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| ==Overview==
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| The lineaged have faced prejudice in some parts the Empire for centuries with briars particularly singled out. In Varushka there are doubts about their ability to stick to the important rules that keep everyone safe. In Navar and the Marches the briar's closeness to the Spring realm has caused many to treat them differently, often regarding them as fundamentally untrustwothy. And Highguard has always questioned the lineaged, seeing them as spiritual suspect. Even when they embraced the virtues with great passion, there was a view that they must continually resist the siren call of their blood, or risk corruption by their lineage. A few Highborn [[cambion]] and [[changeling|changelings]] even choose to saw their horns down to stumps, to demonstrate to everyone that they have renounced their heritage.
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| Now for the first time the Synod has issued statements denouncing this unfounded prejudice, rebuking those who judge people for what they are instead of what they do, and stating openly that such practices demonstrate a lack of Pride. The statement of principle raised by Josephine of Adina's Charge and passed by the General Assembly with a greater majority is circulated to every congregation in the Empire. Three similar statements, one in the General Assembly by Friar Jack Reed, one in the Highborn Assembly by Tabris, Son of Armisael, and one in the Marcher Assembly by Mel Bleak failed to get greater majorities, but all passed by healthy margins.
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| <div style="width: 510px; float: right; margin-left: 10px;">
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| {{SOP|statement=Pride inspires others, it does not demean them." People all over the Empire judge and demean briars for what they are rather than what they do. This is a massive failing of Pride and we encourage everyone to challenge any who would demean or condemn Briars based on lineage alone.|assembly=General Assembly|by=Josephine of Adina's Charge|vote=Greater Majority (1555 - 222)|when=Autumn Equinox 383YE}}
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| {{SOP|statement=Recent targeting against briars and lineaged folk has seen some citizens regard them as non-humans. Since lineaged folk are able to experience true liao visions and reincarnate this is false and spreading such teachings contradicts Doctrine, technically heresy and our congregations must be reminded of this.|assembly=General Assembly|by=Friar Jack Reed|vote=Upheld (1117 - 80)|when=Autumn Equinox 383YE}}
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| {{SOP|statement=From their earliest days Highborn children are taught that those who bear the touch of the realms are to be considered lesser and that those who carry lineage are to pitied. The virtuous build up their fellows, they do not tear them down. The virtuous inspire others to greatness, the do not demean them. This mistreatment tends to self-hatred among many of our people. Challenge yourself to consider actions you may consider second nature, or whether they can prevent others from becoming truly virtuous.|assembly=Highborn Assembly|by=Tabris, Son of Armisael|vote=Upheld (260 - 31)|when=Autumn Equinox 383YE}}
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| {{SOP|statement=The magic of Spring is a strength to be yoked by Marchers, Landskeepers harness it in farming rituals - and Marcher briars use it every day of their lives. Ambition despises pettiness; prosperity despises waste. To leave briar strength unwanted is to give in to the false virtue of hatred which despises only for difference. The Marcher assembly calls for the nation to lift up our briar neighbours in Pride; to encourage greatness in their works. And to stop being dickheads to 'em.|assembly=Highborn Assembly|by=Mel Bleak|vote=Upheld (92 - 0)|when=Autumn Equinox 383YE}}
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| </div>
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| ==A Visceral Response==
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| People look to the Imperial Synod for guidance and moral leadership, so when it speaks clearly in this way then it can have a deep and profound effect. Changing the views of so many people is not easy, especially in the Empire where the magic of the egregores exists to preserve long-standing cultural traditions. But even that force does not resist far-reaching changes that strike a chord with so many people at once. Adina's words are widely shared and widely discussed, alongside those of Friar Jack Reed, Tabris and Mel Bleak.
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| Not everyone is willing to give up beliefs that they were raised with and there are many arguments between those who embrace the direction provided by the Synod and those who cling to traditonal views. Some say the Synod is wrong - that Pride is about embracing your past and never being ashamed of it. Some point to the example of [[Emperor Nicovar]] to show how the lineaged are a danger. For some it is simply a case that old habits die hard.
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| ==This is The Way==
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| But others go further than perhaps the Synod intended and ask why Imperial Orcs are not every bit as entitled to be judged on their actions and their accomplishments as briars? It is still only a few generations since the orcs of the Empire were granted their freedom and the Imperial Orcs were formed. In that time some of the prejudice, hostility, fear and mistrust has faded, but far from all. Highguard and Varushka in particular continued to question the worth of their fellow citizens with a few privately even suggesting that [[Emperor Ahraz]] made a terrible mistake. Most did not go that far, but you rarely had to go far in either nation to find someone who would question whether Imperial Orcs could ever be accepted in [[the Way]].
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| In recent years two Imperial Orc preachers, Bonewall Rek and Bonewall Cole, led the General Assembly to approve amendments to the Doctrines of the Faith to include [[The_Doctrines_of_the_Faith#The_Doctrine_of_the_Howling_Abyss|The Doctrine of the Howling Abyss]] and [[The_Doctrines_of_the_Faith#The_Doctrine_of_the_Ancestors|The Doctrine of the Ancestors]]. These changes acknowledged the existence of Orcs in the Way, but the Doctrine of the Creator still speaks only of ''"Human destiny"''. Imperial Orcs can join the Assembly of the Way, but since they cannot use liao, they cannot join a Virtue assembly, no matter what Virtue they preach. Why is that?
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| Sadly, any discussion of changing doctrine founders on the assumption that the Sumaah will be implacably opposed. The Empire and Sumaah have a shared faith but that bond has been strained in recent times by the way the Empire has declared paragons and exemplars and changed doctrine without any consideration of the Sumaah perspective. It seems unlikel that the deeply traditional Sumash Synod could be persuaded to embrace change. Unlikely, but perhaps not impossible, they have certainly shown great interest in new doctrines.
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| ==Flowers==
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| The introspection regarding briars is further turned on its head when it is discovered that some of the information about briars that was discovered at the recent summit and widely disseminated is in fact wrong. On the run up to the Autumn Equinox many briars began sprouting flowers from the patches of bark on their skin. No briar has ever grown flowers or leaves before, so this phenomenon caused widespread alarm. That fear intensified when it was announced that the flowers were sending tendrils deep into a person's brain and exerting some kind of malign control over them. Various Spring eternals were assumed to be behind the development, the whole affair served to increase suspicion of briars and may even have been the final straw that triggered the Synod to act.
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| Since the end of the summit the facts have emerged. Several notable physicks have attemped to repeat the investigation into the flowers and none of them have found any evidence that the roots penetrate more than a few milimetres into the skin. They go nowhere near the brain they have no way to penetrate the bone of the skull. It seems there is some effect associated with them, and while it currently appears to have short term benefits there are concerns from some that this may come with hidden costs. Indeed, some have noted that they've seen flowers similar to those on the Briars starting to appear in herb gardens, forests and farms. While so far only adding colour, they worry this may be an attack against the Empires Briars.
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| ==OOC Changes==
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| As a result of these game developments we have removed the lineage and species pages for all ten nations. Some content that is still relevant, such as the Freeborn belief that Cambions are excellent scriveners, or the history of the Merrow and Naga guilds in the formation of reckoners is still relevant so it has been moved to another appropriate page. But all guidance for a nation advising them on the canonical way that members of their nation view the Imperial orcs and briars has been removed.
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| This update reflects the fact that many characters across the Empire have responded to the Synod's judgements by openly questioning the views that they held until recently. How your character reacts to these changes is up to you, but at this point it represents an open question, there is no correct or best way to play the views of a member of your nation. You might cling to the traditional beliefs that your character has always had, or you may be reassassing long-held assumptions, either approach is valid for player-characters.
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| ==Game Design==
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| This wind of fortune is exceptionally unusual in that we are deliberately not presenting any in-character levers for player-characters to contemplate in response to recent in-character developments and the words of the Synod. We've taken the decision instead to use the Synod statements as an opportunity for Profound Decisions to look at the elements of the setting that involve prejudice and discrimination with the view to making changes where we think it is appropriate. Because those changes will ultimately end up being implemented by Profound Decisions for game design reasons, we will deal with that directly by updating the game setting with an accompany in-character justification, rather than allow in-character game plots to become confused with out-of-character game changes.
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| What we plan to do is use 2022 to review the way the setting deals with these elements. After this event is over, and for the rest of the year, we will be soliciting feedback from all Empire players about their experiences with things like briar prejudice, orc prejudice, and similar and how that affects their involvement and enjoyment of Empire as a game. We're particularly interested to hear the views of BAME LRPers, but Empire features many different kinds of prejudice that are written into the setting - religious, national, lineage, species, magical ability - so we want to hear from anyone who plays or has played the game and is happy to share their experience of these issues, good or bad, with us.
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| Our goal is to collate that feedback and then over the winter at the end of this year we will form a working group to go through it in detail. That group will decide what changes are appropriate to make to the setting to make Empire the best game that we can deliver. Empire has always been promoted as a game that included challenging elements of the human experience like prejudice - and we don't want to shy away from moral conflicts. Much of the central conflcts of the game arise from the clashes between the ten nations and between the Empire and the enemies that surround it. But we do want Empire to be as accessible to as many people as possible, if we can improve it and make it accessible to more players then we want to do that.
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| Changes like this are complex and challenging, especially with a game that has been running so successfully for seven years. Hence we want to take our time, so that we can listen to people's feedback, and so that we can do the best job we can of designing and implementing any changes. We contemplated trying to take advantage of the long break to bring changes in, but in the end we felt it was more important to get as much feedback as possible first, to ensure that any changes we make were the best ones for the game.
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| We've also taken the unusual step of correcting a mistake that arose at the last event about what was going on with the briar flowers. We're genuinely unsure how that particular story got around, whether it was a reffing error, a player error, or a deliberate character lie, and normally we would not contemplate correcting something like that. We've done so on this occasion purely because the way that plot was playing out was clearly negatively impacting some player's experience of Empire and our choice was to either cut the plot or deal with the confusion. We hope that the briar plot can continue from this point without adversely affecting the game.
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| In the meantime, we've updated the setting to reflect the in-character changes that have occurred as a result of the Synod statements. These changes don't mean that all the previous bias has simply disappeared. Some characters in the world have changed their professed views, some have not. What the change does mean is that everyone is now free to choose how their character feels about the matter without any suggestion that there is a "correct" way for a member of that nation to act.
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| This isn't the first time we've made changes like this - we rewrote the Brass Coast background in 2019 to remove the matrilineal elements because of the clear problems they had. The Freeborn players responded overwhelmingly positively to that and took the changes to their backstory and roleplaying in their stride because they understood why it would make a better game. We will always try to make any changes as sympathetically as possible, but ultimately we want to provide the best game we're capable of running for years to come, even if that affects continuity in the short term.
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| It is important to stress that nobody is at fault for how they've played their character to date. We don't for a moment imagine anyone is racist in real life just because they roleplay a character who is prejudiced against briars or orcs. We believe that the overwhelming majority of people who play Empire do so in good faith and with the best of intentions. The challenges arise in the way that conflicts in the game can mirror and resonate with real world prejudice that people have experienced. The goal of our review is to look at what systemic steps we can take to try to address that.
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| One issue we have addressed now is where people may have adapted the kind of language associated with real world racism to use when they are in-character in Empire. Empire is intended to be an imaginative setting that allows us to explore themes of conflict and prejudice in ways that are divorced from their manifestations in the real world. Obviously that approach has limitations, which is why we want to review what we're are doing, but using language tied to racist epithets in the real world makes the conflict feel more like real world prejudice. We want to avoid that as far as possible, so we have updated our conduct guidelines to make clear that phrases that echo real world racism, like "a briar in the woodpile", should not be used in the game under any circumstances.
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| We're also asking people to stop using the word ''racist'' to describe other characters in the setting or their actions. Neither briars nor orcs are meant to be exact parallels of real world race, the aim was to avoid direct parallels with real world racism. Some characters are prejudiced against briars or orcs so you can call someone prejudiced if it makes sense in-character. But using the word racist to describe another character heightens the comparison with real world experience and more importantly risks trivialising something that is profoundly important in real life by connecting it to a game of imagination.
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| We're now absolutely flat out preparing our first event in nearly three years, but once we've got the first event out of the way, we'll be welcoming feedback from everyone about their experiences with these issues when playing Empire, so that we can look at what we can do to improve the game setting for everyone.
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| ==Key Changes To Implement Now==
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| We've removed every single nation page discussing lineage and orcs. We've made a handful of changes to appropriate nation pages to reference the old prejudices that existed previously. We've also updated some pages to contain details of the positive ways in which people view the lineaged that were on the removed pages previously. Finally we've updated the religious beliefs page for Highguard to make clear the unique challenges that Highborn lineaged face that flows from their commitment to the Way. It's useful to read the parts of the linked pages for your nation that have been changed and the update to the language section of the conduct rules if at all possible.
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| ===Conduct===
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| * [[Language]]
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| ===The Brass Coast===
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| * [[The_Brass_Coast_economic_interests#Scriveners|Scriveners]]
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| ===Dawn===
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| * [[Dawn people]]
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| * [[Troubadour]]
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| ===Highguard===
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| * [[Highguard_culture_and_customs|Briar Bodies Burned Line Removed]]
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| * [[Casinea|Line About Draughir Pool Removed]]
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| * [[Nursery_Rhyme_about_Lineage|This nursery rhyme page needs to be deleted]]
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| ===Imperial Orcs===
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| * [[Imperial Orcs people]]
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| ===The League===
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| * [[Reckoners|New Page for Reckoners]]
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| * [[The League religious beliefs]]
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| * [[The_League_look_and_feel#Bishops|Bishops Look and Feel]]
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| ===Urizen===
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| * [[Spiral#Recent_History|Paragraph Added to Recent History of Spiral]]
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| ===Varushka===
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| * [[Varushka military concerns]]
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| * [[Varushka magical traditions#Volhov|Last Paragraph from Lineage]]
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| ===Wintermark===
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| * [[Wintermark culture and customs|Skars and Birds]]
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| * [[Wintermark_history#The_Relinquishment_of_Skarsind|The Relinquishment of Skarsind]]
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| * [[Kallevesi]]
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| ==Changes To Consider Next Winter==
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| ===The Brass Coast===
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| * [[The_Brass_Coast_culture_and_customs#The_Gift|The Gift]]
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| ===Dawn===
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| * [[Dawn history#The_Freedom_Heresy|History of Briar Prejudice]]
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| * [[The Freedom Heresy]]
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| ===Highguard===
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| * [[Highguard religious beliefs]]
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| ===The Marches===
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| * [[The Marches culture and customs#Funerals|Funerals]]
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| ===Navarr===
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| * [[Navarr_culture_and_customs#The_Vallorn|Vallorn and Briars added]]
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| ===Urizen===
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| * [[Urizen_people#Overview|Paragraph on the Gift Added]]
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| * [[Urizen culture and customs#Poise|Final Paragraph Added to Poise]]
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| ===Varushka===
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| * [[Varushka people|Second and Fourth Paragraphs Relevant]]
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| * [[Varushka history]]
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