A Stallia Ceremony - Magnitude 12 - The Star Serpent
Performing the Ceremony
Performing this Ceremony takes at least 5 minutes of roleplaying. This Ceremony targets two Military Investments owned by characters who must be present throughout, but need not be one of the priests performing the Ceremony.
This Ceremony is an Enchantment. A target may only be under one Enchantment effect at a time.
Effects
The two target military investments are improved by two tiers provided they take the ‘Support the Army’ or ‘Independent Action’ downtime actions during the next season.
Until the end of the event, the owners of the target Investments experience a roleplaying effect: You experience an intense, temporary, and collegiate rivalry with the owner of the other Investment. You have a strong urge to hatch clever schemes, particularly those around tactical cunning, and especially if the scheme will make your rival look worse than you.
Description
Whilst Panoply is typically regarded as the sphere of plots thanks to the Esteem, Stallia teaches us that through competition we can learn not only our limits but also the limits that others will go to, and in doing so benefit everyone involved. This Ceremony gifts those blessed with divine inspiration regarding how to best use their resources, and improves their thought processes around more obscure or intricate plans that could be achieved with the forces at their disposal. Having a rival to seek to defeat in grandeur gives both people involved something to match themselves to, and a set of achievements to aspire to overcome; sometimes a distant and glorious predecessor is less of an immediate catalyst for improvement than the person sitting across from your desk preening about their successes.
This leads to troops and resources being used more efficiently, being in the right place at the right time, and going beyond what people thought was possible to achieve outrageous outcomes. Of course, this does sometimes lead to disaster, but such is the nature of military venture, and even in defeat can glory be attained and lessons be learned.
Performing the Ceremony
In a partnership that will inevitably end in rivalry and grandstanding from soapboxes about compared feats of greatness, many priests elect instead to begin by having the two targets as close as possible so that when the divine effect recedes they can return to being comrades without ill will following them too strongly. As such, many Ceremonies of this nature start with those to be affected speaking of their respective failures or simply their lives, building a connection of empathy and understanding between them so that once everything is said and done there can be an understanding that at the end of the day it is simply two flawed and Blighted humans doing their best to prove themselves worthy upon the Journey.