Depending on how complicated you want to make things....
Clearly the empire has some degree of claim on the redlands, even if it is more theoretical than in practice. The existing treaties or traditional rights and obligations may make the Redlands able to avoid paying taxes....after all, they were established in part to provide a buffer against the horse nomads, so the original deal may have been that they 'paid' in military service/risk rather than taxes.
But as you say, the emperor needs money, and the horse nomads haven't posed a major threat in a long time. Perhaps it would be time to start getting taxes out of the Redlands? But how to do it without breaking tradition/treaty? (in Glorantha this would not only be a loss of face, but no doubt a loss of magical power).
The answer is easy: incite them to break the agreements first, then the emperor is justified in siezing control to restore order, and imposing new conditions (not to mention probably granting lands to his supporters).
And how to do this? Why, there is this troublesome group of Char-un who need to be dealt with anyway, so kill two birds with one stone. Send them to the Redlands with orders that will no doubt cause them to gain the hatred of everyone around them. They are just dupes, but most likely send some spy types to help catalyze that anger into something more tangible that could be used as justification for taking direct control. A slaughter of the Char-un troop would be a perfect outcome from this perspective....
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> No I don't think they do want to pay taxes to the Emperor. However, the emperor has a lot of wars to pay for so may be compelled to widen the net.It''s probably worth shaking down some of the settlements and seeing if others cave... MG Will of course V! I also couldn't think why else the Lunars would send the Unrepentants to the Redlands, but am open to other ideas. I wanted the adventures to have that plucky independant homesteaders on the fronttier standing up to raiders feel. You can buy Sons of Kargzant from Leisure Games in the UK. Steve To: WorldofGlorantha_at_yahoogroups.com
> From: richard_hayes29_at_...
> Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2012 14:24:21 +0100
> Subject: Re: Char-Un
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> If the Redlanders honour the Goddess but not the Emperor, are they liable to pay taxes to the Emperor anyway?
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> Is Sons of Kargzant still in print anywhere?
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> Richard Hayes
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> From: steveparryharries <steveparryharries_at_...>
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> To: WorldofGlorantha_at_yahoogroups.com
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> Sent: Tuesday, 3 April 2012, 11:33
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> Subject: Char-Un
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> I'm currently writing some linked HQ adventures set amongst the Lunar farmers of the Redlands. I wanted some background on horse nomads and bought a copy of Sons of Kargzant.
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> I'm sure a lot of you have read this, but I thought it was absolutely brilliant, full of background flavour and ideas (I'm not linked to the authors). They reminded me of the Scythians.
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> The best bit was towards the end, which detailed a penal unit of the 'really bad' Char-Un, called the Unrepentant. These were sent to the Redlands and were hated by the native Pentans. Half my campaign just wrote itself! :o)
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> I figured they might be used as guards for Lunar tax inspectors. The independant Redlands farmers honour the Goddess but not the emperor, so any tax inspector is gong to have a VERY difficult time.
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