This is an out of character description of the reasoning and focus behind the Karshan Empire faction in Atriarch, and a clear description of our setup and goals for the game.

The Basics

This should provide a little more detail than the Faction Charter on what our goals and focus will be when we play in Atriarch. Many of us were in the Peacekeepers on Darktide, and played for over a year on that server as a solidly Anti-PK guild. That experience on Darktide was both good, and bad....and we decided on our focus based a lot on those experiences.

One thing we're not going to be on Atriarch is an Anti-PK guild, and we're also not going to be PK either.

We want to actually play in a "virtual world" rather than in a game, and so will try to function more as a real nation would.....putting our "national self interest" or the Good of the Empire as our first priority.

Our first in-game goal during the retail Atriarch will be to build a large and heavily fortified city, and to aquire large forces of Natives (NPCs) to bolster our own player warriors. Nothing says "leave us alone" better than a huge fortress staffed by people armed to the teeth :) We plan to build our Fortress City as far out into the wilderness as is practical, so as to avoid the "Shoushi syndrome" (ie: newly made characters who were rolled up only for the sake of causing grief will have a very hard time getting to where we are).

We also plan on expanding the Empire, and slowly consolidating power, land, and resources. We will not actively seek out coflict with other players, but on the other hand we won't actively avoid conflict either. Peacefull expansion through diplomacy will be tried first, but warfare will always be an available option. We'll simply do what is best for the expansion of the Empire, and if persuing that goal happens to lead us into conflict, then so be it....but we will never engage in "warfare just for the sake of warfare"; if it doesn't promote the interests of the Empire then we won't do it.

Within the Empire, among our members, we aim to create a protected and orderly environment where each person can freely and safely go about their own business. As long as they obey the laws and contribute to the Empire in some way (through taxes, or military service, or building, or exploring, or performing trade skills, or organizing, ect), then they can freely go about doing whatever it is that they want to do.

Glurg Worship

You'll also notice that in our Faction Charter we place emphasis on "Glurg Worship" or "Allmighty Glurg", and have some of the trappings of a theocratic government (ie Teru, who is in charge of the courts and police, is the High Priest of Glurg), and we have specific "religious laws". There are three strong reasons behind this, and it's not that we're Glurg Worshippers in real life ;)

The first reason is for group focus. We're consciously setting ourselves apart as a group, and using the idea of "Glurg Worship" and "Good of the Empire" as a method of exclusive group identity, reinforing the idea that there is *us* (Glurg worshipping Karshans) and *them* (everyone else...known as barbarians). This is important because our experiences on Darktide have shown us that regardless of intent or design, it always will be a matter of us vs. them between different groups in an online game, and we're just making this fact ultra-clear to the members of our group so that no one is lulled into dependence on people who can't be depended on.

The second reason is tied closely with the first. On Darktide, the different groups of Anti-PKs developed the idea that "we're all on the same side" and "we're all Anti-PKs together". Unfortunately, what this meant in practice was that the altuistic groups (like the Peacekeepers) would devote time and energy to helping out "their fellow Antis", only to find that it was a one-way street. So, in Atriarch, if another group says that "we're all on the same side".....it will be obviously false unless they've taken real concrete and defined steps to align their interests with ours. Accepting Glurg Worship would be a token of these aligned interests. (ie: If another group weren't willing to take the effort to convert to Glurg Worship, then they obviously also wouldn't be willing to take the effort to ever come to our aid in a conflict).

The third reason is to facilitate centralized control of laws and enforcement. Our experiences on Darktide showed that griefers and infiltrators will use "devide and conquer" techniques to take over towns when they are unable to use force. In situations where there are many differing guilds in an area, PKs and griefers would look for the weakest link, join up with that guild and then begin the slow erosion of the town community from within. To the untrained eye, the collapse of these towns appeared to be "internal conflicts", but were invariably the result of infiltrations by outsiders into whichever guilds were the "weakest link" in that town. The requirement that everyone in our Empire be a Glurg Worshipper, and the fact that Teru (our High Priest) will be the final arbiter of Religion and Law Enforcement, means that there will be no weak link in the areas under our control for griefers and trouble makers to easily exploit.

Government

We set up our governmental structure to take advantages of both group leadership, and strong individual leadership. Those who contribute to the Empire will be asked to join the Council of Overlords. Imperial policy as a whole will be decided by a concencus of the Overlords, with the High Claw making final decisions.

Each of the Overlords would be given a department or area of responsibility or military unit to oversee, and given wide ammounts of freedom to manage that area on their own. As long as their area or department performed efficiently and for the Good of the Empire, then they would have almost dictatorial control over their area or department. When we acquire more than one city, Governors would be appointed from the Council of Overlords to take charge of the new cities and run them.

This distribution of leadership would ensure that everyone who wanted to put in the extra effort to run a department or area or military unit would get that opportunity, and would also ensure that it was clear who was responsible for exactly what so that things could be run efficiently.

Politics

With our setup, politics become pretty darn simple. There is the Empire, which represents Civilization, and then there are the barbarians. We should never become involved in conflicts between different "barbarian tribes" (ie: factions other than us) unless the interests of the Empire are directly at stake.

Those are the details of how our group will be focused in Atriarch. Counting those former Peacekeepers who have said that they'll be joining us in Atriarch, we have about 50 members. However, many are waiting for the start of the beta test or retail game to become active. There are about five or six of us who are actively involved now in the pre-beta Atriarch community, and some of us can be found hanging out in the #ke and #atriarch IRC channels on irc.stratics.com. Look for Frost, Teru, Sai, Zhen, or Zang.

You can inquire about membership in the Karshan Empire by emailing Zang.