So here is where I will post the rules as we need them. Any discussion about the rules will be done on the Discord Channel and then I will update this thread to reflect any changes.

Please do not post here so we can keep it clear of meandering discussions.

The players are members of the Great Houses of the Remembrance. Each of you is a young scion that has become eligible to join a Terrestrial Council, a prestigious and important role that serves to increase the power of your House as well as yourself, should you succeed that is.

The summarized goal of a Terrestrial Court is to drain the world they are sent to occupy of its kami/magic and prepare it for its final journey to The Accretion. To do this, the Terrestrial Court encourages the mortals that exist on the World to become more populace and to worship the Court through their practice of religion.

At the beginning, the mortal societies worship, in a fashion, the Kami which creates a positive feedback loop that makes the Kami stronger, the ambient magic more Wild, and the awakening of the Catastrophic Dragon within the World more likely.

Luckily, the process is generally foolproof, so long as they are able to subvert the current religious practices and direct the worship to themselves, a world can be fully occupied in several dozen millennia. The larger the Terrestrial Council, the faster this process is, however, this also means the less power and prestige the patron Houses gain.

Each player will be of a representative of a single Great House without any players coming from the same House as another player.

The first step will be to determine which of the Great Houses you belong to. Below is a list of approved House names. Simply select one that you like, the Great Houses do not have any mechanical influence on the game at this time, but it might change in the future.

Post your selection in the Discord.

Cansang
Typhiss
Seangec
Ceesong
Strasuess
Gegent
Ceegoieth
Calgist
Tyaseac
Tearros
Torroung
Doxuc
Myrmist
Pephass
Machoun
Botang
Syampiont
Streechoies
Meesuss
Gerron
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:56, Sun 19 June 2022.

The next step is to choose a name from the list below. This is a list of all of the eligible scions of the Great Houses for a Terrestrial Court. Details of your selection are not mechanically relevant at this point, but keeping an idea of your scion's personality will help flavor your choices in the game to come.

Post your choice in the Discord.

Balm-Bringer
Blood Mother
Brackish Emperor
Breaker of Bones
Breezes-Still-and-Ripples-Cease
Contessa of Duplicity
Diabolus
Duchess of all Winds
Duchess of Domination
Duke of Eloquence
Duke of Pleasure
Duke of Pride
Duke of Rhetoric
Duke of Unlife
Father of Creation
Fearless Claw
Fireshaker
Fossilized King
General of Vengeance
Grandmother Crow
Guardian of a Thousand Terrors
Guardian of the Goat
Harbinger of the Apocalypse
Harborwing
He of the Motley Repose
He Who Makes and Unmakes
He Who Walks in Blood
Heart-Speaker
Him Who Gnaws
Horseman of Death
Horseman of Famine
Horseman of Pestilence
Horseman of War
Immaculate Joy
King of the Wind
Lady of Graves
Lady of Inscribed Wonder
Lady of Inspired Notes
Lady of Ripe Bounty
Lord of Masques
Lord of the Bottomless Pit
Lord of the Locust Host
Lord of the Minotaurs
Maiden of Haze and Whimsy
Marquise of the Night
Master of Angry Waters
Master of Fetid Change
Master of Masters
Master of the Final Incantation
Master of the First Vault
Master of the Infernal Hunt
Merrygleam
Mistress of the Hungry Moon
Mother of Monsters
Oath-Keeper
Old Deadeye
Our Lady in Shadow
Our Lady of Pain
Our Lord in Iron
Patron of Portals
Patron of the Sighing Tents
Polymorph Plague
Prince of Darkness
Prince of the Blasted Heath
Prince of Undeath
Queen of the Inferno
Rillsong
She of the Sevenfold Swarm
She of the Six Venoms
Snow-Strider
Song of the Spheres
Song of the Swamp
Sovereign of the Seventy-Seven Airs
Spirit of Abandon
The All-Seeing Eye
The Angry Hag
The Ascended
The Auroral Tower
The Aurulent Eye
The Bitter Flame
The Blood Marquis
The Burning Maw
The Calamitous Turn
The Cardinal Martyr
The Chained Maiden
The Coffin Groom
The Corpse Eater
The Creeping Queen
The Dark Smith
The Dawnflower
The Deathless Frost
The Debt Minder
The Divine Herdsman
The Dowager of Illusions
The Dragon of the Lie
The Elder Divinity
The End of Innocence
The Endless Destruction
The Eternal Rose
The Everbloom
The Faceless Lord
The Faceless Sphinx
The Feasting Flower
The Fetid Prince
The Forge-Fire
The Golden Bulwark
The Golden Gift
The Goodly Knight
The Gossamer King
The Great Beast
The Great Crippling Gaze
The Grim Harvestman
The Guiding Hand
The Hooded
The Horned Prince
The Horned Rat
The Hunter
The Ibis Matron
The Impure
The Inheritor
The Just Arbiter
The Laughing Lie
The Lord of Carrion
The Lord of Nothing
The Lost Maiden
The Many
The Melancholy Lord
The Midnight Lord
The Mighty
The Mother of Witches
The Mystic Angel
The Open Hand of Harmony
The Ophidian
The Pallid Princess
The Peacemaker
The Pirate Queen
The Ravager Worm
The Ravenous King
The Razor Princess
The Reaper of Reputation
The Rough Beast
The Sacred Whore
The Savored Sting
The Seducer
The Serendipitous Path
The Seventh Veil
The Shadow in the Sea
The Shimmering Maiden
The Shining Scourge
The Silence Between
The Silent Blade
The Silken Sin
The Son of Suns
The Soulcounter
The Strangler
The Strong Man
The Supreme Unknown
The Taskmaster
The Tempered Inventor
The Three
The Tormentor
The Traitor
The Twins
The Ultimate Alchemist
The Vampire Queen
The Watchful Mother
The Water Lord
The Water Rat
The Weighted Swing
The Welcomer
The Whisper in the Bronze
The Whispers Within
The Wind and the Waves
The Wise
The Witch Queen
The Wormworn Protector
Trollfather
True Spark
Verity
Warrior’s Ring
Waybringer

There will be five types of character sheets (Culture, State, Province, Burg, and Religion) that the players will use. Each represents one of the five major aspects of a society. Early in the process the Culture sheet will represent all five character sheets until the culture advances far enough to warrant use of the other two. For now, we'll just define the Culture sheet and cover the others as they are needed.

Culture Sheet
This sheet represents a current snapshot of an ethnicity. At the top of the page will be a screenshot of the map indicating the range of the culture. This are is more of an indication of the area where this culture is the overwhelming majority and doesn't take into account populations of other ethnicities that may exist within the same region.

• Current Ruler: This indicates who the current ruler is for the society. Generally speaking, this will be moved to the state and religion sheets, as there is almost never a defined ruler of a particular ethnicity. For now it simply indicates a rough explanation of the style of government the ethnicity has prior to having a developed state.
• Population: This gives the exact number of people within the world that are of this ethnicity and the rural/urban breakdown. This number fluctuates constantly.
• Ancestry Mix: This indicates what percentage of the culture is what species/race. This is going to be very rough.
• Ethnic Mix: This is going to be removed from the current sheets.
• Subsistence Pattern: This indicates how the members of this culture acquire food. This changes as the culture acquires new Innovations.
• Kinship: This indicates how the culture tracks lineage and inheritance. This will usually only change through direct intervention by the Terrestrial Court or through random occurrences.
• Folkways/Mores/Taboos: Collectively known as Social Norms; cultures and societies are linked by many things, language, religion, etc. How a culture interacts with each other and what they hold to be socially and morally acceptable are included in this. Folkways, mores and taboos are how these rules, both written and unwritten, are categorized. A screenshot of the rules for this will be in the discord.
• Naming Conventions: This describes how people and objects are named by the culture including some sample names. This will change as cultures split, languages change, random events, and possibly even direct intervention by the Terrestrial Court.
• Language: This indicates the language the culture speaks and if their is a written version of the language and what alphabet it uses. This will change constantly for all of the same reasons that Naming Conventions do and on some of the Innovations developed.
• Religion: This indicates the particular religion that the culture follows. It is possible that a culture may have more than one religion, though that is unlikely early on as religion is deeply tied to Social Norms in societies with low Esoteric Knowledge.
• Regional Climate: This is fairly self-explanatory and will eventually be moved over to the State sheet when the culture develops nations. Most cultures will be so expansive as to be ridiculous to try and indicate the regional climate for it. In fact, as we progress, this will likely be removed from various states and only found in the Province Sheets.

This message was last edited by the GM at 17:15, Thu 30 June 2022.

Attributes
Attributes are the mechanical indicators of what a society can do (or can't do in some instances) and how well they can do it. If your society were a D&D character, then Attributes would represent the characters Skills, Feats, Class Features, Stats (STR, INT, WIS, DEX, etc.), and Equipment. In other words, everything.

Attributes are used to modify a Challenge, either by adjusting the Difficulty or directly raising/lowering the Target Number. They can also Lock or Unlock Maneuvers, but that is getting a little deep into the weeds. For now, it's enough to know that Attributes are how the 'characters' define their limitations and capabilities within the mechanics of the game.

There is no limit to the number of Attributes that can be used during a Challenge, so long as they are actually relevant to the task at hand.

For the World Building Expansion of UPS, Attributes are grouped into three categories that are a bit different than the core rules. These are Core Attributes, Innovation Attributes, and Cultural Attributes. These will be the ones we explain below.

CORE ATTRIBUTES
Core attributes can be thought off as the societies STR, DEX, INT, WIS, CHA, etc. These are used as the base line Attribute for any Challenge and represent the raw natural "talent" of the society to defend against or initiate a Challenge.

• Ferocity: This Attribute represents the aggressiveness and impulsiveness of the society. Cultures with a high ferocity tend to be warlike and act with more direct policies than relying on guile or subtlety. These societies accel at war and are less likely to rebel against their leaders when they maintain prolonged military engagements.
• Grace: This attribute is the opposite of Ferocity, it represents a society that is subtle and able to handle challenges with political maneuvering rather than brute force. Societies like this prefer to avoid open warfare in favor of negotiation and/or subterfuge.
• Intellect: While some may consider Intellect to indicate knowledge and your level of learning, it is much more accurate to state that Intellect reflects your ability to learn, to understand what you are taught and to apply that knowledge to real world applications in addition to the theoretical implications. In the context of a society, this attribute indicates a societies ability to learn through raw potential, curiosity, and education.
• Will: Societal Will represents the society’s ability to resist changes to their established culture, whether these are instigated from internal or external influences. In addition, it is used to inflict these same sorts of changes upon other societies.

INNOVATION ATTRIBUTES
Innovation Attributes reflect the current technology level of the society. They benefit the society by providing a modifier to Challenges that the particular Innovation applies to. Some will Unlock specific Maneuvers that were unavailable to less developed societies. Each Innovation level includes the previous ones, this is indicated by combining them as they are purchased, this saves on paperwork and decreases an exponential growth in complicated mechanics.

All societies begin with level 1 in each Innovation. Subsequent Innovation Attributes are purchased with Development Points (DP) which will be explained later. It is possible for random events to affect the innovation attributes, but that will be exceptionally rare. It is primarily up to the Terrestrial Court to push their advancement.

The Government Innovations operate a bit differently. Each government innovation will be unique in how they affect your society, some will come with disadvantages and advantages depending on what the Challenge is, and the way they drain the various Endurance Pools (explained later) will often be different. The early government types that are available, will be detrimental to the society thanks to a severe lack of national identity and purpose.

A screenshot of the beginning Innovations will be in the Discord.

CULTURAL ATTRIBUTES
Cultural Attributes will reflect the unique attributes of the society. These will be acquired through random events as well as created and purchased by the Terrestrial Court through DP. Each starting society will begin with one or more Cultural Attributes that are assigned by the Celestial Court, these often reflect the genetics of the society's beginning species.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:16, Sun 03 July 2022.