Release The Hounds - Intro & General Chatter Thread

[Agamemnon]

The Pitch
For five-hundred years, the Order of the Hound has protected the realm. Each Hound is an autonomous agent, invested with authority second only to the Emperor himself. They serve as his eyes, his ears, his will.. And when necessary, his iron fist.

One or more players takes on the role of a Hound, a sworn member of the Ordo Canisque sworn in the Emperor's service. Other players will take on the roles of either acolytes of the order, or retainers/henchmen/specialists in service to the Hound. By nature, it will be a heavy cloak & dagger campaign, with an emphasis on intrigue and investigation. A variety of skills and character types will be of massive benefit, though players ultimately have complete control over how they tackle the problems they are presented with.

The Setting
The entire setting we're concerned with is one continent-spanning empire. Other countries may exist, but they far away and separated by sea. It takes a lot of cues from the Holy Roman Empire, particularly in the German iteration. Technology is renaissance bordering on early modern through much of the empire. Pistols, rapiers, muskets. Armor is largely eschewed aside from the occasional breastplate, though pistoleers and cuirassers still make up the cavalry. In the further reaches and backwater provinces, things lag behind. Longswords and even maille are not uncommon sights in service to northern nobility.

The broad strokes are set, but the details are wide open. Players are free to contribute details (particularly of their home provinces) and much of the rest will be filled in through play.

Key features already set are the Order of the Hound and the Imperial Faith, which will be detailed in another thread.

The Players
That's you. Ideal group is 3-5. If you were signed up for the previous iteration of the campaign, you get first dibs. If there are any slots remaining after three days (or after the previous folks all respond), I'll open up for new people. This will probably be a slowish game, as all PbP tend to be, but I'll try to commit to a post per day.

If you're interested, or have questions/comments, do it here. This is the thread for general discussion on the topic. I'll be setting up another thread for character creation discussion (remember: character creation is a group activity), and a third that will contain info dumps as they are generated.