## Metadata Name: J Holding: [[Patient Retribution]] Office: [[Governor]] ## Background You were born in a place of almost inconceivable privilege. Your family, the Great House Tze, is one of the twelve most influential powers in the entire galaxy. You have no idea how many worlds owe fealty to your family through one chain or another, but you suspect it's at least a five-digit number. Wealth is an alien concept to you, because it is predicated on the idea that you might have some kind of need. Your "Holding," a starship named *Patient Retribution*, was given to you at birth. Your family paid in advance the requisite tributes for it to qualify as a Holding under the laws of the Celestial Empire for a hundred thousand years - an aspirational span even for the scion of a Great House. You have lived your entire life so far removed from any risk, any challenge, any demand, that you have at times considered declaring war on the Empire just to see what fear felt like. The death of the Plaguesmith has given you a new, hopefully better option. With Her greatest weapon gone, Her Majesty is sure to start looking for a replacement. Maybe, just maybe, you'll be able to feel something by facing down the various monsters hurled at Her by the galaxy's endless supply of rebels. You aren't much of a warrior, but your Holding is a stellar-class warship, one of only a few thousand in the galaxy, and you're pretty sure you have a blade-of-firmament in your storage locker. With those two, you're a match for 99.9% of the galaxy in a straight fight. That's probably enough, right? Either way, the Imperial Bureaucracy has convened a Myriadic Council to look into the Plaguesmith's end. You took a look at the factions who were likely to be represented on that Council, and decided to join up with the Zalmoxis Society because you heard She pays a lot of attention to its activity. You don't care much about their goals, or the goals of their enemies. You're just here to do whatever might get Her attention. ## Mechanics ### **Asset: [[Dragon's Hoard]]** You are a member of one of the Great Houses. Thousands of worlds across the galaxy owe fealty to your house, with trillions of people living and dying at your whim. Even the least powerful members of such institutions can expect to live thousands of years, and to exercise such privilege as can hardly be described by those who've never experienced it. You have access to two pieces of Relic-class equipment. You may use this equipment yourself or give it away (or sell it, trade it, etc.). - Your home, the warship [[Patient Retribution]], is one of the only stellar-class capital ships not in service of a major fleet. While it can't quite square up with the galaxy's heaviest hitters, those heavy hitters are few and far between. Most importantly, possessing a ship of this caliber means that even those powers you can't defeat are forced to take you seriously in battle. So long as you possess this item, you and any number of other characters you select may participate in any kind of [[Combat|Combat]]. - You possess a [[Blade-of-Firmament]], one of the only superweapons ever mass-produced. Like most superweapons, the mechanism by which your blade-of-firmament works is inscrutable to all but the greatest minds in the galaxy. All you know is that it resembles a large cleaver, that it moves according to your thoughts and that, if you decide, you can use it to slice through the *stuff* of reality itself, unleashing a perfectly directional burst of energy at a level most commonly associated with stars going nova. If you use this weapon in a [[Combat#Local|Local]], [[Combat#Regional|Regional]], or [[Combat#Global|Global]] [[Combat|Combat]], every participant including you dies. The only exceptions are characters who are immune to physical harm. If you use this weapon in a [[Combat#Fleet|Fleet Scenario]], your side gains five advantages unless a player on the other side of the scenario chooses to have their character die instead of granting you the advantages. There is one catch: your blade-of-firmament is broken (the item is tagged *broken*). To use it, you'll need to find someone who can get it back in working order, and there aren't many capable of such things. ### **Lien: [[Yoked to Tradition|Yoked to Tradition]]** Great Houses don't bother with nonsense fantasies like "personal lives" or "individual identities." You exist to be a member of your House, and to serve that House's ambitions. While the high seat commands a great deal of power, not even they are above the dictates of the family at large. Your entire life is a balancing act, devoted to keeping as much of the family happy as possible without making anyone angry enough to be rid of you. Any time you have the opportunity to do something for the good of the house, regardless of the personal cost, you must do that thing. The only exception is when attempting a coup against another member of your own house, in which case you may inflict as much harm as necessary to secure your desired position. If you are publicly proven to have worked against your house's best interests, you will be summarily executed. ## Themes These themes are offered to help inform roleplay, but do not carry a mechanical effect. - Inherited Power and Overconfidence - Acquisition-as-Achievement - The 1% vs the 5%