularly thought about: The Hunger Games. This one was actually a double-whammy, as I don't often join explicitly player vs player RPs either - they can get VERY messy and argumentative - but in this case I knew the GM and trusted him to be able to pull it off (and a skill set to arbitrate the PVP element seemed like a promising start).

I had a pretty clear idea of the sort of character I wanted to create for this one. Having attempted a few "grey" characters who always seemed to diffuse towards the nicer end of the scale (they were never dicks to random strangers, for example) I wanted to create a character who was genuinely a bit of an abrasive jerk. Of course, I wanted to keep this within the bounds of relatability; someone whose motives would still make sense to the reader. I envisioned someone a bit selfish, relentlessly practical and determined to do what it takes to survive - the sort of person that the hard world of the Hunger Games universe might create, and someone who might realistically stand a chance if thrown into a fight-to-the-death scenario. The minutiae of his personality - his stubborn pride, his wariness of strangers, his hatred of defeatism and his ugly smile - fell into place with surprising ease after that. I also had a clear idea of what I wanted his skill-set to be: a bow seemed like a good investment when most people would be limited to hand-to-hand, so most of his points went into unlocking this weapon and giving him enough speed to keep people at range, with the rest scattered around general survival skills. A bit of poacher backstory to justify his skill-set, and a name that fitted District 11's running agricultural theme, and Reap was good to go. (It was only some time after I made the character that I realised that my abrasive, survivalist, bow-armed poacher bore an embarrassing resemblance to the original Katniss. Hopefully my explanation above gives me something resembling a get-out clause.)

I've had a bit of fun bouncing Reap off DoK's colourful NPCs (including my attempt at interpreting the canon characters Chaff and Seeder), but Reap's main interactions so far have been with his chatty, sensitive fellow tribute Thames. I don't know if the GM crafted her before or after I submitted Reap, but happy coincidence or not, writing her scenes with Reap is both difficult and awesome. Awesome because they are such great contrasts. Difficult because Thames is so relentlessly sweet, and I have to consciously suppress my own reactions to her in favour of Reap's. Watching him brush her off when she's obviously looking to him for support is like watching someone kicking a puppy. On the other hand, given that I'm trying to write Reap as practical and stranger-wary rather than an outright dick, he has moments of empathy for her and so chances are high that he'll thaw out at some point. Without wanting to metagame, it would certainly be in his interests so do so because she's probably the game's best potential medic.

At present, like most normal human beings, Reap doesn't feel like he has it in him to kill anybody. No doubt, if he lives long enough, he will find out how shockingly easy it actually is. I am going to leave it up to future events to decide how he reacts to that, as I suspect that a lot of it will depend on the circumstances and the allies (if any) he has around him at the time.

Trivia: My original thought for the character's name was "Reaper", but I shortened it to stop him from sounding implausibly badass. Not that Reap himself won't probably take advantage of the similarity to garner some fan support.

Spoiler: Reap's profile 

Name: Reap Cortes
Age: 17
Gender: Male
District: 11

Description: Reap is of latino stock, with roughly-cut black hair, deep olive skin and brown eyes underneath thick eyebrows. He tries to stay cleanshaven - more out of annoyance than anything, because his facial hair tends to come through patchy and wispy. He is not tall, a poorly-balanced childhood diet having stunted his growth somewhat, but he is noticeably muscular. His back and shoulders are a mess of criss-crossing scar tissue.

Background: Reap grew up in a shanty town near the border of Districts 11 and 10, and like the rest of his family he did what he could to get by on the plantations. The Games is as good as a death sentence to District 11's malnourished, uneducated workers, and so Reap's parents refused to let him and his younger siblings accept the Tesserae. Instead they resorted to stealing from the rich crop plantations. Reap was caught twice by the overseers, and publically flogged. While Reap's mother attempted to grow vegetables on the small plot of common land given to the workers, his father used the communal rest days to sneak across the border into District 10 and poach sheep and other livestock. He started to take Reap with him after he turned 15. It was dangerous work but Reap became quite good at it, learning to shoot using his father's bow. One month ago Reap's father broke his leg falling from an orchard ladder, and so Reap had to take up the duty alone. On his last foray however his luck ran out, and he was caught on his way back by the overseers. His repeat offences - now combined with violating the District borders - would have added up to a death penalty, but with the Games approaching the Peacekeepers had a better idea. Reap was given an unenviable choice: execution, or volunteering as Tribute.

Spoiler: Skill-set 

Strength: 4 - from outdoor labouring, and with arm and back musculature built up over time through archery.

Agility: 5 - he is a decent shot with his bow, and a lifetime of sneaking around trying to steal things have made sure that his reflexes are good.

Intelligence: 1 - being from District 11, he received almost no formal education, and doesn't have the scientific grounding to quickly understand unfamiliar items.

Tracking: 3 - learned from his dad.

Climbing: 0 - no real experience; there wasn't much opportunity for rock-climbing in his farmland home, and poachers don't generally operate in trees.

Building: 0 - the deep south being quite warm in summer, he normally just made do with sleeping rough when out poaching.

Cardio: 4 - he is necessarily quite fit, for both his normal work and his less legal activities.

Vigilance: 3 - he learned very quickly that a poacher needs to be both quiet and alert to danger.

Survival Skills: 3 - working on (and stealing from) agricultural land ha given him a fair idea of what's edible and what's not; he also knows how to safely deal with pests such as the Tracker Jackers which are common in District 11.

Conditioning: 0 - although he is familiar with hunger, his active lifestyle and high teenage metabolism don't optimise him for going for long periods without food.

Resistance: 0 - stolen food has stopped him from becoming malnourished or sickly, but that hardly means he's immune to disease and poison.

Crafting: 2 - he has improvised a few basic tools before on his poaching trips.

Weapons Experience: Hunting knife (though as more of a utility tool than a weapon), bow.

[Azazeal849]

Dropped off the front page? I must try harder. By the way, if anyone has specific requests just let me know.

LORD ABHINAV KOL

"I think I may have a solution, lord governor..."



Featured in: The Hands We're Dealt

As I mentioned above, I do love the odd construction-based RP, and Jarms' Civilisation-style game Hands captured my interest, particularly after learning that we would have to scheme and negotiate to agree on the way forward. Now I (and apparently most of the other players too) realised fairly quickly that meta-gaming to an agreement with the best possible options would be efficient but not particularly interesting, and so I created Kol with this in mind. The "disdainful of military types and does not understand warfare" part of his personality was designed specifically to generate conflict with one of the other characters, but after this proved relatively unproductive (a war hasn't turned up...yet) I decided to focus instead on his motivation for power as the scion of an established trader house. Thus Kol the competent but specialised agri minister began to morph into Kol the self-serving opportunist, which hopefully makes sense IC for a politician steadily growing more cocksure and ambitious as his influence in the government grows.

I decided to be a dick and have Kol as often as possible suggest sound and logical plans, but at every turn drive home in the supplementary text that he was doing so mainly for his own gain, or to protect his own image. The fact that I had decided earlier on to play Kol with an unfailingly polite, affable attitude (of questionable veracity) dovetailed with this nicely, turning him into the quintessential smiling assassin. I hoped that this would cause some characters to either shy away from the soundest plans (making the choices of the game harder or more interesting) or else generate resentment at playing into Kol's hands (which might lead to interesting conflict later on).

On the other hand, one or two of the more realpolitik-minded characters actually saw Kol as a useful ally, albeit an unsavoury one. This was probably because I didn't want to play Kol as an overt bastard, and so I was careful to make sure that he followed through with his promises and supported his ally's goals - provided he could gain something by doing so. Kol could be quite despicable enough as a ruthless businessman without being a backstabbing stock villain. In this he probably falls somewhere between two of my other shady characters: the reliable if self-interested senator Agrippa (from Eternum), and the completely ruthless prick Xenakis (from Business Is War).

I do take an interest in real-world politics (which have come up several times in the Hands OOC, in fact), and although Kol embodies a lot of the things I hate about the business - blatant spindoctoring, undue corporate influence - I can't deny that he has been fun to write.

Trivia: He is, of course, named after the Kol class battleship from Sins of a Solar Empire. See how many other Sins references you can find in my RPs - particularly The Lesser Evil and Dakkagor's Wreckage.

Spoiler: Abhinav's profile 

Name: Abhinav Kol
Age: 48 (a vain man, he has been receiving juvenat treatment since 25)
Sex: Male
Role: Minister of Agriculture

Background: The son of an inter-sector agri trader heavily involved in the development of new colonies, it was mostly his mother's influence that got him the job in the Sarus ministry. Still, he at least seems to have picked up a certain knowledge of the agri industry, planetary development and fostering co-operation from locals. He gained some recognition in the council for his early work, and quickly leveraged this influence to reveal an ambitious opportunism. His family business has provided a useful offworld trade contact, though his fellow councillors would be right to suspect that a certain conflict of interest is involved. Every policy he draws up to benefit Sarus also seems to benefit himself in some way.

Kol is a master of PR and has a talent for improvisation, and seeks to set himself up as a friend and mediator to as many powerful groups as possible - the people of Sarus, and potentially beneficial government institutions such as the trade ministry, the Imperial Church and the adeptus mechanicus. While a competent political animal, Kol has disdain for military types, and an unwillingness to learn otherwise makes him somewhat naive about military matters.

Spoiler: Abhinav's retinue 

Chartered trader Sanvi Kol: The minister's cousin, captain of the bulk trader Numenia. Kol admired her as a shrewd businesswoman. She was presumed dead, along with the rest of the Numenia's crew, when the Sarusian trade fleet disappeared in the warp, one year prior to the Ork-Sarus war.

Forewoman Anastasia Valk: Overseer of the Denarii Forest Garden project and one of Kol's staunchest supporters among the Sarus agri sector's upper class. Kol attempted to have her elected planetary labour representative, but she narrowly lost to Reynard Giacomenni. An ivory-skinned, dagger-eyed woman with a tendency towards hot-headedness.

Lex Adept Anisha Kumar: One of Kol's premier council assistants, an expert in trade legislation as well as local Sarusian law. A gracefully aged woman with deep brown skin and wire-frame spectacles.

Savant Mandira Singh: A chipper young woman who has been augmented to serve as Kol's accountant and budget planner. Tan-skinned and shaven-headed, with a collection of winking interface cables trailing from her scalp.

Procurator Julius Ramzan: Another of Kol's aides; a pale, bearded young man with a sober demeanour who manages forward planning for the Sarusian agri sector.

Lady Avani Kol: Abhinav's older sister of two years, who headed the Kols' news distribution enterprises before handing over the directorship in 608.M41, so as to handle a new client's business contacts in the Ixaniad sector. A small but formidable woman, she is of the opinion that Abhinav wasted his time on Sarus courting the wrong people. Her son Jagdesh works as head political correspondent on Tephaine, the capital of the Adrantis subsector.

Spoiler: The Hands We're Dealt: Epilogue 

[*Adeptus Administratum;*]
[*Planetary Request; Sarus*]
[*Segmentum Request; Tempestus*]
[*Planetary Classification; Civilized*]
[*Filter Request; "Kol"*]

... Loading Adeptus Administratum Request.
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+++ Political Analysis: House Kol in the First Decade after the Ork-Sarus War +++
+++ Opening Extract +++

Lord Kol's easy acquiescence to allowing supposed rivals to sit on the board of the new planetary information network began to make sense shortly after the war. With the Sarusian rep and pontifex Tarpeian's own delegate constantly at loggerheads as to how a particular story should be framed, the planetwide broadcasts were invariably hours behind the transmissions of local KNN outlets, which inevitably followed Kol's own preferred line. A notable exception was that the network did, as promised, run many stories focussing on the importance of psykers to the imperium, which went some way to ameliorating the backlash against the imperial psyker tithe despite Lord Kol's own noted antipathy towards psykers.

Starting a year after the war, KNN began subtle but sustained attacks on archbishop Tarpeian, possibly instigated by the leaking of plans for the church to lobby to take control of the Denarii Forest Garden.

Lord Kol's influence on the council appeared to suffer with the unexpected resignation of governor Musonius, who had been Kol's only consistent backer among the ruling council. The new centre-right governor was notably less well disposed to Kol's populist welfare projects, and stymied Kol's attempt to monopolise the aid and reconstruction operations on Sarus' war-damaged south eastern continent. The agri minister also suffered a setback during the row over servitorisation of the planet's mining sector. After the bill was passed despite his opposition, his bid to offer retraining and relocation of the displaced Sarusian miners by expanding the fishery sector was outflanked by calls for a general ban on servitors - led by Kol's old nemesis Union Rep Giacomenni and by industry minister Kosa Toi, whom Kol had long ago dismissed as a serious political opponent. Governor Johannes Alaricus quickly supported the move.

Perhaps the most damning evidence of the decline of Kol's influence was that he was not chosen to assist in the negotiations with the imperial fleet, despite his noted prior role as a council mediator. For the foreseeable future, the influence of Kol Industries on Sarus was confined to the agri sector and to various charity and infrastructure projects. Kol appears to have contented himself with a smaller but steadier flow of profits, and with the fact that archbishop Tarpeian's deselection removed a significant personal thorn from his side.

+++ Extract ends +++

[dakkagor]

Man, I was gutted when Falling skies folded. I was going full Macross and the thing just died without going anywhere.

How has the Hands we're dealt been going? For a game in the Sci-fi forum it seems like its going to go the distance!

[Azazeal849]

Man, I was gutted when Falling skies folded. I was going full Macross and the thing just died without going anywhere.

Start your own, I still have that AEWAC template! And while I'm making unreasonable demands, reboot Wreckage (in the Mature section) as well. :P

How has the Hands we're dealt been going? For a game in the Sci-fi forum it seems like its going to go the distance!

It's going alright for now, but there's a real chance that Orks will roll into the system in a couple of turns and end everything very quickly.

[Waarnemen]

Azazeal, your characters are so realistic... how do you do it?