The Times of Ducril, Loremaster of House Naroril

[CBR JGWRR]

I am Loremaster Ducaril of House Naroril. I have served Lord Elmiril for more than a thousand orbits of our world, as my father did before the orcs slew him. Alas, the days are ill still. In your language, we are elves, but please put aside any impression of those blasted pixies; we are high elves. In our language, we are the Taridani – “star sailors”. And we are not alone:

Life spread beneath the Dragon's wing.
Elven aspiration knew no bounds.
Man made industry repeated our art.
Tales of riches on other worlds drew Dwarf up.
Lizard followed to escape Orc.
Orc followed for having no one left to fight worth fighting.
Halfling stayed behind until their farms filled the abandoned lands.

You may be wondering why therefore, I have travelled a lifetime's light distance, and now play the bard at this diner. The whole sorry tale is rather long indeed, but sooner begun, sooner done. It began going wrong when High King Vorahil was slain by his son...

 

[CBR JGWRR]

We Taridani have never been unified as such, always relying on a league of local governing lords, princes and lesser kings under fealty to the High King; such has been our way since time immemorial. Indeed, the High King's role can be summarised as leading the defence of the Taridani in situations where the whole people are involved.

The High King.

Unfortunately, one such circumstance arose:

The Usurper.

Quennare Eren, the son of the High King, has long advocated centralising power in the hands of the High King. His efforts however, were rebuffed by his father Vorahil Eren. In time, Quennare decided to simply seize power himself, murdering the High King and plunging all Taridani into one of three sides - Loyalist Taridani, who seek the destruction of the Usurper and his allies, Revolutionary Taridani who back the Usurper, and those simply trying to live life without the horrors of war.

You may be thinking this is a relatively easy matter to resolve for a civilisation as advanced as we are. And ordinarily, it might be the case.

But, we Taridani avoided the Hyperlane Network as soon as we could, preferring the Wormholes and later the Gateways. As our Civilisation rose therefore, we reshaped transit paths to all run through our Gateway network.

The Gateway network that the Usurper destroyed in order to prevent unified resistance against him forming.

Now, you must keep in mind our society has relied on the Gateways for thousands of your years - our whole galaxy was united by this Gateway network, an alliance of all the Races existed; even the Orcs were kept from the worst of their excesses through joint-operated wargames exercises. To suddenly rip it away therefore, plunges hundreds of worlds into darkness. Such was the price the Usurper was willing to pay.

So, the Loyalist Taridani - such as Lord Naroril of House Naroril, to whom I was Loremaster - began this period of collapse in total disarray. All High Queen Ariel Eren has is our adopted Homeworld system. The home system that depended heavily on food imports, and immediately saw billions starving for lack of food, anywhere.

The new High Queen.

In theory, if they can survive the socio-economic disaster better than we did, she had dozens of Lords, Princes and Kings sworn to her aid. In practice, we had no idea how many would aid us.

 

[Nikolai]

No hyperlanes? What mod is this?

 

[CBR JGWRR]

There are Hyperlanes in this setting, but the current resident's ancestors surpassed them with Gateways. So, they now have to rediscover technologies that were abandoned tens of thousands of years before.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

I ought to spend a little time talking about those we share the region with. The oldest of all were the great dragons. They are very few indeed in truth, and even on their most heavily populated worlds can number only a few thousand - being gigantic predators has some disadvantages.

Koljudkrah was the closest to a leader they had - he was a traveller who collected the thoughts of many and figured out policies based on that. But mainly, they were a people of every dragon for themselves. Their history however, left an indelible mark on our region. Around three hundred thousand years ago, they left our shared world, and began carving new worlds to dwell upon, where family groups would carve a world to be right for life, then settle down to live there. As a result, our region is filled with habitable planets that are empty of civilisation save for a few clans of the dragons. Many, but by no means all, were settled during the time before the Gateways, and in facing the prospect of going out on the Hyperlanes again we had to consider the possibility of remaking contact with lost clans.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

The Races of Men were the least unified, but most rapidly advancing. Unlike the rest of us, they were unable to even retain unity in how they looked, with several ethnic groups developing while still on the homeworld. By the days of Vorahil however, they had formed the Harmonious League - an alliance of all the Mannish states. We hoped this alliance would survive the loss of the Gateways.

I won't insult you by lingering on them long. My lord however, did not expect the league to survive the loss of the Gateways - he believed the Mannish planets would quickly turn on each other.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

The Zuzik - dwarves, you would call them - are a short and stout race who love a good hearth and good metalworking. They aren't the best at manufacturing in vast quantities, but their craftsmanship is the work of masters.

Before the Usurper, the dwarves were united in a trade federation led by the ten strongest dwarven states, with the leader shared on a rotating basis.

 

[Nikolai]

I guess the dragons should be easy to beat if it comes to war if they're that few.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

The Lizards are a little bit small. In fact, they are as small as dragons are big - even fully grown they are no bigger than the length of a hand. This, when combined with their vast swarms, works to their advantage as they form communities that overcome the difficulties they face together. War is definitely not their strong point.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

Orcs all look the same, wretched, ugly, stupid, dull, small-minded, horned beasts that loosely look like civilised creatures until they open their ridiculous tusk-filled mouths and mock rhetoric, oratory and song alike. While all are physically imposing, some are more violent than others, the most violent are little more than ravenous pests that should be put down.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

The Halflings are a people of songs, books, revelry, food, drink, with a simple aspiration to live a good life. Almost nothing significant involves them.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

So, having loosely introduced the seven races, I'll enlarge the history. After all, nothing can create itself, all events happen in sequence. I will begin with my House:

Naroril is one of the eldest and most prestigious of the Taridani Houses, and Elmiril is the latest Lord of the House, having been selected as it's liege by Imril Naroril prior to passing from his illness six centuries ago.

My ancestral line too descends from Naroril the Great, who charted the star system that would become the bastion of his vassaldom and was assigned it as his fief. I am the Loremaster. Responsible for the library, and the chronicling of the House.

Lalwenye is our Marshall of Arms, responsible for leading our House retinues.

Gelminarf is our Head of Advancement.

Between us three, lie all domains of governance - I am responsible for maintaining what we have, Lalwenye for defending what we have, and Gelminarf for innovating the future as we look ahead into an uncertain world.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

Well, I was waiting for 3.3 to drop before starting this properly, and well...

I'm really not impressed by 3.3 - I know people complained at Bureaucrats and Admin cap, but I liked it the way it was; you expanded your administrative capability as you expanded, and it felt like an inevitable progression; at first, plonking down bureaucrats to run things is haphazard, much like we are on Earth with our hundreds of nations when the most rational solution is one world government, then you think in terms of dedicating a planet to your Bureaucrat jobs.

In time, you build Bureaucrat Ecumenopoli that are the administrative backbones of interstellar civilisations, and eventually Ecumenopoli Ringworlds for the same task when your population becomes sufficiently vast.

I don't care that you just dump your former Bureaucrats into other jobs and just continue going wide anyway - because when both are equally well governed, going wide will beat going tall as a matter of economics, the engine of war - because what's been removed is that progression. You never move past a government suitable for a single world, even when you span hundreds of stars. It just kills the game for me.