Friends at the Table
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Drawing Maps - Season 6 Faction Creation Pt. 1 - Government Type
🕑 Added 2019-09-08 01:28:03 +0000 UTCHey everyone, Austin here with another Drawing Maps update! This is continuing in a series of experimental, non-streamed Drawing Maps updates, and if you like this, please let me know! My plan is to do five of these over the next few weeks as I prep to start recording Season 6 proper, so there's plenty of time to evaluate if this model of Drawing Maps feels like a good thing. Please let me know in the comments below.
Why five updates? Well, because our next season is going to have five major factions, and Beam Saber, the game we'll be playing for that season, basically has five main steps to building custom factions. Over the next five Drawing Maps updates, I'll "show my work" on what I currently have scribbled down for each of these factions, and I'll attach an audio file of me working through how I arrived at one of those five main elements.
Those elements, for the record, are: Government Type and Goal, Corruption, Aesthetic Notes/NPCs/Vehicle Designs/Additional Traits, Squads, and Regions.
We're kicking things off with Government Type and Starting Goal, and to explore that, I've chosen Stel Kesh, a faction whose type I changed very recently! Feel free to follow along with my notes below as I talk on the podcast, with the note that all of this is subject to change. As always, nothing is canon until it goes into a episode.
I'll note that this recording is pretty long, at 50 minutes, but future updates should be about half of this, as I won't be setting up as much going forward.
As a final note, there are things you could call spoilers here, both for past Road to Season 6 games, for the very end of Twilight Mirage (but nothing to do with the main characters), and for setting info about Season 6.
Enjoy!
- Stel Kesh
- Type: Oligarchy (Cryptocracy)
- Kesh is the eternal home of the Princept, the singular leader whose role is supposedly to be the loyal servant, chief advocate, and heir of all citizens of the Divine Principality. And yet… in this current moment, at least, Kesh is not a monarchy or an autocracy. Though it positions itself as the inheritor of a lost legacy of justice and stability, it is Kesh’s long running history of macro-scale manipulation, backroom dealing, and intelligence operations that powers the engine of this empire. Sure, there is a Princept on the People’s Throne. But who runs Kesh, really?
- Goal: Divided They Fall (barring player change).
- Corruption: 5
- Aesthetic notes, Notable NPCs, Vehicle Designs, additional traits.
- Courtly, urbane, and largely incapable of exerting its force. Deeply traditional and obeisant culture.
- Extension of previous-seen Kesh architectural styles or updated? Maybe lean towards the (early) baroque stuff and away from Victorian?
- NPCs TBD
- Public Leader: The Living Princept, name TBD (“The Anti-Princept”) (not actually on this moon)
- Alise Breka - Guest Lecturer at Verglaz University and Author of popular Renegade Hearts romance/action fiction series.
- TBD etc.
- Vehicle designs: Retrofitted/updated old mech designs. Literally mechs we’ve seen in this show before. Rooks, Saints, Anglers, Hoplite, etc. Additional info TBD
- Squads
- The Rapid Evening (Name TBD) - Secret Society Pulling the strings - Tier V
- House Chasma - Family in charge of intelligence efforts- Tier IV
- The Divine Order and Its Elect - Tier IV
- House Whitestar: Noble House that Anti-Princept’s is from - Tier III
- House Brightline/Horizon: Monarchists and social reformists, not loyal to Anti-Princept - Tier III
- Verglaz University - Tier II
- Hallowed Squad 1 - Tier II
- Hallowed Squad 2 - Tier I
- TBD: Tier 1
- Region
- The Verglaz Taiga - Polar region under Kesh control. Winter Palace at its most southern point, where a river meets the prophet’s sea. Details TBD
- Type: Oligarchy (Cryptocracy)
A transcription is available for this episode here.
A full list of completed transcriptions is available here. Our transcriptions are provided by a fan-organized paid transcription project. If you'd like to join, you can get more information at https://twitter.com/transcript_fatt. Thank you to all of our transcribers!!
Comments
Bradley Butts
Re-listening as we get closer to season 6. Love they way Austin says Major University twice because he realized its a FaTT name. Keep up the good work!
Sabrina DeWeerdt
Seconding some other folks - the audio version works really well for me!
Matthew Carrico
This was good! I usually don't make it to the patreon page for video content, so this audio version was a treat.
George Connor
+1 for audio updates from drawing maps.
SuperBiasedGary
I really love the Drawing Maps updates but I usually don't get round to watching the hours long videos. Any kind of audio podcast format would be much more convenient personally.
robowitch
Hey! Just wanted to voice some support for this & the previous Drawing Maps content. I think both are great ways to engage & there'll absolutely be audiences for both. If these end up being too much work (because it ends up being a *lot* of little things), I'd understand, but great format. Would love both this & any discussion/recap-type content like the previous DM podcast too.
Adam Collier
Just wanna let it be known that I approve of this Drawing Maps style. Thank you for this, it was great and I look forward to the next one!
Ril
This format works much better than the livestreams for me, and I enjoy these updates a lot.
Icarus DeOsu
Just chiming in to vote that I love the new changes to drawing maps and fully support the format
Icarus DeOsu
Just chiming in to vote that I love the new changes to drawing maps and fully support the format
Jacob Pritchard
Have to echo everyone here - this format is awesome, and really helps actualize the world y'all will be playing in with Beam Saber!
Christine Prevas
just finished listening to this and I LOVE the new format, really enjoyed listening to it - sounds like a lot of other people feel the same, but I rarely have time to get around to streams, so seeing this in the podcast feed so I could listen on my commute really made my day
justikin
Gonna echo everyone else, this format is great!!
Jack Nicolaus
This format is awesome. It scaffolds my learning of the setting so well. The small, bite sized chunks make it easier to process.
Victor Flickstein
just wanted to say i also prefer this format!
Julian
I'm really liking this format! I don't have a lot of time to watch livestreams, but I can put on a podcast at work easily.
Jesse Sherry
This was great and I really appreciate the format. I rarely have time for streams, but podcasts can be worked in anywhere.
Sycorax
Hey, just registering my support and approval for these Drawing Maps updates. I like the new format!
aviatorceladine
This is really cool info and great info for building factions. I do hope that this is all prep that you can use since I remember that was a concern about different formats for mapmaker updates
Briar Sovereign
I personally love this format! It's so much easier for me to get to. And I appreciate the shoutout! ✨
Daniel Laloggia
I thought this format was great. I'm certainly interested in more like this
Cole Beehn
I also almost never get around to watching streams, unless I can catch them live, so this audio format is great. Like others have noted, it might be tough for me to listen to just one voice for an hour or more and stay focused without visuals or noted breaks in audio chunks/styles/etc.
Emrys Noreas
Podcasts are easier for me to get to than streams, so I like this format quite a bit.
Morgan Jackson
Unrelated to everything, but I am *really really really* hoping that we get little segments from Renegade Hearts as episode intros/descriptions!! I think that would be so cool.
Cole
This is really cool! I like having something to anchor your speech to, so having the written notes to reference is really helpful -- I tend to tune out a bit too much if I'm listening to just one person talking without any visual aide, so I liked the livestreams. Having shorter podcasts with notes/maps in the post as a supplement is good too, though! Means I don't need to try and focus on catching every word because there's something to help remind me of what even is going on when I lose focus for a minute.
Austin Ramsay
This was really cool to hear! I'm glad that the Faction creation directions are working as intended!
Hargablarga
I much prefer updates in the podcast feed over streams, as it's hard for me to set aside time for streams (or VODs) but I can always fit a podcast into my schedule. A shift into more of this would be much appreciated
Tegan
This method feels like a more productive use of time? Like, I love hours long content, but I can't really watch it at work, and this way it feels like Austin gets to spend more time actually making content rather than slideshows for us?
Evan Nyquist
This was cool to hear! More like this is exactly what I backed at this their for! Livestreams are harder for me to digest in general so I dont miss the visuals.
Alex Bryson
I've never actually seen a drawing maps stream just because it's hard to find the time to focus on a video. Having audio updates on my podcast feed is much better for me. Just my view. Whatever works best for you if obviously the most important thing
Max Ornstein
Really enjoyed this! Streams are great too but this was a nice surprise to pop up in the feed
Alex Ammerman
I’m really enjoying this format so far and would love to hear more!
potatonaught
Speaking as a primarily mobile-user than PC-user, it’s definitely easier for me to check the podcast feed than remember to log into patreon so I like this format.
Zack Morrison
Very much enjoying these non-stream Drawing Maps eps so leaving a comment to say so!
Dylan
Extremely interested in this type of non-stream Drawing Maps content!!
Remi Garreau
I like this about a thousand times more than streams. Gimme that delicious podcast feed”
Matthew Guzdial
Very happy for non-live drawing maps to continue to be a thing! I'd definitely still like occasional live drawing maps if possible, but I understand if not.
Morgan Jackson
SOOOO interested in hearing more non-streamed Drawing Maps prep!!!
