Missionary Networks

General
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I knew this would come in useful! It’s an all-purpose response for players who want to RP that they have been sending missionaries out in downtime.

[size=150]**Warning! It is not *entirely ***serious. Or even serious a small amount.[/size]

(Asavea) The Empire goes to war with Asavea. The Way is associated with the slave revolt and the hated Sumaah. Also, the minute the missionaries start getting anywhere the Asavean gods will no doubt reveal to their priests that the Way is plotting to destroy the Asavean way of life.

(Sumaah) The Sumaah convert the missionaries to the Sumaah Way as it is a lot better than the Imperial one. Alternatively, they burn the missionaries if there is the slightest suggestion of anything heretical.

(Sarcophan) The Sarcophan merchants sell the missionaries things, while listening politely, then go back to piling up all the money they can get their hands on so they can buy their way out of the labyrinth

(Commonwealth) Commonwealth arrests everyone involved for trying to use auras to control peoples’ minds.

(Jarm) Jarm involves missionaries in politics. The missionaries lose and are played as patsies because nobody in Jarm explains what is going on. They might get to build a small cathedral though because nobody in Jarm really cares about religion

(Axos) Axos takes all the liao away and uses it to get on with worshipping their ancestors. They probably make the missionaries drink cider-and-black and listen to Ministry or Bauhaus while doing it.

(Iron Confederacy) Iron Confederacy burns all the priests for being drug smuggling agents of Dumon the Liar. They use this as more evidence that the Empire is evil and corrupt and has to go.

(Faraden) Faraden points out it has it’s own priests and agrees that courage, loyalty, prosperity and pride are great. They then try to get the Empire to embrace vengeance. Someone offends someone. War.

(Skoura) The Skourans stare blankly. They say thank you for the auras, which are very nice. Some of them mention that the missionaries might enjoy a small service reverencing the Creator. They go back to making jewellry.

(Orcs) Ahahaha! With these missionaries you are really spoiling us! The missionaries end up as thralls, slaves or warnings about how wicked the Druj are.

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"You attempt to load your congregation onto a fleet in order for them to be transported to the place you require them to do missionary work in. It will take one month to load the congregation, because they are required to board in strict order of shoe size (ascending) and nobody can tell which size anyone wears because the information is hidden in the database, so it is carried out via trial and error.

Travel to your destination takes another month. However, despite being on board ship your character attends several notable social events in this time, including two balls and one murder party.

You order your congregation to disembark. This takes one month. At the end of the month you are informed that you did not secure port permissions for your destination and you should never have been allowed to even travel there in the first place. It takes one month to re-embark your congregation, meaning you are now living one month in the future and will not be allowed to attend the next Empire event."

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[quote=“Mark_Wilkin”]hissssses twitch I have a stress reaction to the idea of freetext downtime style stuff like this appearing in Empire. So I’d really prefer the options where we can handle it all in uptime.

Remember friends don’t let friends do freetext downtimes. Freetext, not even once![/quote]

All this. All the time.

44

Heres a mad idea, now its a bit crazy, but it might work…

Why not get all the stuff in the field together for a missionary mission in the field.

I mean you could roleplay with Brass Coast to get some ships and transport done, maybe arrange for some mercs to accompany you in case the locals eat your. Then get some Urzien Jedi to knock up a ritual sending a letter to the appropriate nation you wish to jam the virtues down the throat of till they gag. Look at all the magical game you have made for yourself and other people. You are like the fairy godmother of game giving. You can say your congregation is away doing missionary work in some other country and if everyone is being good roleplayers they go ‘Hey thats cool, we don’t have to have systems for it, we can just play with it and as long as it dosnt effect the plot in a big way or suddenly declare me king of the mouse people its fun roleplay, in a field…lets call it live roleplay, hell we are playing out our action and call it live action roleplay just to annoy a subsection of our community that hates the letter A.’

Maybe you might get a reply from that nation, maybe you end up going through the sentinel gate and get to really give them some god virtue, but until them you have engaged with the field in a meaningful…no…beutiful way, a way that brings joy to everyone’s hearts.

Or you could click a box…yeah box clicking, i’m down with that, i’m a big fan of the early work of Excell.

Disclaimer - play a priest.

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Congratulations! Your faith has gained you (2) (Gargoyle) converts in (Bugnuts, Sumaah)!. You receive (1) Hacksilver in religious offerings. (The Bagman) is currently engaged in (terrorising) this location. (Auriel) is currently engaged in (inspiring the people of) this location.

The population of (Bugnuts, Sumaah) is (2) (Gargoyle)s. Their mood is (confused).

2 deaths from (Starvation) in (Bugnuts, Sumaah).

twitch

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And that was after we spent a weekend making it look good.

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Iulian: And that is why Lothar never preached after that first time

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Recovering missionary kid here with a semi-tongue in cheek analysis of the Book of Acts and other missionary works of the early Christians for LARP-purposes

Even with supernatural assistance, converting people takes both time and logistical support. I know it looks like each chapter of Acts has St. Paul (or whoever) turning up somewhere, giving a sermon and then masses of people instantly converted. However, 1) the Apostles were the equivalent of Paragons and 2) there are 1-2 years between each chapter of Acts where ground was prepared and gains consolidated

In the “real world”, a missionary or missionary team who goes to a completely fresh area might get to see their first convert in the first five years (who will probably be killed - either the missionary, the convert or both) and might get to see a church built in 10-20 years. So if you want Empire to include a realistic simulation of missionary activity, then a character engaged in full-time missionary work during might have a couple of events happen over the life of the entire campaign. Highly un-fun

A-ha! I hear you say, but this is a fantasy universe. Our priests have supernatural assistance. Two counterpoints: 1) so do their opponents and 2) serendipitous coincidences and apparently supernatural activity does tend to accompany real-world missionary activity. If you manage to get them talking, missionaries have more “weird shit” stories than soldiers or emergency workers

However, there is an alternative. The line between “missionary” and “religious spy” has always been a thin one (just ask the Jesuits), so, if you want a religious lever and something else for your congregation resource to do, can I suggest that the Synod be given the power to create “Missionary Networks” representing spiritual and logistical support to Imperial citizens and converts in hostile territories. These would act like the existing “Spy Networks”, except you’d assign Congregations rather than Military units and the character would receive a share of a fund set up by the Synod, rather than the liao. The Virtue Fund’s got too much money in it anyway

Not only does this proposal reuse existing code and concepts, but it also has bags of RP potential. It means that Orc Preachers can actually do something. It means that your character can spin a tale about being smuggled into Reikos and the joy of being able to perform laio ceremonies for a group of escaped slaves. Heck, it’s almost enough for me to abandon my current character to play the Empire equivalent of Brother Andrew or Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty

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[cw: descriptions of downtime paraphernalia]

Good content is WORM: written once and read many times. Like a spy report, the Winds of War, or an ancient document with culturally priceless information. Not only is it going to be distributed to lots of people and treated as an object with value in uptime, but it is also likely to be useful for the refs in future. Spy / scry reports are worth writing because (a) they aren’t free, and free things are bad (b) you don’t spy or scry on areas you aren’t interested in, and if players are interested then the story team will want to produce at least some information for the area anyway, because eventually or not-so-eventually somebody is going to try to go there and that information can be re-used. So I think I like this idea.

BUT

The efficiency/numbers people would immediately latch onto these projects as being better for the Empire in total than spy networks, is the only thing, because they weaponise something that previously couldn’t be weaponised: I confidently predict that such a network would be dogpiled by interested priests. It would benefit the Empire to build these rather than spy networks. I’m actually kind of OK with that, but of course I am, I’m a player, it’s difficult to distinguish my goals and my character’s goals when it comes to the success of the Empire.