Darius' Event and (mini) Player Story Arcs Blog, Part I
Copying the idea of a blog post largely from Skorak's past ones (plus the BBcode due to how great it looks despite being simple) and jammi's recent works, I thought it'd be great if I set up one explaining, bit by bit, what I've worked on planning out these last few weeks waiting to properly return. With this, I hope to both bring some news of the planned player story events I'll be creating moving forward as well as go into detail a decent amount about why they are happening. These threads will be posted in the LFG subforum as they largely look on to include newer people in the community and thus serves as an easy to pick up method of familiarizing themselves with the DiscoveryGC environment as well as the Kusari House.
Today's blog post will be covering Kusari and its near reaches -- feel free to comment and offer your feedback as the posts will be posted separately anyhow and linked in my (as of now WIP) feedback thread here.
How Things Stand
Post-833 AS Kusari is in a very precarious state. Between gold supplies being almost completely gone, Kyushu facing significant issues on the agricultural side of things and Liberty marshalling warships at the doorstep, the Empire has never before, since the Civil War, been in one such position. To counterbalance these events and in line with other developments in the Sigmas and Omicrons, Kusari will be taking one step back before moving forward once more.
To summarize, there's three things to keep in mind when looking at what Kusari roleplay will be eyeing over the following weeks:
Gold (or a lack of, rather);
Kyushu, or as we'll soon know it, Rice Diplomacy :tm: (an overt focus on Samura's role as the mainstay behind Kusari's economy);
Atka's destruction.
The Grand Embassy
And now we come to the main idea behind this blog post -- The Grand Embassy. Beyond the obvious, such as the fact it'll be the pinnacle of Kusari's recent diplomatic efforts and that it'll be heavily escorted in-game, I want to combine the previous year's player-influenced events with a hybrid type of approach towards dealing with large-scale House-to-House interactions. Now, whether or not it'll work out is a matter only history will judge, but I have high hopes it'll go smoothly.
In terms of how the event will go, the "embassy" will start from New Tokyo proper, or any other destination (should it go from New Tokyo to New London, the next time it begins moving again it will go from New London), and be made up of the following:
1 KNF Battlecruiser, the IKN Haruna, carrying the most important diplomatic staff;
2 Akegatas, for supplies;
2-3 Gunboats, depending on how many people can log in;
Any other set number of smaller escort ships, including ships of those players that wish to be members of the roleplay of the embassy at the destination (covered slightly below).
While it may be subject to change on a case-by-case basis, I'd like to abide by this format as much as possible. Now, onto the event details themselves, they are simple.
Successfully escorting the convoy to the target destination (will always be either a House capital or a major faction capital) will result in the embassy initiating standard diplomatic protocols and working their way through discussing the various topics that need be discussed with the visited faction. Effectively, a successful escort will result in events, roleplay, news, etc. between Kusari and the visited group.
For the attackers, however, things stand differently. Should the convoy come under attack, there are two major ways of dealing with it: destroying the battlecruiser, which will result in a rout of the diplomatic mission and thus a halt in talks with the target faction for several good weeks (or months); or the destruction of the escorting Akegatas, which will result in the embassy having to return to New Tokyo once more afterwards and thus putting themselves at risk of facing large attacks against the battlecruiser.
In addition to all these bits, and as a last note on this topic (I really do hope I've covered everything, if not, feel free to ask below and I'll give additional details), players will be able to bring their own local representatives of various planets aboard the embassy. What this means is that YOU can make up a new character, read up on any of the political parties' in Kusari and join us at the negotiations table. You will be able to register, in advance, over on our Discord server, at https://discord.gg/Qk9TEaaf5B.
More details about the inRP formation of this Grand Embassy will be provided by SNS in the news subforum. Stay tuned and keep an eye out!
Tekagi's Remnants
Of course, nothing about Kusari is as cool as Tekagi was. The shadow of that man (pun intended...?) still looms at large over Tohoku, and with it the dangers it brought upon the rest of the sector...
But that is big talk! I have added this wee little section last because of one main thing: Kusari's story rework, which will cover Tohoku at large. What does this mean? That in the future, and alongside the recently-added Hakodate, KOI and Wild alike will be a focus of Kusari RP. That said, I don't want to conclude things in such a lame way, and with that, I'm gonna also spoiler the following: though it is in the drafting-up stage only as of yet, I have plans for recurring events similar to the Grand Embassy for Wild/KOI as well, centered around the Arch and its vast archives. What these may include is escort-type basic events, where one liner or so has to be moved from the Arch to New Tokyo with informations from the Archives (thus being a target for BDs), to relocating entire warships as part of the canon systems of replacing lower command personnel. If successful, they may even end up in the arms of those KOI units deeper in the Omicrons...
And that is that! I hope this blog post summarizes the ideas well enough, and, like I previously said, any questions can and should be posted below without worries. Have fun!
