PI - faction - the Panlings

Moderators: Ashari, Mods

Post Reply
User avatar
Finley Ward
Retired staff
Posts: 1389
Joined: Sun Jun 19, 2005 10:13 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

PI - faction - the Panlings

Post by Finley Ward »

The Panlings are our most player-heavy faction, so of course that means we need to be more conscious of what they do before making sweeping statements about 'the Panlings this' and 'the Panlings that'. They are also our least-organised group, seeming to have no direct leader (except perhaps Paloma, and she's a leader purely in a religious sense).

This disorganisation may be their downfall, or it may be their one strength. I suppose it depends on how you look at it.

As far as I can tell, Panling society doesn't seem to have a hierarchy or any particular driving force besides their religion - and while this was all very well while Pan's Isle was a wonderful haven for their particularly hedonistic religion, now that it's not some kind of religious promised land any more, they are really going to need to shape up or they're in some serious trouble.

In fact, the amount of trouble they are in is directly reflected by the amount of power they have today: they lost the war. They lost their city. They are living, now, in a new city under the sufferance of the Mouthies only (Sevti had to go to the Mouthie Ambassador and beg for permission to be allowed to build a city there). The very nature of their religion tends towards disorganised, chaotic living with no real leadership, no power, no wealth; nothing, in fact, that is not fun and part of their religion. Result of building a society around your religion = religious society, and Panlings tend towards hedonism in all things. This may make them all very happy, but it doesn't make them all well fed, or well goverened, or wealthy, or well protected (except, I suppose, that they have a lot of beserkers in the form of the followers of the Blood).

We could conceivably split the Panling group into it's three religious persuasions and look at them, but I honestly don't see the point. We shall just address the matter of their city - again, all these threads are intended to look at the material in general, factional terms in order to build a base to plot from.

Panlings and the Mouthies
Oh, how the Panlings hate the Mouthies! Their rich, lush, decadent isle was it's own downfall - if it hadn't been so damn good at growing coffee, the Panlings would have been overlooked. But they weren't, and now World's Mouth owns a good part of it, and the Panlings know it. They don't like it, but they know it - they were out-matched, out-gunned, out-manoevered, and they lost the war. Their new city is allowed on the permission of a Mouthie, and that must really hurt.

The majority (two thirds?) of the Panlings can hate all they like but aren't particularly given towards doing anything about it, though. Worshippers of the Art and the Joy aren't really designed to do much against standing legions, and so they will almost certainly simply hate the Mouthies in private and get on with building their little city - and let's not fuck about here, it's going to take a LOT of building. It was a clearing in a forest less than three months ago. I suspect a lot of people are still living in tents and drinking from streams. They might have a temple, but most of their food will still be gathered from hunting and foraging - they won't have any sort of crops yet, though they might be planning it. There's too much work to do for most of the Panlings to do anything else but work, and maybe hate a bit too. Gives 'em strength.

But there's a remaining third. The worshippers of the Blood are designed to do something about it... but there really aren't enough of them to face down a whole WM legion. Besides, they aren't trained to fight together - the Panling's greatest weakness and greatest strength, again - they're disorganised, chaotic, and loners. They aren't an army, they're lots of seperate warriors. So yes, I see the Bloodlings launching attacks on Aveas - they might kill the odd soldier, some of the slaves and workers - but they will be little more than viking raider parties unless someone tries to take them in hand and make a real army out of them.

Some of the actual PCs have been discussing infiltrating Aveas as workers - but I really can't see this happening. Adhiel stand out; they aren't human. The Mouthies aren't stupid, they will notice when a bunch of short-ass, pale, pointy-eared adhiel wander in and start hoeing the ground - they're not going to go, "oh look, another worker, grab a hoe and we'll all sing the working song!". Mouthies themselves are rather distinctive humans, and any adhiel will stick out like a sore thumb.

Until slavery happens (if it happens) I can't see the Panlings having any luck with the infiltration thing. Of course, not all Panlings are adhiel - but most of 'em are (?) So this is a grey area. Maybe. Maybe not. (And what good would spying do them anyway? There is little use in knowing how many soldiers the other bloke's got, when all you will be confirming is that the answer is 'more than me, I'll lose if I attack him'.)

More likely than spying, there ought to be some sort of small, aggressive action of small groups of Panlings - attempting to burn down fields, murdering key people in their sleep, etc etc. But I shall have to see what the PCs do about this - most of them are Panlings, and it is up to them. I will offer them opportunities, but unlike the other factions I'm not running this on my own. So I won't do all the legwork for them. ;)

Panlings and the dark adhiel
The Panlings might try to look for allies in the dark adhiel - but they'll be wasting their time if they do, because the dark adhiel would be far more interested in being friends with Aveas and the Mouthies than with the Panlings - the Mouthies have a lot more power, and are a gateway into being accepted into the world. The Panlings can't really offer anything comparable. Oh, the dark adhiel won't be killing the Panlings in the streets just yet (I can only see that happening in the very long distance, and only if certain things occur - it's a one in ten chance at the very best)... but they won't want to be friends either, unless the Panlings can think of something very useful to offer their dark skinned brethren. "But we must unite against the tyranny of the One!" is just not gonna cut it.

Besides, the Panlings won't immediately trust or like the dark adhiel that much - they might try and overcome that intial mistrust and seek a useful ally, but the first reaction has the be mistrust. The dark adhiel were, after all, trapped underground for hundreds of years for a reason, and they're not accepted on the surface just yet, not by anybody. The Panlings have more reason to accept them than most - they fought alongside each other in the war for one thing. (See the faction thread on dark adhiel for relevant incredulity at that one). But now the war is over - the allies aren't any more. The dark adhiel have their own agenda, and saving the world from the evil Oneists just isn't it.

Panlings and the centaurs
This is another place the Panlings might conceivably look for allies. However, the centaurs themselves are far more interested in dealing with their age-old duty to contain the dark adhiel (oh dear! they failed!) than they are in helping out a bunch of renegades who lost the war. Maybe the centaurs would have more compassion if they weren't so thoroughly preoccupied with dealing with the dark adhiel - and maybe they wouldn't, since centaurs aren't Panlings themselves. All I can say for sure is, the centaurs won't hinder, but they probably won't help either. They have their own shit to deal with, and in their eyes it's more important.

The rest of this thread left open for additional dev work, and listing of important NPCs from this faction, including off-screen NPCs.
Last edited by Finley Ward on Fri Jul 06, 2007 3:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Finodborn
Special Branch
Posts: 1205
Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2003 5:44 pm
Location: Pan's Isle

Post by Finodborn »

Two questions (unsure whether this is the right spot): what happened to the Gatetown portal? Who controls it, and who knows about its existence? This seems an important strategic element.

Also, what happened to Eilish, who was the leader of the Panlings? (She is not mentioned.)
Verum et factum convertuntur.
Avatar by the Artist Currently Known as Eira.
Post Reply

Return to “Aveas Archive”