#Rebelion

[dailyadventureprompts]

Adventure: A visit to Dawdlewall Fortress

Well there goes the neighbourhood... won't be too hard to catch it though....

Meet Clover, She's a primordial spirit of the land, and a very polite one at that. She embodies the place where the ancient mountains meets the lush green of valleys and lakes below, and her name is derived from an ancient elven poetic composition about her that refers to her mowing through the canopy like it was clover in a lawn.

In times of yore, a great hero awoke her to save their home from an invading army, simultaneously breaking the cliff-face free an undauntable defender. In the usual course of things a spirit like clover would have been unsummoned as soon as the crisis had passed, but the hero and all of their neighbours were just so taken with the gentle giant that they decided to let her stay.

Generations later, Clover has become a beloved local icon, gently grazing the surrounding forests while the fortress on her back serves as the region's seat of power. While most rulers of Dawdlewall have tried to live up to the hero's example the most recent; Gottfried Scarlett, Earl of Eastcress has turned out to be a bit of a bastard. Having ascended to rule Dawdlewall through a convoluted inheritance scheme, he intends to use his authority to wring the region dry of riches, backing up his power grab with kaiju sized threats.

Adventure Hooks:

The party can run into the earl's forces in a number of ways, having set up impromptu toll roads, shaking down local guilds, strong arming tavern staff for free service, ubiquitous "assholes throwing their weight around" type of behaviour. Things inevitably come to a head when the party delve a local dungeon and end up running face to face into the earl's "tax collectors" insisting that they need to pay a "delving fee". A brawl ensues, and the party either find themselves carted off to the Dawdlewall dungeons or on the run with a bounty on their head.

In attempting to fill his treasury as much as possible, Earl Gottfried has ironically made himself tremendously easy to rob. Wagons full of extorted gold make their way across the marshy roads towards the fortress snail. Though well guarded, these trusted troops are overworked and prone to error. Start planning your robinhood ambushes now.

As one of the many privileges granted to him by his new noble title, the Earl has seized control of the ancient hero's staff, which is the only means of communicating with Clover. He's already steered the oblivious primordial to crush a tiny logging hamlet that refused his unjust enchroachment , allowing the denizens to evacuate as a show of his magnanimity (also because it's hard for a giant earth-churning snail to sneak up on anyone). Seizing this staff is the key to kicking Gottfried to the curb (or off the edge of the Fortress, if the party is feeling particularly dramatic) but suddenly puts the heroes in a difficult position. Who can they trust with Clover's titanic power? Do they keep the staff for themselves or use it as a bargaining chip in the power vacuum left by their enemy's departure?

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[ruusaanrambles]

Star Wars is a dystopia, and why Lost Stars is my favorite Star Wars novel.

(Vague spoilers only) Really, I just love any Star Wars media that strongly represents the dystopia that Star Wars is. Lost Stars, Inferno Squadron, Aftermath, Fate of the Jedi, and Andor all spotlight various parts of this dystopian galaxy.

In lost stars the main characters, Ciena and Thane go from being children on a planet not yet part of the empire, to training as their planet begins to change, to being well oiled cogs in the imperial machine.

It shows very clearly the change a person must go through to be within the empire without breaking. How it starts with the compromises you make with yourself, justifying atrocities in the name of peace. Dehumanizing entire groups of people, with the help of the propaganda around you telling you the rebellion are vicious terrorists that must be destroyed at any cost.

From one angle lost stars is about a very special relationship two people have with each other even though the most turbulent of times but what I see is an incredibly well done description of the internal struggle of two imperial soldiers as the Empire grows and fights to crush the rebellion.

How can someone who is not entirely evil be complicit in the destruction of an entire planet. Of millions of innocent lives. Of cultures.

How do they become more biased, desensitized, and cold to the plight of other beings?

what comprises does it start with?

The time of the Empire was one where absolute control at any cost was valued. Alderaan was turned into rubble, to send a message to the rebellion. Jedha city, a place with incredible cultural significance, was leveled to kill the rebels, the terrorists as they were called by the empire. Mandalore was glassed. How do you justify that? Again, an armed populace, some of which joined the rebellion whom I reiterate were called terrorists in imperial propaganda.

There are so many more layers to the dystopia that Star Wars is but for now I leave you with this. For me, Star Wars as a dystopia is so captivating because it’s so familiar.

The dystopian elements of Star Wars are familiar to me.

[xvivinx]

[chtvp1]

D E F Y

[grimmgromm]

[i-dont-know-anything-anymore]

[yoestuveaquiunavezfrases21]

1883- Cuando todos te indican lo que debes pensar, lo que debes decir o lo que debes hacer, la libertad y la independencia son lo único que te identifican cómo persona. La única manera de lidiar con ese mundo sin libertad es volverte tan absolutamente libre que tu mera existencia sea un acto de rebelión.  

[girlrandomstuff]

Seeing the look of terror and rage in Mon's and Tay's face at the proposal of a marriage arregment for her 13 years old daughter, knowing they had a relationship before they arrenged Mon's marriage, makes me question all the terrible things Mon had gone through married to Perrin, makes me question all the pain they gaved both Mon and Tay because of this tradition

[dumb-genius228]

[steven1123x]

Guys! My brother is getting me the Rose Quartz Battle flag!

So… I’m getting this because to show my support for 🇵🇸. And I’m so excited to get it. I’ll post it on my birthday!

[susanoois]

I’m damned for what I do.

My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight they’ve set me on a path from which there’s no escape.

I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time.

"I looked down there was no longer any ground beneath my feet". - Luthen Rael / ep 10 series Andor.

The speech resembles Anakin's feelings. I can't help but this parallel, Luthen is the spark of the Rebellion against the galactic empire while Anakin in his fall to the dark side and rise of the galactic empire.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Villain: Duke Sabrian, the Trueborn Bastard

The barred windows of the carriage let in only cold mountain air and the endless procession of crucifixes marking the road up to the Duke's castle. You idly wonder if he's picked out which ones he'll nail you and your friends to once you've told him that you've failed.

Though he styles himself the gallant exemplar of everything the noble warrior class could be, Duke Sabrian is in truth the embodiment of all the failings of his social order: brutish, bloody-minded, and blind to any plights beyond his own. More than a decade past Sabrian fought a war against his own sibling to seize control of their duchy and since then has ruled from an isolated mountain fortress fearing reprisals from the people he subjugates.

As long as the Duke rules things will continue to get worse, and it's only a matter of time before the party and those they care about get caught up in it.

Adventure Hooks:

Exhausted after delving their first dungeon the party are shaken down by a group of the duke's men, who are better armed and carry the threat of reprisal should the party draw steel on them. Perhaps it's better to give the toughs what they want and live to fight another day... say after finding out where the guards get drunk so they can trick/charm/beat the location of the stolen treasure out of them.

Countess Ledrick has a problem. Despite being one of the mercenaries who helped win Sabrian his throne she was never formally sworn in as one of the duke's vassals when she took over her lands and is widely regarded as little better than an upjumped brigand. Now a large shipment of tribute heading for the Duke's council has gone missing on the borders of her land, and it's only a matter of time before the blame comes to rest on her. She'll need all the help she can in recovering the lost treasure which just might be the party's ticket to a position in her court.

While out in the market a couple of the party members are approached by a woman in a hood doing her very best to try to seem inconspicuous. Through smiles and whispered pleas she begs them to help her hide from the guards, palming them a small handful of jewels in the attempt. If the party gives her aid she'll eventually introduce herself as Mina, keeping most of her story to herself but letting slip that she stole something precious from Sabrian and that she needs their help getting out of the duchy and into some neighbouring lands. It'd be an arduous journey, made even more arduous when in the next town the party discover posters and criers proclaiming that the duke's wife Minerva has been kidnapped, promising a great reward for her return and a terrible punishment for those who made off with her.

Background: While many born into the nobility feel confined by their station, Sabrian always knew he was made to rule. He was one of those people who excelled at the standards he was expected to meet, for whom the path of life is not only a straight line but part of a larger destiny that gave order to the world.

The problem was that Sabrian was the younger son, and his older sister chafed against noble life as much as he suited it. Sabrina was high minded, well read, and was possessed of several strange notions. The first being that those who own and govern the land owed something to those that lived upon it, the second being that her name was Solace, not Sabrina. The third was that she was not a woman, simply a person. The fourth and perhaps most outrageous was that she they would not be taking a husband, nor even a lover for the purposes of producing heirs and rather than just handing over their claim on the duchy to their well deserved brother like so often happened when the noble family tree refused to branch they would instead be creating some kind of made up of council made up of their vassals the elected mayors from the duchy's largest towns.

Sabrian wasn't having any of it, his sibling had clearly gone mad and was denying both of them (but mostly him) their birthright. After years of arguing, petitioning their mother on her death bed, and an outright threat of banishment from the now ascendant Duke Solace, Sabrian went out, raised himself an army, and went to war with his softhearted kin. The fighting was worse than anyone could have imagined, the people rose in Solace's defence and Sabrian had to resort to brutal tactics to put them down burning villages and farmland in the drought of summer and marching his followers over the ashes towards their next target.

Solace's head was delivered to him in a basket the same day he took the throne, and for the decade since Sabrian can't hold court without remembering the reproachful look in his sibling's dead eyes.

Further Adventures:

Knowing the common people hold no love for him, the duke governs from an ancestral bastion high in the mountains, a cold and lofty perch quite suitable for an unassailable tyrant who thinks himself above all. His remoteness and unwillingness to bother has paradoxically allowed his vassals the ability to govern their lands the way they see fit, which leads to a patchwork of graft, neglect, and personal ambition. In recent years Sabrian has sought to curve this independent streak by putting more and more resources behind his personal guard, who are now commanded by a former bountyhunter famed for her ruthlessness.

Increasing isolation gives the party a chance to rally together a resistance against the duke, but such a coalition might be built on shoddy foundations. A sizeable minority of his underlings feel hard done by him and might turn if given the right encouragement, though they may prove untrustworthy. Solace's old supporters have been ruthlessly hunted and will be mistrustful of newcomers, especially those that fought under the usurper. Minerva's clan are powerful nobles in their own right in a neighboring territory, and once they have their daughter back would be happy to throw their support behind the party's plan to oust the useless tyrant, provided the party are willing to play ball with them.

Sabrian has been unravelling, retreating from public life, executing his servants an courtiers for suspected treason, even keeping his formerly loving wife locked in a tower for the better part of a year. In the ten years since he married Minerva to secure her parent's support for his usurpation he has been unable to father a child, no matter what healers he turns to or what concubines he lays with. The inability to produce an heir was one of his primary reasons for going to war with Solace, and now he is failing in that exact same noble duty. This rather ironic fate was delivered unto him by Litirenn, god of farmland and cultivation, as punishment for burning one of the god's shrines during his rampage through the countryside ( along with the shrinekeeper who was an outspoken proponent of Solace's reforms. The god is going to be watching the party's actions closely if they set themselves in opposition to the duke, giving them a nudge now and again, ensuring the land rises to support them, that kid of thing.

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[rosair-rosedees]

Listen/purchase: PANDORA by Rose Dees

new record! do you hate nazis? how bout we transcend and eat em all?

highlights include bodybag factory , Vox Populi and looking towards the sun!

[electronica-1]

Vamos, pregúntenle cosas a ChatGPT.

La verdadera rebelión de las máquinas...

[peecyjacksoo]

Thinking about how Coriolanus used a jabberjay to betray Sejanus and then 65 years later Katniss becomes known as a mutation of the symbol of his betrayal.

[jannetstopit]

I'm tired of the system telling me what to do. so happy new years y'all. jingle the bells.