We will be dividing 42 points across these categories to describe the corrupt, deadlocked government our players are operating in.

[] Construction and Engineering
[] Research and Development
[] Economy and Trade
[] Diplomacy
[] Espionage and Counter-Intelligence
[] Stellar Warfare
[] Planetary Warfare

Each Faction will have a +1 in one category and a -1 in another.

Each Faction is controlled by Mages from various Ruling Families, and anyone from a Ruling Family is probably related to at least one person in every Faction.

The Faction system represents a deadlock which the players can try to interfere with, but you are all young scions, and will have little obvious power. Due to the life prolonging technologies and magics available to the ruling classes, the government is bloated with Mages, and you are unlikely to get an important seat for at least another 200 years.
This message was last updated by the GM at 10:29, Mon 09 Dec 2019.

Each turn represents approximately 1 quarter of the fiscal year. At the beginning of a turn, the current state of next year's budget will be presented, with the budget being finalized, voted on, paid out, and audited at the end of every 4th turn. At game start, Sarnath's budget will be 1000 mCr, with debts owed to the Protectorate of 750 mCr. Every (N)PC with the Trust Fund attribute will receive 10 mCr a quarter, which can be saved or spent as they see fit. (N)PCs who control a certain aspect of the budget will be able to divert a fraction of that budget elsewhere, but there's only so much meat in the pork barrel buffet, everybody is gunning for a piece, and there's plenty of time to notice the schemes of others and put the money where you want it.

The Budget will be a general summary, unless specific details emerge from play. At game start, a substantial portion of the budget will be paid out to the Protectorate for various usage rights of technologies, transport fees, equipment rentals, taxes, etc etc.

During most turns, the MageKing will also summarize any Actions that were completed with promise of payment from the government, or otherwise completed. Note that there are 4 turns in a year, and most research projects will take multiple years to achieve anything, whereas you can probably get instant access to it in exchange for a (hefty) licensing fee to the Protectorate.

Each player will pick one action for their PC, and every NPC in their Inner Circle. Your Inner Circle can assemble teams, squads, research groups, whatever you want -- but these groups will want to be paid, and if they know you are involved, they could finger you if they get arrested.

I suspect that a popular action will be to divert money out of the budget and into pet projects. It will be easier to steal money owed to the Protectorate, but the consequences will be more far reaching and severe. Redirecting money from local governance carries different risks, and it will be easier to redirect that money by someone from within that Faction, but the Factions count their money more precisely, and the consequences will be more....personal.

All actions will be assumed to be as secret as you can make it, unless otherwise specified. You will not be able to afford to do much without pooling your resources and facilities with other players, and any player groups that work on a specific task together will probably need to share information.

Once everyone is ready to end the turn, players will roll for these actions, opposed by either the Factions they're stealing from, or the base government. The Protectorate won't notice anything until they do their yearly audit. The exact mechanics of all of this is still open to discussion, but will be using the percentile system.