The Dark Lord is trying to create a kingdom in which people's merit not birth is judge

Creating a kingdom in which people's merit not birth are judge

So, thus far what you're saying is that there's a guy called the Dark Lord prior to using Dark Arts who is called such entirely because he is creating a kingdom that is a meritocracy who the other Kingdoms have formed an alliance against because they don't like his governing style who sent scouts unjustified into his land and were sufficiently dealth with and now a war is starting as a result

And your question is who we will side with?

Is this a trick question, or just a stupid one?

The one that is sounds like the US Military during the Mexican War, cause then I get to shout the fantasy equivalent of "Remember the Alamo"

>small party (...) crosses the river border
Alliance started it.
Dark Lord has dibs on our contract.
But the Alliance can also get it, should he fail to contact us.
For the right price, of course.

Is this fucking world war one?

>Rising upstart empire
>Established empires see this as a threat to power
>Fucking arms war between the established empires and the new one
>Constant chain of perceived provocations on each side
>A death ends the provocation and a war starts

Dark lord by the way baby. May merit judge out path.

Im gonna search the woods for druid enclaves and try to get an animal companion.

Tell me. Why should my Noble son or grandson be led by a son of a common man? The answer is of course he shouldn't. This Dark Lord needs to be put to the sword

>oh man "evil" aesthetics are so cool, what if we made a setting/faction/person who was SO EVIL but had totally understandable and reasonable goals, wouldn't that be so cool!

No. Fuck off with this shit. Either make it genuinely evil or just put spikes and dark colors on your faction. You're allowed to do that.

Don't call yourself evil, or a dark lord, or whatever, unless you are actually fucking evil. It devalues the entire concept, and has led to this retarded modern idea of Team Evil- which is so dark and bad but not THAT bad.

No. Evil should be genuinely awful, because it's fucking evil. Evil does not mean spikes and black armor and spooky architecture.

If you AREN'T GENUINELY EVIL, DON'T CALL YOURSELF EVIL.

And no, wanting to create a meritocratic nation by using dubiously moral means isn't fucking evil, it's normal history.

Maybe the alliance of entrenched aristocratic kingdoms is the one calling them a dark lord.

...

That would imply the OP was both subtle enough to imply such a thing AND spineless enough not to just say it.

Let's be frank- there's nothing subtle about this- this is just another "Hey guys how can I be Evil and COOL without actually compromising my moral beliefs at all kthanx" thread."

Just make the revolutionaries use a bunch of spikes and frightening imagery- the French Revolution did it, why not you?

I just want folks to make evil being genuinely evil again. I mean, I enjoy some moral uncertainty as much as the next guy, but that should go out the window as soon as the Dark Lord Sauron or the Archdevil Asmodeus stride in.

Dark Lord

The elimination of the scouting party going in hostile territory without permission is legitimate, but the dark arts are banned for a reason. The end does not justify the memes.

>"Dark Lord"
>Trying to establish meritocracy
Next he'll try to reform/repeal serfdom, or stop/ease up persecutions of [non-majority religious/ethnic group], or reorganize the archaic tax codes and trade barriers! The monster!

>a budding empire in which people's merit not birth is judged
>Old reactionary monarchies team up to stomp out threat to old aristocratic power
>WWI
It's the French Revolutionary Wars m8.

I think I will side with Genghis Khan.

None of them. I will create a Chaotic Neutral anarchist who will crumble both kingdoms.

In some fairness we don't know if it's actual meritocracy or the Dark Lord's idea of Meritocracy. Whole place could be some sort of RULES OF NATURE nightmare world straight out of Eric Harris's manifestos.

Either way most of my characters would probably side with him.

Why should my Noble son or grandson be led by a son of a common man? The answer is, of course, he shouldn't. This Dark Lord needs to be put to the sword

Because your noble wife's son is a poofy dandiprat who'd rather smear himself in jelly while watching mandingo fights. Why should that weedy sonofabitch rule when we have a seasoned military veteran with an established history of being good with people and numbers sitting on the sidelines? The answer is he shouldn't.

>a small party of alliance scouts crosses the river border and were dealt with by the local commander
Clearly it was a diplomatic mission of peace
This Dark Lord fella needs to be brought to justice

Go neutral, create a republic of Non-Switzerland.

If you believe that noble birth grants you the right and ability to lead then by all means allow your son to show us the merit of your claim on the battlefield.

...

The "Dark" Lord, any system which can allow even the lowliest peasant rise to prominence due to ability and not birth can go farther and have less banana faced morons tanking the whole country with bad decisions and family friendly fucking. Also the Alliance started this war by sending over scouts to intentionally either be caught or killed to have a cause for war and they got it now.

I take everything back, one line greentexts AREN'T the worst threads on Veeky Forums

>Sending scouts instead sending an Emissary.
Nah m8. The alliance wanted war

>trusting the word of a Dark Lord
Naive
Obviously they were diplomats, come to establish peaceful talks between the nations, that the Dark Lord then brutally had killed under the pretense that it was a hostile action against him

The Dark Lord isn't the one calling himself the Dark Lord, the Alliance is. It's all one big smear campaign by the old guard to keep their peasants and lower class in line so that revolutionary thoughts don't infect their kingdoms.

Sure, that's what all Dark Lords say
"I swear, I dindu nuffin, I'm a good boy"

What do people think when they make this?

I have a feeling that specific text is probably a joke. But there are plenty of people who genuinely think along those lines.

>make a shitty veiled politics thread with a choice
>"No you picked the wrong choice"

Please leave this fucking website dude

I side with the monarchies solely to spite the asshurt fedora redditors circlejerking in this thread

>merit not birth is judge
>why he's called The Dark Lord even before the rumors about the Dark Arts started
>he's black
/thread

Could he not have requested to join the alliance?

The Alliance was specifically created to resist the Dark Lord, so that's gonna be a no.

So then couldn't he ally with whatever nations remained? And how is his way any different then the other kingdoms? I mean the wealthy will have an advantage in education and training anyway so really his kingdom has the slightest more mobility than the other ones. Unless we're talking full RULES OF NATURE. But at that point he deserves to be invaded for the sake of the people living there.
And the practicing of dark arts is the point of no return if the other kingdoms have divine mandate and a whole religious order that is stronger just because of their belief he's pretty much just asking for it at that point.

Sounds like the Dark Lord's upstart kingdom will get royally assfucked so definitely not him

>Because your noble wife's son is a poofy dandiprat who'd rather smear himself in jelly while watching mandingo fights. Why should that weedy sonofabitch rule when we have a seasoned military veteran with an established history of being good with people and numbers sitting on the sidelines?

Oh I forgot that this is la-la land where nobles aren't distinguished by their superior wealth, education, and military service while peasants are uneducated menial laborers at best and cheap pikemen at best.

I use the chaos of war to pillage whatever the least protected places I can

oh I'm sorry user, I thought we were talking about a situation between a noble and a superior commoner. Oh wait, we were, since there would be no discussion otherwise since if the noble was a better leader then meritocracy would make them the leader anyway.

Not an argument.

neither was the post I replied to.

We side with our fellow samurai against this Gaijin threat.

Meritocracy is a meme

Aristocracy is a meme

Aren't all social and political systems memes, in the original sense?

To be fair, the answer to this question is heavily steeped in your player's ability to roleplay and be historically mindful.
Anyone of Noble birth, who didn't reject being a Noble, would likely be fairly appalled at the idea of their superiority being called into question. Anyone steeped in Knighthood, whether a Knight or simply a loyal commoner would as well, in a "my duty is to my Lord" type deal, where he would see the Dark Lord as an ursurper that threatens the peace and rightful, possibly even divine, right to rule the Nobles have. Merchants and Wizards could go both ways, some might see opportunity, others would see disruption to stability and order, and many, Wizards especially, simply wouldn't care given their system is both set apart from normal country politics and a meritocracy as well. Still I would imagine Wizard colleges would mostly side with Nobles at least to the extent they would lend some aid to keep things running smoothly.

Commoners and religious dudes, that's where it gets tricky. If their gods tell them to honor the nobility and divine right it's open and shut, if not it comes down to whether or not that character has any loyalty to the kingdoms. Some would simply prefer to not get involved, while others would probably see the Dark Lord as a good guy. The rumors of him practicing Dark Arts would turn most people against the ursurping kingdom, however, given they are rumors if they do not turn out to be true, or are well hidden, an unsure character may find that they were not just rumors but malicious lies trying to sway the masses. Barbarians and Might Makes Right characters of any background would side with the Dark Lord, or at least not do anything to stop him.
My Cleric would probably try not to get directly involved, but would find the idea fascinating. He is a Knowledge Domain Cleric and would assuredly investigate the Dark Lord's realm if only to see if the idea can hold water, to catalog what he sees and its effects.

Side with the Alliance. I won't let fictional worlds be ravaged by democracy too.

Dark Lord

>Evil overlord is not actually that evil, he's just misunderstood and...
I'm going to tear his head off and shit in his neck.

Except he was never evil to begin with. Read the Op. The Kings and Queens instigated the war.

The idea that nobles were all useless dandies was something propagated by the french revolution, and then based on a misconception. As it turns out, the vast majority of nobles actually were quite capable, spending you entire life training has that effect.

>Anyone steeped in Knighthood, whether a Knight or simply a loyal commoner would as well, in a "my duty is to my Lord" type deal, where he would see the Dark Lord as an ursurper that threatens the peace and rightful, possibly even divine, right to rule the Nobles have.
This, fucking nigga trying to get us cursed by God? MUH CROPS.

Anons point that the "Dark Lord" is just "misunderstood" is an oveplayed cliche of a deconstruction that continues to get pushed by hipsters

>Dark Lord is trying to create a kingdom
Where? Unless there was just a chunk of unclaimed land in the middle of all those other kingdoms, sounds to me like he's instigating rebellion on someone else's turf and trying install himself as the king there
Also, practices dark arts
Also, just attacks the alliance's scouts who hadn't done anything yet and weren't even trespassing since as established earlier this whole thing must be taking place on somebody else's original territory and even if it wasn't, what exactly makes the Dark Lord king there if nobody has recognized his sovereignty? Judging by op, he's literally just some upstart warlord who declared himself king
The alliance is fully justified in their cause, even if his policy wasn't a problem, he still seems to be no different from a bandit chief
tl;dr he's clearly evil and must be purged for the greater good

The idea of a meritocracy is all well and good, but as user points out, this territory the dark lord is trying to rule has to come from somewhere. Also, what is he going to do when it becomes obvious the current nobles, who are better educated, trained, and nourished, actually ARE by and large the most meritous to run things? Are we going to get fucking commoner quotas? It's going to be south africa all over again.

>Also, what is he going to do when it becomes obvious the current nobles, who are better educated, trained, and nourished, actually ARE by and large the most meritous to run things?
If the Dark Lord ascended to rule over the kingdom than the Nobles weren't better educated, trained, and nourished since they failed to defeat a filthy peasant.

This is assuming the Dark Lord isn't themselves just an exiled noble trying to stir up shit

If the kingdoms are sending scouts across his border to stir shit up that implies he already has a kingdom
If this was a normal revolt they could just tell him to fuck off and then rape his peasents
But they had to have justification for this war

That's assuming no nobles defect to his cause, or he takes qualified men with him in his uprising.
Happened before in some event I can't quite put my finger on

I mean yeah he might be throwing around social benefits like a tard with candy but he's still the dark lord doing the dark arts.

I mean that's like saying you're okay with getting pol pot as a leader cause he once returned a wallet to a guy.

Rumored to be doing dark arts
Don't buy into the nobel propaganda

Fucking dynamite merchants and their lies

>Dark LORD
>A person literally given his existance by dark fates
>Deals with the unchanging monarchies of hell and enslaving the dead trough cheat magic
>installing meritocracy
Oh yes and he'll be the first leader of this freeman nation cause doing all that is the most meritable.

And they erased all the noblemen who joined and funded the revolution.
Few were saved from the block.

Sure, but when nobles make up 1% of armies (number pulled out my ass) and over thousands of years, armies from across the world with leadership based on inheritance, you're gonna get a few dud nobles and a few diamonds in the rough.

You have already heard of examples of incredibly stupid nobles leading armies, have you not?

And you are handling us a binary choice that is almost entirely removed from the context.

So go fuck a goat already

>most mercenary groups side with the dark lord
>your's sides with alliance
>you find that the dark lord is using children's organs to fuel his necrotic army
>one by one you defeat the dark lords generals

>DARK lord
He's obviously evil, let's kick his ass.

What if he just really likes the shade?

>you find that the dark lord is using children's organs to fuel his necrotic army
Highly impractical and bad PR. He'll most likely use some poison spell on the alliance kingdoms coins to cause an epidemic on their cities.

Then we know where to look for him!

>Nobility
>Good for anything

>Not stupider than eight miles of cow shit, and capable only because they deny anyone who could challenge them the education necessary to do so

I know who I'm siding with, mud slinging or no

source user?

>Shit on foreign nobility
>only won cause own nobility knew how to use their bottleneck island
Oh yes nice arm jerk-o.

>A "kingdom" in which people's merit not birth is judge
>other kingdoms are taken aback and threatened by such a kingdom and form a coalition (or seven, rather)
>Rumors start to circulate (especially in Russia) that the he's literally the Anti-Christ
>He retorts "muh freedom of religion" and "I will give the Jewish community nothing, but the individual Jew everything"
>Things get out of hand after Russia violates the Treaty of Amiens
>Now there is a war coming

The "Dark Lord" is Napoleon.

it's a graphic novel/comic called Crecy

the difference is Napleon did nothing wrong, except get Diaherria

I still insist Napoleon made only two mistakes: assume the G*rmans are reliable, and assume the Russians are human.

Except the French revolution had been going for ten years when Napoleon took the helm and everybody hated France for its aggressive expansion into the Netherlands and Italy.

And get Diaherria at Waterloo

Napoleon was the Hitler of his time

Hitler Anheroed like a bitch. Napoleon went into exile and people tried to rescue him with a Submarine to bring him to the American Midwest.

This was a thing which was actually plotted and almost happened

Hence the direct reference to Amiens, mate.

Fuck off Lindybeige.

Neither.

>Witchers don't get involved in politics
Says Geralt as he keeps getting involved in politics.

Nigga, if your grandsone is outclassed or even just met by some pox ridden peasant with no education whatsoever.
Maybe it's your grandson who is shit ?

He fucked up pretty badly by not taking his advisors in Spain seriously.
Wellington, who himself was badly undersupported, wouldn't have got as far as he did if it hadn't been for the poor support and Partisans fucking up everything the French tried