Drawing Maps - Season 6 Faction Creation Pt. 1 - Government Type

Hey 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!

1. Stel Kesh
   1. Type: Oligarchy (Cryptocracy)
      1. 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?
   2. Goal: Divided They Fall (barring player change).
   3. Corruption: 5
   4. Aesthetic notes, Notable NPCs, Vehicle Designs, additional traits.
      1. Courtly, urbane, and largely incapable of exerting its force. Deeply traditional and obeisant culture. 
      2. Extension of previous-seen Kesh architectural styles or updated? Maybe lean towards the (early) baroque stuff and away from Victorian?
      3. NPCs TBD
         1. Public Leader: The Living Princept, name TBD (“The Anti-Princept”) (not actually on this moon)
         2. Alise Breka - Guest Lecturer at Verglaz University and Author of popular Renegade Hearts romance/action fiction series. 
         3. TBD etc.
      4. Vehicle designs: Retrofitted/updated old mech designs. Literally mechs we’ve seen in this show before. Rooks, Saints, Anglers, Hoplite, etc. Additional info TBD
   5. Squads
      1. The Rapid Evening (Name TBD) - Secret Society Pulling the strings - Tier V
      2. House Chasma - Family in charge of intelligence efforts- Tier IV
      3. The Divine Order and Its Elect - Tier IV
      4. House Whitestar: Noble House that Anti-Princept’s is from - Tier III
      5. House Brightline/Horizon: Monarchists and social reformists, not loyal to Anti-Princept - Tier III
      6. Verglaz University - Tier II
      7. Hallowed Squad 1 - Tier II
      8. Hallowed Squad 2 - Tier I
      9. TBD: Tier 1
   6. Region
      1. 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

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!!