GPRH Ministry of Careers New Hire Orientation

Introduction

Today is a glorious day, comrade! Thanks to your decision to become a field agent in service to the People's Revolutionary Party, you are on your way to a career filled with excitement, danger, and numerous opportunities to serve the Greater Good and the people of Hagiv along with their servants, the Party.

Administrator: Just a quick note: the links in this document have been inserted by counterrevolutionary elements. Clicking on them will give you information that has not been cleared by the Party for public consumption. Already clicked on one? Excellent! You're probably a counterrevolutionary. (In real world terms, this means you'll get player knowledge different from what your characters know. It's up to you to keep them separate.)

Hagiv is a rich, diverse country with a history going back hundreds of years. Will you serve out of Szasz, the nation's proud capital where you might be able to serve the Revolutionary Council directly or even the Glorious Leader himself? Maybe you'll serve in Nagev’s Glory, the center of Hagiv's naval power, helping to ferret out retrograde royalists who want to roll back the Glorious People's Revolution.

You might end up in North Gavek, a center of wealth and trade, but also a city crawling with suspicious-looking foreigners or Tavoli Halasz, a den of smugglers and cutthroats who nonetheless serve the Greater Good by trading with the nations of Kaza Orok, Anover and Avari.

Wherever you end up, we're sure you'll serve the party faithfully and unstintingly. It's certainly in your best interest to do so.

Welcome to Hagiv

The Glorious People's Republic of Hagiv is a medium-sized island in the far north of a world called Tierra and part of a larger campaign called The Thalassan Sphere. Even though Hagiv is far to the north of the equator, it is still almost entirely a tropical or subtropical climate. The reason for this is that Tierra suffered a massive magical Cataclysm about 640 years ago that caused the seas to rise and the whole planet to heat up. Only a very small part of the world is even temperate and the frozen ice cap is less than one hundred miles across.

But your characters don't know any of this. Your characters were born on Hagiv. They've grown up being fed an official story by the People's Revolutionary Party that doesn't always mesh with what the history books say. That's why the Party has their own history books - so you don't get confused.

Part of your mission in the game might be to find out about the real history of Hagiv or to keep others from finding out that history. Or, it might be to leave Hagiv all together. The Hagiv campaigns use a special system called Goals that allow your characters to gain experience points and reputation for achieving special tasks set before you by various patrons. In the case of Hagiv, those patrons will generally be various elements of the Hagivi Government and Revolutionary Party and/or counterrevolutionary groups - frequently both.

The official history is this: For hundreds of years, Hagiv was run by foolish kings, greedy capitalists, and cruel overseers. Dwarves and humans were forced to toil in the fields and mines while the ruling class, bolstered by elven sorcerers, lived a life of idle luxury. One day, an honest, hardworking dwarf named Nagev was hurrying along the beach to fetch some wine shipped from overseas for his master's table and he tripped over a rock mostly buried in the sand. That rock gave off a strange glow and, when he gripped it, his mind filled with wondrous images and his body, crippled since birth, grew healthy and strong. Nagev had discovered the Sunstone and it gave him a vision of a Hagiv free of the pernicious influences of kings, capitalists, and elves. Nagev called on his fellow slaves to rise to do glorious battle against the Ferencz Monarchy. His owner's son Bertok Vass saw the wisdom of Nagev's cause and rallied the humans of Hagiv to join the Glorious People's Revolution.

After the Revolution was won, Nagev was made Glorious Leader by popular acclaim and appointed the Revolutionary Council. Between them, they seek to make a worker's paradise of Hagiv and have only failed to do so already because of counterrevolutionary elements.

Hagivi Society

Inspiration for Hagivi society is largely drawn from two sources: the ultraparanoid nations of the Cold War Eastern Bloc (particularly Hungary in the 1950s and 1960s) and the remarkable inefficiency of large organizations. Hagivi society is at turns absurd and terrifying. Someone in the Palace of the People was supposed to stay your execution, but accidentally wrapped his lunch in the form and now you're going to die.

There are three rules to remember when imagining Hagivi society: (1) The Council and the Party run everything, (2) everyone is spying on everybody else to see if they're a counterrevolutionary, and (3) everyone is a counterrevolutionary (nearly.)

If your character has any revolutionary goals, they probably involve spying on one or more members of your adventuring group. If your party has any revolutionary goals, they probably involve spying on you. It's not impossible to achieve party unity in Hagiv, but it's far from a given.

For examples of this, see the sample party at the end of this document.

Race and Standing on Hagiv

There are four player character races on Hagiv: Dwarf, Human, Orc, and Elf. Orcs play with half-orc statistics and elves can play with either elf or half-elf statistics as they choose, but culturally there's no "half" anything here. If you have any elf blood, you're an elf - the same with orcs.

Dwarves

Dwarves are the cornerstone of the revolution. The Glorious Leader is a dwarf. Half the