Finding Gizeh

[Danos]

Has anyone used Gizeh from Lost Worlds in their game? I've got a group with a Justinian noble, so they will jump to explore a lost world bordering Delphi, in the hopes that it will be Paradise. I could have come up with my own home brew, but Gizeh is already written and waiting for me to use. Has anyone else used it? How did that go? Any noteworthy problems I should brace for?

I'm already figuring out how the Hawkwoods will respond, how the Emperor will respond, and some of the interstellar political dynamics. I think the culture shock when the party finds a basically socialist republican world bordering Delphi will be interesting. But I worry that I've overlooked something. Anyone have any pointers?

[Amlost]

Something similar came to my mind when we where discussing Delphi once being linked to Paradise....

I always saw Gizeh as a potential point of contention between the minor house allies of the Hawkwood. The second that it becomes known to the other minor houses I see it as very likely that the minor houses will begin to flock to the world and look at the Hawkwoods as facilitators, barring that they will look to the Emperor. Juandaastas will make claims to lands based on ancestral interests in the Ming and Durgwhallah. Trusnikron will see a vast open inviting land and be the first to volunteer to convert the heathens and remove the Republican stain from the world. Justinian will find all kinds of justifications for land and title claims on the world. For fun some scion of House Windsor within the Hawkwood could make some random claims on the world. Add to that the proximity of an unreflective populous three jumps from Holy Terra. Add Engineers and Scravers flocking here to redeem tech; Charioteers looking for new and exciting products. Your group will be overwhelmed by requests, threats, and political intrigue will be rife.

Sounds like fun.

[Danos]

Yeah, that's my plan. I particularly like the tech aspect of the world and the fact that they are all freemen. Republican sympathizers will swarm in, but the population associates the second republic with strip mining and chemical pollution, so they are anti-republican. The church will probably struggle, but they have a lot on their plates. And the people of Gizeh are nowehere near the headache for the church that is posed by the populace of Iver or Pandora or Twilight. I see it being a bonanza for the Hawkwoods and their minor house allies, and there is no justification for Imperial involvement. Ultimately, what should likely happen is a protectorate much like Lyonesse, with freemen under their own autonomous government but loyal to the Hawkwoods. It'll be fun to see what happens in my campaign.

[Amlost]

I agree with your assessment of it becoming a protectorate (I'd almost say more similar to Vesihimal then Lyonesse, but details will be in the eventual ownership.). However due to it's location in the jumpweb and the political leanings of the Hawkwood I'd have to say the more immediate situation would be a mixed bag. Land grabs are likely to be common early on (Great campaign fodder). The local Gizeh government will likely be ineffective in stopping any reasonably armed KW force. Because of the Kurga and Vuldrok threat and the populous of Iver, Pandora, and Twilight the Hawkwood will mostly ignore Gizah while blocking opposing houses. Gizah will be a war of small Hawkwood aligned factions.

A Juandaastas controlled protectorate with numerous fiefs of minor houses gives a wide range of possibilities for endless intrigue and backstabbing. I guess that would be a planetwide version of the Ragnor fief.

Factory's and mines are going to be grabbed up by Guild, Justinian, and minor Hawkwood factions. The agora will be swiped up by some League Faction (I like the idea of a late hardball powergrab by the Reeve fundeded Apothocaries over Scraver, Engineer, and Muster squabbles.) Infinite possibilities exist in the Guild intrigues. Balancing those alliances with House allies will be an issue.

The Church, Orthodoxy, will not be at war with the "approved" orders of the church but with the rogue ones. Lip Service will be common but overcoming it will take decades.... Unless something drives home that point.....

Few thoughts. Take em or leave um...

[Danos]

I'll take em, thanks! My current campaign is a bit more heroic that my usual, and the party has two clergy members, as opposed to my usual zero, so it should be interesting. I like the idea of a Hawkwood protectorate with lots of minor house fiefs, so I'll probably roll with that. My intro should set the stage for an interesting first contact. I don't want to post more now because we're playing tonight and my players lurk here, so I'll send out an update as to what happened after I run it.

[Danos]

OK, well, it went off the rails for me, but it will still work out. The group found a jumpkey and a philosopher's stone. They surprised me by making no effort whatsoever to find out how the philosopher's stone worked. The answer is, flashy and bold. They went to the Delphi gate, and the stone sensed a jumpgate and did its thing. The charioteer and hawkwood pickets went crazy. There were hails and demands for explanations, panicked demands that they stop tampering with the jumpgate, that sort of thing. They had borrowed an ensign with the right key to get into the Delphi system, so the only way out was through the lost route. The exploration of Gizeh went well. My group is sworn to track down a renegade Brother Battle turned pirate, so they found out the planet had been raided. They treated it very delicately, did some great roleplaying. My favorite was when they were asked "do all pirates wear ceramsteel armor and carry those wire-blade things?" They answered "Only the best of the best of the best." Then they overheard the local political leader arguing to her fellow councillors "We need protection if there are so many pirates that there can be the best of the best of the best. That implies four tiers of pirate quality. We need to make some sort of deal." The party talked their way back through the gate, where the Hawkwoods had sent some of their fleet, by explaining that they had found a lost world and had a delegation onboard. It went OK from there, I'll be able to use Gizeh for multiple plot hooks and storylines from here on out. Nothing was really settled, so I can use the ongoing negotiations as a way to monkey wrench their plans whenever I need to. They are, after all, the experts since they found the lost world first. They've explained the philosopher's stone away as a church relic, which worked under the circumstances, but we'll have more fun with that as well. Until they return it to the Amaltheans, who loaned it to them for mystical reasons they still don't understand.

[Amlost]

Storyline Recommendation;

NPC 6th level D20 "Saint;" arrives and preaches the prophets message to the heathens. In search for the characters ex-Battle Brother/Pirate arrives and terrorizes populous. Go "Seven Samurai" and drag characters in to protect the peasants; in the end "Saint" gives life to save the town.

[Bubasti]

I used Gizeh in a game long ago. It was loads of fun.

The group was a Hawkwood Noble, and his companions: an Ukar Engineer (that previously took care of a hollerith style tabulation machine that controlled the harvest numbers of the lower hemisphere of his father's fief), a Charioteer (he was pissed that the noble had an ancient key), a Sanctuary Aeon priest (marijuana smoking hippie that used divine holistic healing).

The initial contact after they landed in the Capital was smooth, the Hawkwood char (and player) was a great diplomat. They learned about the local culture and made a few selected promises to the local council of elders (I made clear that it was a borderline perfect Meritocracy).

On the voyage back home, the Hawkwood was disgusted with the lack of social strata, and would work with his father and allies on how to 'annex' Gizeh. After the session was over, the player was disgusted on how his character would destroy a very healthy government, imposing the neo-feudalism over a free population. He actually used the expression: I feel like the serpent in Eden.

I loved the conflict on his face, and how torn he was about doing what his char though was `right`, and how this opposed his personal views of right and wrong.

[Danos]

Yeah, Gizeh is almost a utopia. Reminds me of the utopia in the one Stainless Steel Rat book. Everyone does what they are good at, and earns 'credits' based on the value they add to society. People who don't earn or produce are encouraged to do something productive. Freeloaders get just enough food and water to keep them alive until they decide to do something productive.

Enter a neo-feudal society with Theocratic leanings, and the poor utopian socialists don't have a chance. That's kinda where my campaign is headed too.

Thanks for the feedback!