Not just banners and battalions...

Although I enjoy preparing for my eventual armies, I still see Estria in large part as a setting for a more social game, a game of actors and agents, influence and intrigue. As noted in an earlier post I have a roster of Estrian noble and non-noble personalities drawn up (now expanded to  include123 characters). Each character has a name, a portrait and a social position. I am now in the process of compiling a guidebook to the Estrian nobility, with brief character sketches for each personality.

Although I have quantified their personal attributes, abilities and character traits, I would hate to see players playing out social intrigue "by the numbers" so I intend to keep the actual numbers to myself and circulate only the guidebook. This is what anyone playing the "Game of the Estrian Succession" will have to rely on to make guesses about what characters are good at, what means of persuasion they are vulnerable to, and how their skills and weaknesses are best exploited. The guidebook will outline what is commonly known or suspected about their personalities. In many cases, character traits will only be implied or alluded to,  and in some cases, skills or weaknesses that are not well-known will not even be mentioned. So there will be more to learn about these characters in play. Hopefully the result will be a game in which players learn more and more about each character as time goes on, even as they are trying to work out how best to manipulate them.

Anyway, to give an idea of what the guidebook is looking like I am putting up screencaps of the title page and one typical page with a couple of biographies.Screencaps are awkward, but the original document is in Word and the final product will be a pdf. And I don't think I can put non-image files up on this blog (If I am wrong about that, please tell me!).

By the way. I have 123 biographies to finish and at the moment I have done 12. If I can manage 2 a day it will still take me a couple of months to finish the whole book. But once I do, I will figure out a way to put it up so anyone who is interested in exploring the personalities of Estria can download it.