Raygins Rants: Vandenreich

[Deleted]

Well, this is odd. You wouldn't really expect me to write up a rant about a faction I'm not a part of, wouldn't you? Seems odd, I agree. But, hey, here we are and this is something I think everyone on the site needs to know about and have a talk about. I'm talking about, of course, the current leadership in the Vandenreich. I want to talk to you today about how I think the Vandenreichs story has taken a massive nose dive and what we can do to make the Faction actually interesting again. Let's be honest here, while we do have a new Vandenreich Quincy (Welcome to the site btw) interest in this Faction is lower than that of Las Arenas.

So, let's get started with some full discretion. I didn't read that one canon that dealt with everyone fighting the Emperor. That canon was a shit show filled to the brim with OOC drama so I didn't touch with none of my perfect body parts. But let's get started with this little rant.

So as we all know, the Vandenreich isn't like the Gotei or Xcution in its fundamentals. It's not a military, or even really an organization, it's a church of fanatics going on a crusade. It's crusaders. The Vandenreich is a life style choice, a devotion, not a job or something you put on a resume. To be a Vandenreich is to give yourself entirely to the will of the Emperor. But you all know this. So, what exactly is the point of this rant? Well, the point is that, currently, Vandenreich has been fucked story wise. Current circumstances have made the Vandenreich into a shadow of itself, and one that offers no genuine reason for why there are ANY members left in it.

So the Emperor is dead and it's now run by someone else who has inserted himself as the new Emperor. Does nobody see the problem with that? The entire point of the Vandenreich was revenge against the Shinigami for the Quincy Massacre, the revenge for the Quincies being carried out by a singular god figure that all the Vandenreich submitted to. The Emperor was literally the Vandenreichs god. But now that god is dead...and was replaced by someone else who expects to be treated the same as Der Kaiser was. This is literally like Jesus coming down from Heaven and going "yo, guys, meet George. George is your new god. Worship George."

Or as a much better example, it's like me becoming the new head of the site. Isn't that stupid? Would anyone here be able to take that seriously? That's what happened to the Vandenreich. It's a dead organization, with nothing holding it together now. The god is dead and there's someone who wants to be the new god. But that's not how it works. You don't just replace the god with someone else. So the Emperor is dead...but that's not a bad thing. As it currently is, the Vandenreich is bland, dead, and has no reason for its members to still be a part of it. But why don't we get a little unique with the death of the emperor.

Let's take a step back from Baal being in power and actually think of a way to keep Vandenreich interesting. So the Emperors dead, well what can we do about that? Simple. Say that the Emperors corpse still resonates with the same power that gave the Vandenreich its strength. By keeping the corpse of the Emperor, which still possesses all of its power, there is still power being given to the rest of this organizations members. Now I'm sure you're asking "Why?" well, here's why. This story change will impact the members in a drastic way. No longer is there no god figure. The Vandenreichs god is still present but now in an entirely new form. The Emperors corpse still provides the power for Blut and Vollstanding, and is sustained by...whatever means you wanna come up with. Sacrifices? Reiatsu feeding? Who knows. Who cares. Point is, this idea is actually good.

Then, using this idea, we can still allow Baal to remain in power. Baal can stand up and go "HEY, I SPEAK THE WILL OF THE EMPEROR. THE CORPSE SPEAKS TO ME", like the Listener with the Night Mother in Skyrim, and guess what? People would believe it. Sure, some may go "it's a corpse" but nobody could deny that their still being given the power to carry out their goal of revenge. This would be a new chapter for the Vandenreich, one that doesn't completely step on the reasoning behind the characters. The Emperors Death fucked a few of this orgs members stories. Caesar lived and breathed for the Emperor, and does anyone expect him to do the same thing for Baal? Give this idea some thought, voice some opinions, and hopefully we can get on track with making Vandenreich decent again.

[Gadreel Cochrane]

I am 100% on board with the Quincy Brotherhood idea.

[Deleted]

While I admit Ray has a good idea I think that there are a few flaws with it. I do agree that there needs to be a bit more love in the post Emperor lore of the Vriech though. Currently what is accepted by the masses of the Vreich, thanks to Caesar is that Der Kaiser has left behind his physical form gone back to another plane of existance fixing the imperfections of the Vreich so that they make the world a place suitable for their god to come back to. There is a loose reason as to why Baal and A are in charge, but the way I see it is, Caesar is in charge of keeping the faith of the Vreich up and them believing in the power of the Emperor, which leaves the two strongest of the Vreich in charge of the army.

The big flaw for me at least is that realistically it doesn't change much about the current stance of the Vreich. Besides changing the faith away from der kaiser being Jesus and the vreich into essentially Catholics into it being more of a cult. It does give a better reason to have Baal and A in command but it also ignores the most devoted Vreich member there is aka Caesar when it comes to hearing the voice of Der Kaiser. Which granted it does offer up some potential for interesting plot points for Caesar about why he can't hear the voice of the Emperor.

Ray has a good starting point here, but I would love to see this idea fleshed out alot more along with taking some influence from the current stance with it. What I think should happen is something along the lines of this, if we keep the idea of the dark brotherhood with the listener for the Vreich I think the listeners should be all the generals. With the voice speaking to them the actual voice of the emperor with him installing Baal and A as the temporary leaders of the Vreich. With that it grants the authority back to Baal and A, brings back the faith that Caesar might of lost and the hope as well. However I think having the Emperor be able to say subtle messages to the masses of the Vreich should be an option that is looked into as well. Something that can enforce the idea that the Emperor is still alive and that they're following his will.

Now something that would be interesting would be the idea of a sacrifice to bring back the emperor, and what better way than for the hunting of shingamis and their Zan's or even better you hunt powerful souls to use as sacrifice. I think a real OOC and IC sacrifice meter to bring back the Emperor based on how many souls one brings to an alter to sacrifice to him to repower and bring him back to life would be an interesting concept. The souls would have to be taken or captured via DE threads and would have to involve player actions to dictate if and when the Emperor came back to life. Their could be small rewards for those who give more souls than others like hidden techs or items only made for those devoted to the Vreich. With this should also come a drastic change in the morals of the vreich and their ideals.

This is just my idea given what Ray said, like I said before, with just a basic flavor change it doesn't change much really. A much larger change is needed in order to bring some new life into the vreich.

[Gracie]

Holy wow. I think these ideas are great. It kind of adds an air of magic and mystery to the Vandenreich, and it just makes them really interesting. Ray's base idea is good, but could definitely be built upon to make it more lore-friendly and intense, something similar to the extra little tidbits that Faust threw up in suggestion. The idea of hunting shinigami and their zans to revive the emperor: That's just cool. Really hoping that something like whats being discussed here actually gets implemented, it would really make the faction a lot more interesting from my perspective. heck, I wouldn't mind getting more involved with them.