## Metadata Name: V Holding: [[Crafted Providence]] Office: [[Governor]] ## Background You were born to [[Great Houses PAX 2023#House Sima|House Sima]], one of the galaxy's twelve [[Great Houses PAX 2023]]. Admittedly, you were born to a very minor cadet branch as these things are reckoned, but you wouldn't have it any other way. You don't much care for the complex and lethal politics of your House, and you have no desire for the kind of gallivanting and idle conquest so many of your peers use to while away the millennia. No, you have spent the many hundreds of years of your life in the pursuit of knowledge. As is common for the scions of Great Houses, you were given a starship at birth, with the House paying tribute to have that starship recognized as a Holding and you as its Governor. Over the last few centuries, you stripped most of the weaponry out of the ship and replaced it with computational cores, data storage infrastructure, and every amenity a scholar can imagine. Now, you wander the galaxy in search of hidden secrets, learning everything you can about every society you meet, wringing out their secret truths before moving on to the next subject of your interest. The death of the Plaguesmith worries you. You aren't that interested in a dead servant, even if Her Majesty uses the dramatic name of "Wend" instead of the more common term. However, you do recognize that killing something She does not want killed is not the sort of thing just anyone can manage. That means there's a secret involved, and a damn good one at that. Unfortunately, the thing worrying you is the knowledge that Her Majesty is almost certainly going to do everything in Her considerable power to destroy that knowledge forever. The idea of knowledge (especially such important knowledge) being lost causes you to feel almost physical pain. You'll do anything you can to discover the secret of how the Plaguesmith was killed, and then you'll make it as public as possible to ensure the knowledge can never be destroyed. You aren't really sure how it might have been done, but you know from long experience that the only people in the galaxy with a clue what's actually going on are the Governors. Not the Governors like you and the other Great House members, but the actual Governors who spend their lives managing Holdings and playing politics for scraps. Whenever some big treason happens and an investigation performed, it is inevitably revealed that a cabal of Governors was behind the whole thing. You figure you can start by asking around with the Governors and see where that takes you. ## 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.). - The [[Crafted Providence]] is your vessel, your library, and your personal Holding all wrapped into one. You've spent centuries turning it into the ultimate research tool, and have the trillions upon trillions of individual records to show for your labor. A small coterie of onboard AI manage the indexing and cross-referencing tasks to ensure you always have the information you need, before you know you need it. Whenever this ship is involved in an [[Endeavor]], you gain 3 advantages. - [[Blank Book|Blank Books]] are outrageously rare. A simple tablet which looks like nothing so much as a scrap of flimsy paper, a Blank Book is capable of storing apparently infinite information. The owner of the Blank Book can use it to imprison AIs of any level, even those known as demigods or gods. Whenever you win a [[Combat|Combat]] against an enemy using an AI-related Asset by at least 3 advantages, you may spend those advantages in order to remove that Asset. ### **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 - Scholarly Complicity - Anthropomorphized Information