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Revolution in Falkovnia

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 2:58 pm
by brilliantlight
Inspired by this http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/foru ... f=1&t=9047.
I was thinking of maybe having a successful revolution against Drakov. The Dark Powers got bored of Drakov's endless wars and stepped aside and let him get overthrown. He was overthrown by Gondregal who stepped aside for one of his lieutenants. He was a failure as a king and no one knows it better than him.

What he didn't know is his lieutenant was a bastard son of Vlad who was on the verge of turning over the entire resistance to his dad when it suddenly succeeded, much to his surprise. He was very loyal to his dad and wants revenge. He saw his dad as someone who brought law and order to Falkovnia and without whom it would have fallen into chaos. His curse is that he is continually trying to stop even the slightest hint of rebellion and not succeeding.

He starts out very popular at the beginning of his rule as he isn't Drakov. He isn't nearly as brutal being a Franco to Vlad's Hitler. Brutal enough but nothing in comparison. He is becoming more and more brutal over time however in trying to stomp out even the slightest hint of rebellion which strengthens said rebellion. To keep power he has to claim that the rebels are pro-Drakov agents trying to re-impose his type of brutal rule. That is part of his curse. He hires the party to smoke out the "pro-Drakov" rebels. He is also inwardly looking as opposed to outwardly looking which means he is not interested in starting wars. I see him as a smart and charismatic fighter.

How do people like this idea and does anyone have any ideas of their own about him. Also he needs darklord powers. One of I can think of is Detect Chaos at will with a 2 mile range. Any others?

Re: Revolution in Falkovnia

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 3:26 pm
by Dark Angel
Why strip Drakov of darklordship? Just have the Dark Powers work to remove him and kind of flip the tables on the revolution (kind of like what happened to Napoleon after his first removal from power). The opportunistic son now has more to prove and if he is willing to 'step up his game' could take the title of darklord from Drakov in a more final fashion. Drakov would lose some of his power base (a bastard son may garner some support from some aspects of the military and those who know Vlad's rule will get the nowhere or killed) and his 'ability' to close borders. He could fall back to a part of the domain to consolidate and fight from, while other parts of the domain deal with a culling process of loyalists vs rebels (or kobolds). After the dust settles which could take months at best, the nation is ragged as hell, the trade networks are shoddy at best and the rest of the Northwest Core starves.

Re: Revolution in Falkovnia

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 4:12 pm
by brilliantlight
Dark Angel wrote:Why strip Drakov of darklordship? Just have the Dark Powers work to remove him and kind of flip the tables on the revolution (kind of like what happened to Napoleon after his first removal from power). The opportunistic son now has more to prove and if he is willing to 'step up his game' could take the title of darklord from Drakov in a more final fashion. Drakov would lose some of his power base (a bastard son may garner some support from some aspects of the military and those who know Vlad's rule will get the nowhere or killed) and his 'ability' to close borders. He could fall back to a part of the domain to consolidate and fight from, while other parts of the domain deal with a culling process of loyalists vs rebels (or kobolds). After the dust settles which could take months at best, the nation is ragged as hell, the trade networks are shoddy at best and the rest of the Northwest Core starves.
It makes the situation more confusing doing it the other way. The party wouldn't be sure if the new ruler is in the right. Not all dark lords hold political power after all. The new dark lord could be one of the "Drakov loyalist rebels" or someone without any real visible power base at all. After all the hags, Adam, Godfrey, Malken, and Inza have no real political power and that is off the top of my head.

As far as the party knows he is a good guy who got rid of Drakov . The ruler doesn't even publically acknowledge that Vlad was his father. After all he was undercover and planning to turn them in. Many of the rebels may well be Drakov loyalists who think of the new ruler as part of the plot to get rid of the rightful ruler. Have the party run into them and it gets more confusing.

Sooner or later the party will find out the truth which should be a horrifying thought. The new ruler is an evil man himself and they were working for him. What do they do now? After all if they help the rebels they might end up with someone worse.

Re: Revolution in Falkovnia

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 4:15 pm
by alhoon
If I went with a successful revolution in Falkovnia (I probably wouldn't, I would actually go for Drakov's son and presumed heir taking over), I would more likely put a "Robespierre" kind of revolutionary leader on top. The Talons would be replaced by a revolutionary guard, headed by a terrible and brutal force. Executions, torture, everyone living in fear of being branded an "enemy of the revolution" etc.
I.e. more of the same, different regime.

Re: Revolution in Falkovnia

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 4:36 pm
by brilliantlight
alhoon wrote:If I went with a successful revolution in Falkovnia (I probably wouldn't, I would actually go for Drakov's son and presumed heir taking over), I would more likely put a "Robespierre" kind of revolutionary leader on top. The Talons would be replaced by a revolutionary guard, headed by a terrible and brutal force. Executions, torture, everyone living in fear of being branded an "enemy of the revolution" etc.
I.e. more of the same, different regime.
I was more or less going that route. Like I said more of a Franco than a Hitler and Franco was bad enough. This is what I meant by "To keep power he has to claim that the rebels are pro-Drakov agents trying to re-impose his type of brutal rule". He has his own secret police who go around on witch hunts looking for "pro-Drakov" counter-revolutionaries.

I admit Robespierre would probably be an even better comparison.With the Drakov-Hitler comparison Franco came to mind but Robespierre is much better. I think the party should come in right after the revolution when it is not that clear that is what is happening. A lot of the early executions should be ex-talons. He does this to retain power and because a lot of talons ARE rebelling as they think he is an evil man who got rid of the rightful ruler. This may well confuse the party even more. There is a "People are being executed but they were asking for it and are too dangerous to live" aspect to it. They may see the executions as justified under the circumstances.

He hates doing this as he admires them but he does so to keep himself in charge. The success of the revolution is actually agonizing to him because he has to do things that he finds repulsive. However, he is very power hungry and will do so to retain power.

Re: Revolution in Falkovnia

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 4:46 pm
by vyshan
One thing he could do is work at improving the lot of falkovnians, this isn't out of altruism but pragmaticism. It is far easier to control people when you don't have a 0% approval rating. This allows him to have people who admire him, plus I think it adds to the tragedy. He is trying to do good, but he utterly fails.

Also Robespierre is actually a good idea for a darklord, since he started out during the start of the revolution opposing the death penalty and ended up slowly becoming corrupted by power.

Re: Revolution in Falkovnia

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 4:52 pm
by brilliantlight
vyshan wrote:One thing he could do is work at improving the lot of falkovnians, this isn't out of altruism but pragmaticism. It is far easier to control people when you don't have a 0% approval rating. This allows him to have people who admire him, plus I think it adds to the tragedy. He is trying to do good, but he utterly fails.

Also Robespierre is actually a good idea for a darklord, since he started out during the start of the revolution opposing the death penalty and ended up slowly becoming corrupted by power.
Maybe he is trying to do better than his father. A sort of "He had the right idea but went too far" kind of thing.

Re: Revolution in Falkovnia

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 7:57 pm
by jamesfirecat
First let me talk on the small scale.

Will Drakov die in the revolution? If he does than that's all well and good (as I've mentioned in the past the most fitting fate for him would be a fight someplace high up that ends with him being knocked off and onto something that impales him because this is Ravenloft and the Dark Powers loves them some ironic punishment) if he doesn't, then Darklordship might not pass over to his son/the new ruler.

Remember Malocchio Aderre kicked his mother out of political power in Invidia a fair while back, but much like the current situation in Sithicus, just because you're a brutal tyrant with political power (who can't leave the domain) does not mean you're the darklord. Everything I've seen written so far seems to say that Gabrielle is still the darklord of Invidia. Vlad may remain the darklord of Falkovnia if he is not killed.

EDIT: Forgive me, in the post you reference as the genesis for this idea you mention Vlad being killed but it isn't directly said in this thread so I didn't notice it, will leave this here unless you think I should take it away/delete it.


Moving on beyond that, if you want to have things change in Falkovnia without being any less oppressive, it might be an interesting idea to take some long established bits of Falkovnian culture and turn them on their head. The son won't like to do it but he'll have no choice since everyone who was pushing him into power will be expecting him to and if he doesn't then they'll realize he's a traitor.

In short it now becomes illegal in Falkovnia to discriminate against someone because they were an elf, dwarf, or similar since doing so is considered part of the "brutal past" which of course leads to people being executed/tortured for using expressions like "tree huger".

Everyone has to get their heads branded A SECOND TIME to get the mark of the hawk burnt in such a way as to be unrecognizeable or get a different brand burnt into them somewhere else. That or else they need to get some kind of magical healing (not sure if that sort of thing should be widely available though) to get their foreheads held of the brand. So instead you have the actual rebels doing the "dark mark" thing and branding their arms or somewhere else with the hawk to replace the one that they lost and you have people being hauled off to be killed because they were found to still have a hawk brand.



I also have a few ideas that might help you expand the situation even further outside of Falkovnia and I hope you end up finding them somewhat useful...


If a Revolution succeeds in Falkovnia I would fully expect every nation that sign the treaty of the four towers that borders Falkovnia (Richemulot, Borca, and Dementlieu) to grab pieces of its territory. Remember Falkovnia is the breadbasket of the Core so despite the way that Vlad has been grinding his people into the dusk, Falkovnia is not Mordor, it's probably among some of the most the most valuable territory in the Core mile for mile.

That is another ball of wax that you could toss into the entire situation, Falkovnia is now going to be beset by spies, agents, and similar minions of Jacqueline Renier, Dominic d'Honaire, and both of Borca's darklords who are going to be trying to convince sections of what was once Falkovnia to break off and join their nation by all manner of different possible means (political discourse, bribery, threats and blackmail..) as the new government tries to find its feet. The pressure of these outside agitators could be yet another reason/excuse for the son of Vlad to be imposing oppressive rules since if he rules with a soft hand everyone will be speaking Mordentish inside a year!

Also a big question mark that is going to be left hanging with any new power in Falkovnia is... what will the nation's relationship to Invidia be like? If the troops Falkovnia has stationed there are recalled (either by Vlad to try and prop up his own failing rule or by the new government in power to try and mend fences) it might open the door to Gabrielle Aderre launching several new offensives against her son who will now be deprived of his most obvious source of foreign support.

Let me know if any of this was helpful or you want to hear more about some aspects of it...

Re: Revolution in Falkovnia

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 10:38 pm
by brilliantlight
jamesfirecat wrote:First let me talk on the small scale.

Will Drakov die in the revolution?


Moving on beyond that, if you want to have things change in Falkovnia without being any less oppressive, it might be an interesting idea to take some long established bits of Falkovnian culture and turn them on their head. The son won't like to do it but he'll have no choice since everyone who was pushing him into power will be expecting him to and if he doesn't then they'll realize he's a traitor.

In short it now becomes illegal in Falkovnia to discriminate against someone because they were an elf, dwarf, or similar since doing so is considered part of the "brutal past" which of course leads to people being executed/tortured for using expressions like "tree huger".

Everyone has to get their heads branded A SECOND TIME to get the mark of the hawk burnt in such a way as to be unrecognizeable or get a different brand burnt into them somewhere else. That or else they need to get some kind of magical healing (not sure if that sort of thing should be widely available though) to get their foreheads held of the brand. So instead you have the actual rebels doing the "dark mark" thing and branding their arms or somewhere else with the hawk to replace the one that they lost and you have people being hauled off to be killed because they were found to still have a hawk brand.



I also have a few ideas that might help you expand the situation even further outside of Falkovnia and I hope you end up finding them somewhat useful...


If a Revolution succeeds in Falkovnia I would fully expect every nation that sign the treaty of the four towers that borders Falkovnia (Richemulot, Borca, and Dementlieu) to grab pieces of its territory. Remember Falkovnia is the breadbasket of the Core so despite the way that Vlad has been grinding his people into the dusk, Falkovnia is not Mordor, it's probably among some of the most the most valuable territory in the Core mile for mile.

That is another ball of wax that you could toss into the entire situation, Falkovnia is now going to be beset by spies, agents, and similar minions of Jacqueline Renier, Dominic d'Honaire, and both of Borca's darklords who are going to be trying to convince sections of what was once Falkovnia to break off and join their nation by all manner of different possible means (political discourse, bribery, threats and blackmail..) as the new government tries to find its feet. The pressure of these outside agitators could be yet another reason/excuse for the son of Vlad to be imposing oppressive rules since if he rules with a soft hand everyone will be speaking Mordentish inside a year!

Also a big question mark that is going to be left hanging with any new power in Falkovnia is... what will the nation's relationship to Invidia be like? If the troops Falkovnia has stationed there are recalled (either by Vlad to try and prop up his own failing rule or by the new government in power to try and mend fences) it might open the door to Gabrielle Aderre launching several new offensives against her son who will now be deprived of his most obvious source of foreign support.

Let me know if any of this was helpful or you want to hear more about some aspects of it...
Very interesting and I think I will use some of it. Yeah, the "opposite of" works because it will be even more of a curse for the son and it makes sense under the circumstances. As far as the new branding maybe a spear through the hawk?

Drakov is definitely dead and the land will be full of spies from other kingdoms. However they haven't all pounced yet as they don't know what kind of land based powers the new ruler has. They have seen more than once what can happen if you invade another domain. However your blackmail, bribery and threats idea works just fine. Even if they can't control it directly they all want influence and he will paint it (correctly) as outside interference and a threat to the state. Besides even though they like seeing Drakov gone they don't want THEIR peasants to get ideas!


As far as Invidia goes in my game the Dukkar earned his own domain and Gabrielle is back in command. Drakov's troops left soon afterwards. In fact most of them were killed in the fighting during the civil war in which he gained his domain.

Re: Revolution in Falkovnia

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 2:09 am
by alhoon
vyshan wrote: Also Robespierre is actually a good idea for a darklord, since he started out during the start of the revolution opposing the death penalty and ended up slowly becoming corrupted by power.
:shock:
But... 40K executions in a year. At the end, the executed nuns, for not giving up their vows. Either Robespierre was lying at the beginning of his career or he was corrupted very fast. He was praising the reign of Terror as necessary and even virtuous left and right in his speeches.
France had ~25M people then. 40K executions in a single year is executing about 1/600 people. "Death by guillotine" probably ranked among the top 5 reasons of death.

About the actions of other domains:
I wouldn't say they would consider direct military action; the new ruler may be able to just close borders. Not to mention an intervention would be counter to some of the Darklords' plans.
And the darklords know they can't ever set foot there so it would be problematic.

Instead, I think they would try to strong-arm parts of Falkovnia to make concessions. Cheaper food, more food, accept a group of foreign soldiers in a consulate to protect the interests of the foreign domain etc.

And then, you have the counter-revolution:
Dominic's power would be threatened by a successful rebellion in Falkovnia. Nova Vaasa could turn to a battleground too. Several other domains have oppression and have to be wary of spreading of such ideas.
In Nova Vaasa, that the Darklord is a crimelord without any political power, the powers-that-be may even decide to intervene heavily in Falkovnia. Since I doubt they can pass through Darkon or Barovia, they'll have to do with agents.
Dominic is more of a cloak-and-dagger kind of guy, so he would push for cloak-and-dagger action too.

Re: Revolution in Falkovnia

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 8:18 am
by jamesfirecat
alhoon wrote:In Nova Vaasa, that the Darklord is a crimelord without any political power, the powers-that-be may even decide to intervene heavily in Falkovnia. Since I doubt they can pass through Darkon or Barovia, they'll have to do with agents.

I have a really hard time parsing/understanding what you mean by

"In Nova Vaasa, that the Darklord is a crimelord without any political power" could you clarify what you mean by that for me? Are you saying that Malken's nature makes him more or less likely to be involved/worried about a political revolution in some other domain?

Re: Revolution in Falkovnia

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 8:20 am
by alhoon
Yeap. Malken doesn't have political power in Nova Vaasa and he doesn't seem to have any interest in the politics of the domain he resides as far as it doesn't mess with his crime empire.
Revolution in Nova Vaasa? As long as the two sides rely on criminals he would be happy.

On the other hand the 5 families that rule Nova Vaasa, will have a hard time accepting a revolution that calls for equality.

Re: Revolution in Falkovnia

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 8:42 am
by jamesfirecat
alhoon wrote:Yeap. Malken doesn't have political power in Nova Vaasa and he doesn't seem to have any interest in the politics of the domain he resides as far as it doesn't mess with his crime empire.
Revolution in Nova Vaasa? As long as the two sides rely on criminals he would be happy.

On the other hand the 5 families that rule Nova Vaasa, will have a hard time accepting a revolution that calls for equality.
Thanks you for the clarification, there's nothing here I disagree with.

Re: Revolution in Falkovnia

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 9:52 am
by vyshan
alhoon wrote:
vyshan wrote: Also Robespierre is actually a good idea for a darklord, since he started out during the start of the revolution opposing the death penalty and ended up slowly becoming corrupted by power.
:shock:
But... 40K executions in a year. At the end, the executed nuns, for not giving up their vows. Either Robespierre was lying at the beginning of his career or he was corrupted very fast. He was praising the reign of Terror as necessary and even virtuous left and right in his speeches.
France had ~25M people then. 40K executions in a single year is executing about 1/600 people. "Death by guillotine" probably ranked among the top 5 reasons of death.
Robespierre is a fascinating figure, he was known as the 'incorruptable' because he was not able to be bought, he got it for defending the poor during his term as a lawyer. Furthermore he was a long time champion of the people, he fought for universal sufferage, aboliton of slavery and was a strong republican. He really did oppose the death penalty, there is a copy of his speech on the marxist archives. He also lived rather plainly. He tried to create the cult of the supreme reason* but it failed.

The thing that makes him a darklord is that at the end, when he changed his ways, he thought he was doing this for the good of the people and france. He honestly thought that by doing this he could impart republican virtue onto the people, that he "did what he had to do."

About the Terror, it was briefer then one thinks, only for about a year; there were a number of events during the revolution to make it what it was that people tend to gloss over. There were a number of actual real conspiracies against the revolutionary government, one could argue it was very much a civil war; events like the War in the Vandee is a good example as over 100k people died on the side of those opposing the Revolution. Not to mention the french revolutionary wars played a major role in all of this. . Robespierre was famous for his opposition against the war, saying basically no one likes armed liberators.

Anyways, the interesting thing is that the Reign of Terror centralized the killings. While sure they used the Guillotine before the terror, plenty of sans-coultes just lynched nobles and strung them up. This was in fact rather common, by centralizing it, Robespierre and the Committee of public safety were actually able to prevent the people from doing lynch mobs. Also Robespierre never lead the Comittee, he was just one man on the 12 man group.

The biggest problem with Robespierre as a darklord though is that the Reign of Terror ran out of steam by his death, if one had him around he would need to have something to keep the terror alive, the radical sans-coultes were one of his biggest supporters but when the people started to loose fervor it signaled his end. As a darklord, he would have to have a way to keep this steam around and the people motivated.

I also end this with something weird and silly, Guillotine Chic. For the revolution also caused a revolution in fashion. For the elite started copying the fashions of those who were doomed to die. Short hair among women became popular for a time due to it replicating the style of ladies being executed. Most famous of all were the 'Victim balls' where only people whom lost relatives to the executions were invited, and their everyone wore a red scarf around the neck and bowed rather stiffly to immitate the motion of being placed in the guillotine.


*the cult of the supreme reason and various diestic 'religions' would be great ideas for a lamordian group.

Re: Revolution in Falkovnia

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:53 am
by brilliantlight
vyshan wrote:
alhoon wrote:
vyshan wrote: Also Robespierre is actually a good idea for a darklord, since he started out during the start of the revolution opposing the death penalty and ended up slowly becoming corrupted by power.
:shock:
But... 40K executions in a year. At the end, the executed nuns, for not giving up their vows. Either Robespierre was lying at the beginning of his career or he was corrupted very fast. He was praising the reign of Terror as necessary and even virtuous left and right in his speeches.
France had ~25M people then. 40K executions in a single year is executing about 1/600 people. "Death by guillotine" probably ranked among the top 5 reasons of death.
Robespierre is a fascinating figure, he was known as the 'incorruptable' because he was not able to be bought, he got it for defending the poor during his term as a lawyer. Furthermore he was a long time champion of the people, he fought for universal sufferage, aboliton of slavery and was a strong republican. He really did oppose the death penalty, there is a copy of his speech on the marxist archives. He also lived rather plainly. He tried to create the cult of the supreme reason* but it failed.

The thing that makes him a darklord is that at the end, when he changed his ways, he thought he was doing this for the good of the people and france. He honestly thought that by doing this he could impart republican virtue onto the people, that he "did what he had to do."

About the Terror, it was briefer then one thinks, only for about a year; there were a number of events during the revolution to make it what it was that people tend to gloss over. There were a number of actual real conspiracies against the revolutionary government, one could argue it was very much a civil war; events like the War in the Vandee is a good example as over 100k people died on the side of those opposing the Revolution. Not to mention the french revolutionary wars played a major role in all of this. . Robespierre was famous for his opposition against the war, saying basically no one likes armed liberators.

Anyways, the interesting thing is that the Reign of Terror centralized the killings. While sure they used the Guillotine before the terror, plenty of sans-coultes just lynched nobles and strung them up. This was in fact rather common, by centralizing it, Robespierre and the Committee of public safety were actually able to prevent the people from doing lynch mobs. Also Robespierre never lead the Comittee, he was just one man on the 12 man group.

The biggest problem with Robespierre as a darklord though is that the Reign of Terror ran out of steam by his death, if one had him around he would need to have something to keep the terror alive, the radical sans-coultes were one of his biggest supporters but when the people started to loose fervor it signaled his end. As a darklord, he would have to have a way to keep this steam around and the people motivated.

I also end this with something weird and silly, Guillotine Chic. For the revolution also caused a revolution in fashion. For the elite started copying the fashions of those who were doomed to die. Short hair among women became popular for a time due to it replicating the style of ladies being executed. Most famous of all were the 'Victim balls' where only people whom lost relatives to the executions were invited, and their everyone wore a red scarf around the neck and bowed rather stiffly to immitate the motion of being placed in the guillotine.


*the cult of the supreme reason and various diestic 'religions' would be great ideas for a lamordian group.
In any case he isn't Robespierre and whatever else Robespierre was he wasn't a monarchist spy just about to betray the French Revolution when it succeeded. In fact I see him as Robespierre with a dash of Stalin's paranoia. This DL is looking for Rebels under his bed and sees conspiracies everywhere.