Day 469
I can’t believe I decided Duoroo would understand politics. I don’t understand politics. How do I write a character that does?
Worse than that, I keep coming back to a Dune-esque sort of dynastic economy and politics. Shit. Hello, bite. You look like more than I can chew. But I’ll roll with it for tonight since I’ve alread pissed away too much time to start over and pretend this didn’t happen.
Duoroo has been cast off by her family. There is an official casting-off process whereby a dynastic family recognizes the abundance of heirs and seeks to mitigate the backstabbing by limiting the playing field to the top tier. Cast-offs are not allowed to ‘take the thrown’ once cast off. They become safe from the dangers of being in that upper tier. If a family were to exhaust it’s upper tier—unlikley—then it would be like a king losing his only born son: it would get messy.
And that’s whats happened or will happen or is being planned (by someone). That someone is having Duoroo collected for manipulation. Despite being cast off now, Duoroo had been part of the first tier—maybe quite close to the top even—but had scorned the life or her family’s business because of her blindness. She forced her family to cast her off so she could be safe. And now, because of that unusual circumstance, someone is looking to exploit that angle.
They’ll exploit it by having in place a plan to kill a larget number of that upper tier in bulk. Something unlikley enough that few would accomodate that sort of thing in their scheming, so someone is the only one to know why Duoroo is still important. Duoroo figures it out though—quickly. She convinces Kraite of the truth and enlists him to help. I suspect the large number of people being killed would be leverage for Kraite. He’s a bounty hunter but not ruthless. Maybe it will be some public event likely to result in innocent deaths as well. Maybe Mallen’s.
This public event could provide a countdown as well as a ‘end of the world’ type disaster.
I must have more than just playing the game however. I must have a real reason for this somebody to be motivated. There must be a payoff more substantial than crown or title. Or the crown must come with a clear personal or professional payoff—maybe just revenge? I hear revenge is motivating.
If I’m going to have politics I might as well have a motivator I don’t understand too!
426 words