Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 5 - Chapter 3

Master Scene

Master Scene

A scene without PCs run entirely by the GM, most often used to explain the backdrop of an upcoming session or to give a glimpse into the lives of the NPCs of the world—friends and foes alike—in the aftermath of a completed adventure.

The Trialist Empire of Rhine was home to many noble houses, and among the names that made up His Majesty’s trusted bulwark was one Count Ubiorum.

In the days preceding imperial hegemony, militaristic clans had littered the warring states, and the original Ubiorum had been a man blessed with a keen eye and decisiveness of action. Even before Richard’s exploits had earned him the epithet of Little Conqueror, the shrewd general had come to the future Emperor’s court to offer his sword...with the heads of his irresolute king and royal retainers as proof of his fealty.

Those accustomed to modern sensibilities would decry such an atrocity for its blatant treachery, but the era had been one of war where symbiotic reciprocity was paramount; Count Ubiorum’s actions had been a matter of course. Rather, the perceptions in those days would have placed the blame on the victim, for the fallen king had squandered his opportunity to make use of his talented vassals and paid a fitting price.

Having assessed that the future of the region would revolve around Richard, Ubiorum committed the whole of his efforts to the Emperor of Creation’s cause, assisting greatly in the foundation of the Empire. His remarkable contributions earned him the title of “count,” just shy of the authority given to the electorate, and he was given control of both the Ubiorum—that is, his original lands—and Duren administrative states.

The first Count Ubiorum had remained in service as His Majesty’s sword, earning great valor for his accomplishments, but that was history long since buried. The last of his legitimate successors had fallen several generations ago, and the vast expanses of land overseen by the county had been reclaimed by the Emperor—most of those living within its borders had all but forgotten the name.

All things must pass; that which flows must certainly ebb; the fairest among us shall no doubt fade. Transience was an inevitable companion of the warrior class, but this conclusion was a particularly woeful tale.

House Ubiorum was a lineage of mensch, prone to frequent changing of the guard. The dizzying pace of twenty-five-year generations had reduced the glorious family of warriors to asinine parasites entrenched in backroom politics.

The second-to-last count had been especially egregious; not a trace of his honorable forefather remained. Wasting most of his hours drowning in debauchery and toying with the arts, his involvement in stately matters was only worth mentioning when he was exploiting his indirect link to the Emperor’s maternal family to lap up greedy under-the-table deals. But eventually, the fool’s avarice produced a plan to become Emperor.

His inept plan was discovered on the spot. However, heinous tricks were his sole calling in life: he’d propped up a scapegoat, and combined with the lack of concrete evidence, he managed to avoid total ruin. He marched to the palace, bent both knees, and ground his forehead against the pavement by His Majesty’s feet; the performance was enough to escape demotion or change of rank...but not enough to survive.

In exchange for sweeping the incident under the rug, the Emperor handed the knave a means to atone for stirring up trouble in his Empire: a glass of wine enchanted with a hex of instant death. Unable to resist the monarch’s will, Count Ubiorum accepted the poisoned cup and met his end. His retreat from the public eye on account of a “stress-induced illness” quelled His Majesty’s rage, and his eldest son inherited the title.

Alas, high society was cold to a house stumbling over itself—especially so when whispers of treason could be caught on the winds.

The final Count Ubiorum made every effort to restore his family glory, but chose the worst possible means to do so: instead of waiting for years of honest work to clear his name, he dipped his toes into the realm of shadows in a plot to turn things around at once. Was it his fault, or did the blame lay with his father, who’d taught him nothing of politics but poison, daggers, and blackmail?

Whatever the case, the undeniable reality was that he died under dubious circumstances, his body discovered too late for history to know the truth. Imperial nobles were the cautious sort, and no amount of rummaging through diaries would suffice to uncover what had truly come to pass.

The death of Count Ubiorum sent shock waves through the region. Of course it did: not only did his land contain some of the most important trade routes—both on land and by river—in the whole nation, but it was home to abundant textile, leatherworking, and metallurgic industries the likes of which were hard to match across the Empire. Tax revenue in the region was one of the highest in the country, clocking well within the top fifty noble estates even in its historically worst years. No bad name was too terrible to bear if it meant laying claim to the fertile bosom of the Maiden Rhine; to call her bounty tremendous was a disservice to the region’s gifts.

There was no world in which those affiliated with the county could resist its temptations; a vicious battle for inheritance began, with every legitimate heir quickly being removed from the picture in one way or another.

The lack of direct descendants didn’t mean that all ties of blood had been severed. Alas, those who survived to throw their hat into the ring were invariably lowly knights unfit to rule a county; nigh unrelated relatives whose ancestors had left the Ubiorum family gods knew how many generations prior; or clans with questionable accounts of how they may or may not have adopted a child so-and-so years ago.

If that wasn’t tumultuous enough, random hopefuls appeared claiming to be the illegitimate child of the late count’s grandfather, or the bastard kid of his father. Worst of all, some claimed that their bloodline traced back to the original rightful heir—the second Ubiorum had been the second son, on account of his elder brother’s early death—and that their family had been in hiding all this time, waiting for this moment.

In short, a wake of vultures had come flying in with their most far-fetched excuses to try and feed on the land’s ample wealth.

The Emperor was, of course, apprehensive. This was a precious region that the Founding Emperor had given to one of his most loyal retainers: it served as both a manufacturing powerhouse and a vital point in the nation’s commercial network. Not only could he not allow it to fall into the hands of an idiot, but one false step could empower a true villain to plunge the nation into domestic chaos.

Eventually, the list of potential inheritors swelled past one hundred, forcing His Majesty’s hand. Steeling himself for the backlash that would follow, he made his decree: House Ubiorum was tangentially related to the sitting Emperor, and as such, the crown would carefully watch over the estate until a suitable candidate arrived.

“But I’m the suitable candidate!” the vultures all cried at once, causing a massive stir. But the Emperor held strong, conspiring with his successor’s vassals and even employing less than reputable means to silence the mobs.

And so the Ubiorum county had sat ungoverned for tens of years, loosely maintained and sparsely scrutinized by the crown that supposedly owned it.

Not even an emperor could watch over all the imperial lands at once, especially with a personal estate to take care of. For generations, the crown had done no more than dispatch national officials to conduct inspections of the local magistrates and maintain law and order—not enough to put an end to wrongdoing by any means.

Even children dared to swipe cookies from the pantry when the watchful eyes of mother and father were away; the thoughts of money-grubbing souls in an unsupervised land were hardly going to be any more mature.

With every passing coronation, each newly appointed Emperor would put in the effort to keep the county from rotting entirely; to an outside observer, the region seemed healthy enough. Alas, a closer look showed that their attempts had still allowed a hotbed of minor spoilage to fester.

The Empire could not afford to claim the heads of every magistrate or government official who broke the rules: eventually, it would run out of people to oversee its territory. Besides, there was no guarantee that a replacement was any better than the criminal they were replacing—or that they weren’t a spy sent to tip the balance toward one of the inheritors still biding their time to take the Ubiorum name.

The issue was in much need of solving, but had thus been kicked down the road until now. In the scandal’s heyday, claims of legitimacy had popped up like bamboo shoots after a storm; now the majority of them had withered away, their lives and passions fizzling into the sands of time.

Yet there were a stubborn few who refused to quit: immortals mainly, scheming on a scale grander than their short-lived competition. Unlike their mortal peers, they had the option of waiting—and waiting was key. Little by little, after the initial fervor had died off, they picked at the issue, inching the position toward their chosen candidate.

Among them was one Marquis Donnersmarck. Despite leading a marquisate, he was technically a branch of an electorate house and lacked the privilege to vote himself, occupying a delicate position crafted by the circumstances of history.

The methuselah marquis had once taken in a beloved mistress from House Ubiorum—this was his pretext for inheritance. At the inception of his scheme, he’d tweaked the written record of his long-deceased mistress to say that she’d been his legal wife, and turned an unrelated child of his into “her” son.

Marquis Gundahar von Donnersmarck was perhaps the closest among all those vying for the position of count, and he was attending to his daily duties in his personal office when one of his sleuths returned with an unwelcome report.

“Oh? Has the situation changed?”

The marquis was a handsome man by every account. His face was slim and graceful, capped with two glimmering ashen eyes that overflowed with warmhearted goodwill. Long hair of matching color was slicked back with a glossy shine under the mystic lamps. Aptly trained muscles offset his slender build with good balance, and he was tall enough to make most desks look cramped, but his custom furniture allowed him to recross his lithe legs in the other direction.

At his feet was a shadow clad entirely in navy blue. The garb veiled their figure to hide any distinguishing characteristics, and they warbled their own voice to make it impossible to pin down even the most basic identifying traits.

“Yes, sir. The Emperor’s coronation is to be accompanied by a handful of pardons and awards made in the last Emperor’s honor. Promotions and noble conferments will commence at the ceremony, and the Ubiorum county was among the names listed for the occasion.”

The man’s benevolent smile never wavered, but for a brief moment, a precarious gleam flashed in his eyes.

Marquis Donnersmarck was well-known for his love of philanthropy: he maintained an orphanage on his own estate, and donated great sums of money toward charitable pursuits uplifting the poor. Even in the capital, there was an almshouse with his name on it to show his commitment to noble pursuits; his reputation was perfectly in line with his gentle appearance.

Yet in truth, he was the sort to proactively involve himself with countless battles over ownership of land and name—the Ubiorum county was merely another item on the list. He was a viper at heart, collecting vassals who prized their loyalty to him above even their obligations to the Emperor. Perhaps his sway was easiest to demonstrate by mentioning that the feudal lords collared by leashes in his hand numbered in the dozens.

The man was a rarity among his kind. Most methuselah were free spirits, content to let their power wane while they wandered off to indulge in their favorite pastimes. But while it was easy to be fooled, he was not driven by some insatiable, irregular lust for power: the art of machination, in and of itself, was his greatest joy.

Accumulating wealth and power was a tedious necessity to most methuselah, but primarily because their imaginations were most often captured by pursuits that could be wholly accomplished in the confines of their own minds. Gifted with the capacity for parallel thought at unimaginable speeds, the most important quality of any given hobby was its depth—how difficult it was to tire of. Naturally, scholarly pursuits of magecraft, science, mathematics, and astronomy were popular for how much thought they required. Second to them were artistic ventures like painting and music, which challenged the creative senses.

But to Marquis Donnersmarck, no craft could match the kaleidoscopic beauty of conspiracy. When people’s darkest ambitions flowed together, corrupting the occasional wellspring of loyalty or peace, they swirled into a senseless evil that threatened to engulf the realm of statecraft whole. Countless episodes ran along these lines, but not once did the core of a struggle repeat itself.

Thus he had found his infinite source of amusement: the dimly lit alleys of political schemes. Burdened with talent as he was, centuries of earnest effort had still not been enough to so much as lay a finger on the prized imperial throne. What other art could offer such unknowable depth?

At times, this dangerous game offered thrilling run-ins with eternal slumber; he nodded at his subordinate’s report with intrigue.

“Hm... And not a word to any of those involved.”

“I believe the crown’s stance is that the matter was settled in the negotiation fifty years ago. Not even the members of the privy council were allowed to object on the matter.”

“How forceful. A slight on the Emperor of Creation’s words, even: ‘Only with the consent of his assembly shall the Emperor’s decree know magnificence.’”

The marquis shifted in his chair, reallocating the majority of his processing power from various other plots to this one—but to tell the truth, he was already close to giving up.

To begin with, his claim was based on lies and forgery; his plan had been to pick off his rivals and acquire the county by virtue of being the last notable power remaining. This war of attrition wasn’t something he’d been brewing for eons, but rather an idea he’d scratchbuilt following the final Count Ubiorum’s death. He’d simply looked at the situation and figured he had a winning shot.

However, he had still put a nonzero amount of effort into securing his spot as the prime candidate. Losing that stung.

Alas, he had to concede that his position wasn’t particularly strong either. While still better than the rabble’s, his justifications would not be enough to impede the crown’s attempt to man a vital station that had gone abandoned for half a century. He’d lined the pockets of many a local knight, magistrate, and noble, helping along their corrupt businesses, but it was unrealistic to expect their support to stand up to the Emperor’s will.

Marquis Donnersmarck could have all his agents in the region sign a petition in blood, swearing to end their own lives in protest if some unknown person was to lord over them...but His Majesty would probably reply with an imperial letter telling them to do it. The Emperor wanted nothing more than for the pesky vermin to conveniently vanish, leaving open slots to be filled; in all likelihood, he was ready for just as many heads to fly when his newly chosen count took office anyway. If he wasn’t, then he wouldn’t have dared to pick away a decades-old scab and reopen this old wound.

“What a blunder. The only path forward is to see how others react, Wit suppose. To think the Empire was ready to employ such drastic measures...”

Even though he’d updated the rest of his vocabulary, the ancient methuselah could never quite let go of the first-person pronoun of his youth, closer to the tongues of old than modern Rhinian. Leaning onto an armrest and propping his chin up, Marquis Donnersmarck let out a disappointed sigh and began to fiddle with a strand of hair that had fallen onto his face. Still, it wasn’t anything to fret over. Over the course of his long life, he’d encountered too many miscalculations and aggravating turns of fate to count.

Here was a man who had seen the Empire rise: he could still recall his boyhood spent serving the first three kings Richard had taken in. This was but a trifle, a chipped fragment in the overarching game of strategy. Reaching too far for a fallen scrap would ensure he’d be too late to take his share of the pie on the table.

One day, he cared not when, but one day he would make his dream come true. Whatever the era, he would rise to the throne as king or emperor of a nation vital on the world stage—until then, wisdom dictated that he choose his battles.

“Now, what sort of character is this new Count Ubiorum?”

“I have looked into her.”

“Oh?”

The marquis glanced over with great interest, and his spy produced a thick packet of papers to hand him. The agent’s clan had served this man for generations; they were more than mere messenger pigeons, only serving to report the news. Precise calculation required information, and they were the cream of the crop, bringing him all the intelligence he needed to plot his next step.

“Hm, a foreign lady. A daring move, this is. And she has ties to the College, at that... How very like the new Emperor—or should Wit say, of Martin I? Agrippina du Stahl, was it?”

Thorough to an extreme, the dossier even included a sketch of the woman’s face. While the document provoked more questions than it answered, knowing her backstory and appearance was a large first step. One’s nature often came through in looks, and more importantly...

“How beautiful. She’s quite my type. Strong of will, sharp of mind, yet not inflated by the head on her shoulders—or so she seems.”

Seldom few methuselah ever found meaning in producing children, but Marquis Donnersmarck was one of them. Where others of his kind lacked the interest to employ their lower halves, he was the sire to a copious brood. Not only did he see value in marriage for political means, but he displayed a sensual vigor ordinarily unseen amongst his peers.

Gently setting down the likeness, he muttered, “How...fascinating. Continue your investigation.”

“Yes, sir.”

The shadowy warrior melted into the dark, disappearing at their master’s order. Untiring, their sole purpose was as an agent of his ambition. His villainy had come a long way from an Empireless era, and he hid his greed behind a refreshing smile as he outlined the mental image of his new scheme.

[Tips] Having a child or two is more than average among methuselah. In fact, there exist records of a thousand-year-old individual with only three children across an entire millennium. Naturally, the books show that most that have perished were too busy engaging in their hobbies to bear any children at all.