An emperor of sorts
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So this is my n-th attempt at this story. It's supposed
to go like this. We have this Emperor, lazy, self-serving,
glory-seeking and a pretty damn coward at heart. The
Empire has these two words, one at the East against
Barbarians and another on the West against rebels.
Nothing to worry about, it seems, the Empire has always
been at war one way or the other and, to date, has
always come out on top.
But this time there's a devastating defeat at the hands
of the Barbarians. Worse of all, this time has happened
relatively close to the capital. So the Emperor chickens
out and, in an act of mockery against those who want to
continue the fight, appoints a palace slave boy as
Regent.
And so the few who won't join the Emperor in his flight
devise a plan to keep a resemblance of normality and,
somehow, stop the Barbarians and save their decadent
nation.
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That's what I dreamed or imagined, many, many years ago
when I was much, much younger. Many times I've tried to
make this into a novel, but never without success. The
story is hard enough in that I'm seem able to get to
a plausible resolution that doesn't constitute a
tragedy. And I do .not. want a tragedy. Not with this
story.
So, I'm trying again, this time as story-game (kind of
a solo role-playing game but with flexible, ad-hoc
rules).
