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Bit of a conundrum but there seems to be a bit of an inconsistency with the fate of House Justinian's Electoral Sceptres.

I'm pretty certain the FSR:PG states that the House's sceptres were lost on Paradise, the House's home world, when it's jump gate coordinates were lost/corrupted. However Lords of the Known Worlds states that they traded their Sceptres to the Church in exchange for protection from the rival Houses (that were just picking over the corpses of Justinian's allies in House Alecto...).

So how could they trade away something they lost?

It *could* be that the Justinians have traded away their Elector rods, but have one from another extinct House (trapped on their lost homeworld). While it might be that they traded entitlement to the elector rods when they are recovered.

Any thoughts, ideas?

I would say never keep all the eggs in one basket.

That said, my guess some rods where lost on Paradise (their planet) and some given to the church.


We can also think the rods given to church were not theirs as well... maybe from the Windors or any house that was getting beat up by the big five.

Anyway, it could make a nice plot to find/recover the rods!

I always thought that chasing rumors of a lost voting rod would be fun. However I have never been able to come up with a really good credible storyline that would hook the characters for long enough to make it a believable long campaign search.

It also comes with rougher implications on where your campaign will lead.

When they get the voting rod, what do they do with it? Bring it the head of their house? Trade it away for promises of power. The implications of another vote for the next Emperor is far more powerful the closer that vote appears. Whoever holds it would get the most return for it by waiting till the Alexis is dead or approaching death. Holding onto such a device would require complete secrecy, otherwise every house, guild, and church power will try to steal, coarse, blackmail, or kill to retrieve the prize.

Unless you can legitimize your ownership of it.

Legitimacy or not has ittle to do with it. What is important is if you can keep it.

In my campaign, the Justinians lost at least one scepter when the Paradise gate was sealed, and traded whatever they had left to the church. Those scepters, being royal rather than church scepters, wound up with the Li Halan after Halvor became regent and Patriarch. I have the church holding 5 scepters, 3 for the orthodox (The Orthodox, Avesti, and Incarnate scepters), one by the Borthers Battle and one by the Amaltheans. We had a big thread on the old HDI forums about the scepter distribution, back in the day. I can't remember what all we came up with. Scepter distribution was uneven at the start, and not every house that ruled a world (like the Keddah and Masseri) got scepters. The Justinians were close supporters of the Alecto, so they would have gotten more than one. I assumed three, one lost on Paradise and two traded to the church for protection.

I don't see the Voting rods as being user-specific. I think in the rules of the Imperial Senate they are the bearer bonds of galactic political power. I'm sure they are unique, beautiful and technologically advanced like nothing you've ever seen but one rod works just as well as another. Otherwise there wouldn't be such a fuss to recover lost rods unless they belonged to your faction. As well there wouldn't be much value in trading a voting rod if you couldn't use it.

Yeah, I've been back and forth on whether the church and quild scepters should be somehow different from the noble scepters for a long time. I have a draft document where I lay out the specifics, I guess I could share. Basically, I keep revising it as I change my mind, but it lays out the voting procedures and some of the legal rights and duties for voting. My current campaign features a minor house noble, from the Shelit, and we are very early in a Royal Gambit based campaign. I don't know that they will ever find a scepter, they might wind up going the route of trying to get A. Hawkwood to make some more instead. I really like the Royal Gambit idea and have been waiting for a chance to use it. Finally having a minor house noble who is on good terms with his house and taking orders instead of defying his elders opens the door to that plot line for me.