🛡️ Map Rooms and Councils

Each major alliance starts with access to a War Council, in a Map Room, and every Player House starts allied with a particular alliance. For the purposes of travel, the Map Room of each major faction is said to meet in the current capital city of the occupying alliance. If no such place exists but a War Council is claimed by a faction, they must establish a Point of Interest on the map for their council to convene and then communicate that location to Control.

At the start of the game these established Councils are located in Rolcebad, for the Loyalists, and Jarlingston for the Volchenks Union, though this will likely change throughout play. The main map, which will dominate each of these spaces, is explicitly not a ‘war map’ or mechanically relevant ‘board’ in the traditional sense. This is not a place for Players to get the ‘status’ of the game, or move miniatures to simulate battles; This is a map. The main map will be the most detailed map in the game and contain some, but not all of the starting region names. Only factions able to claim a Map Room will have access to such a map and the greatest advantage of having access to one is ‘context.’

The Map Room is a place for planning. Each side of the main conflict will have one and it will be the central location for these alliances to meet and scheme, when the councils are called. If another faction of note develops during play, they can call for the establishment of a new War Council. A new alliance must be composed of members from at least three Houses or other powerful entities. If both Map Room tables from the beginning layout are currently occupied by major factions, they can create their own map room, Control will have resources to accommodate this if required. In addition, a Faction can claim an existing Map Room for their War Council if the currently occupying faction is no longer larger than the faction making the claim. (Note; this rule is more of an administrative restriction to make sure that larger groups in the game always have access to enough game resources. It is not designed as a diegetic punishment for the exiting alliance and does not mechanically affect them beyond the ‘loss in standing’ that it would represent symbolically.)

The resources available at the Map Rooms will generally not be allowed to leave the Map Room tables. This causes holding one of these rooms to be of strategic benefit to any faction who can maintain it, with no game mechanics being intrinsically tied to them. Whether an alliance is influential enough to establish or overtake one of these tables is at the discretion of the Control team. At the Map Room tables, the Players can place tokens and plan using the central map of Jarlsland there, but it does not and will not represent the pure state of the game. The maps are merely meant as a tool to help represent the Player’s current understanding of events in the game, as recorded by their alliance. Players may choose to denote the movement of armies, place banners in Regions in order to track which Houses they believe are in control that round, or plan future coordinated movements. They may even try to track Baba’s House as it moves about the country, and interpret her movements. What needs to be remembered is that what is on the map is based in the information each alliance or team has provided for themselves, Control will not be updating these map rooms for the Players.

Players are also cautioned not to leave ‘telling’ information on their map between rounds as there may be unscrupulous sorts about, spies for one adversary or another. It is not against the rules to collect information in this way, or to present disinformation in order to counter such skullduggery either.

At the start of the Civil War, the two lead Houses are House Raieth for the Iron Watch faction and House Theddis for the Volchenks Concord. However, if one or both Houses fail to maintain the support of their other Banner Houses, they may either lose their leadership position in that respective alliance, or, depending on the cohesion of the other Player Houses, their alliances could dissolve entirely. Their Map Room, in such a case, would be taken over by the next strongest alliance or left empty until a time when one emerges. In the event of conflict over who currently occupies any Map Room, the Control team will have sole discretion to determine the outcome.