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Monster Marriage Quest

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Right, we can't allow the prisoner to die. Caras indicated it was rare to find an uninfected Shellman. We need to get intelligence out of him. I don't want to bring a doctor in though, because he's likely to object to healing a patient just so the patient can be exposed to more torture.

As far as I can tell, the Baron of Subterran Maggots appears to be useful for mainly spy techniques rather than digging techniques. As such, I'm not sure we need his help to build tunnels around our borders. I would in fact prefer to do this without his help.

[x]Hmm. Has Virmire gotten him under a blanket, or fed him at any point? Possibly the Shellman just needs basic care. He has been subjected to cold water for hours on end, unable to sleep. Perhaps he is hypothermic.

[X] Talk to Caras about the viability of building a tunnel network along the Shellman border. Digging a tunnel network under all our lands might be too expensive, but digging a tunnel network only on the border would be cheaper and would allow for better intelligence on any Shellman incursions during the day. The tunnels could also be collapsed under an incursion, if necessary.
-[x]Also, traps. Now that you know a bit more about the territory, you need to talk to Caras about defenses that don't require the presence of soldiers. You are quite certain pit traps, at the least, should be a viable option, and so far as you know Caras has taken no such measures.
Pretty much the greatest problem for Caras in this conflict is sunlight. You can make traps in the night, and with nigh untiring workers... could help a LOT.
 
[X]Hmm. Has Virmire gotten him under a blanket, or fed him at any point? Possibly the Shellman just needs basic care. He has been subjected to cold water for hours on end, unable to sleep. Perhaps he is hypothermic. If we are doing basic care, there is no reason not to ask for medicine for infections and a doctor, however. After all, we can only obtain information if the man is alive. Suffering can come later....

[X] Talk to Virmire and Caras about our own capacities: what minions can be breed and when, what this 'marriage' has done to us, etc. Hell, what are Caras's policies, as opposed to everyone else's? We don't even know what his general goals are! Before we go rushing off, we need to understand ourselves.

Hmm... rather than that, this idea seems viable, since tunnels are a thing that works.

[X] Talk to Caras about the viability of building a tunnel network along the Shellman border. Digging a tunnel network under all our lands might be too expensive, but digging a tunnel network only on the border would be cheaper and would allow for better intelligence on any Shellman incursions during the day. The tunnels could also be collapsed under an incursion, if necessary.
-[x]Also, traps. Now that you know a bit more about the territory, you need to talk to Caras about defenses that don't require the presence of soldiers. You are quite certain pit traps, at the least, should be a viable option, and so far as you know Caras has taken no such measures.
 
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[x]Hmm. Has Virmire gotten him under ablanket, or fed him at any point? Possibly the Shellman just needs basic care. Hehas been subjected to cold water for hours on end, unable to sleep. Perhapshe is hypothermic.
 
@Distant Prince : Relevant to us and Caras' goals...

Ghoul King said:
You are given to believe, from the ensuing rant, that Caras' primary duty to The Council is to keep 'wretched burners' out of the country
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Ghoul King said:
Instead, you are sire's eyes, ears, and fang out in the wider world, particularly beyond the borders or, worst case, in the event of a daytime attack
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Ghoul King said:
Additionally, it will be your job to monitor for plots and plans from sire's human vassals. There are those who benefit from sire's protection who are jealous of his position and use his limits to plot treachery during the day
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And regarding what minions we have access to... Mainly Boulders apparently, but we can borrow anything else we want if we appear to need it. Virmire listed a whole bunch of minions we can use. It's on that threadmark regarding our tools.
 
Ghoul King said:
-The grey is for particulrly prominent mountains, though this particular map only depicts a single mountain; the one Freewheeling Raptors has their fortress set atop.
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Interesting. I was initially inclined to read that as encircling mountain ranges, not a massive ass single mountain.

IronyOwl said:
[x]Hmm. Has Virmire gotten him under a blanket, or fed him at any point? Possibly the Shellman just needs basic care. He has been subjected to cold water for hours on end, unable to sleep. Perhaps he is hypothermic.

[x]Ignore the Burner problem entirely to plan a trip to the Northern Scalefolk. They're a hinge point between Caras' kind, the Shellmen (assuming they frequent the coast), and a third faction, which means they will probably have an incredibly useful perspective on our surroundings. Despite this, the Virmires have been unable to get a firm grasp on them, likely due to their alien nature. We should have significantly fewer problems in that area.


We could go straight for something a little more proactive, but without additional information it'd be a shot in the dark. Playing humanoid diplomat strikes me as a better use of our time.

EDIT: I just realized this would keep us apart from Caras for like a week. Too soon for that, let's...

[x] Talk with Virmire about the limits of servant construction. How hard/expensive it is to get certain traits or tendencies in, if economies of scale apply to custom jobs, generally everything we need to know about Caras' non-human capabilities.
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Distant Prince said:
[X]Hmm. Has Virmire gotten him under a blanket, or fed him at any point? Possibly the Shellman just needs basic care. He has been subjected to cold water for hours on end, unable to sleep. Perhaps he is hypothermic. If we are doing basic care, there is no reason not to ask for medicine for infections and a doctor, however. After all, we can only obtain information if the man is alive. Suffering can come later....

[X] Talk to Virmire and Caras about our own capacities: what minions can be breed and when, what this 'marriage' has done to us, etc. Hell, what are Caras's policies, as opposed to everyone else's? We don't even know what his general goals are! Before we go rushing off, we need to understand ourselves.

Hmm... rather than that, this idea seems viable, since tunnels are a thing that works.

[X] Talk to Caras about the viability of building a tunnel network along the Shellman border. Digging a tunnel network under all our lands might be too expensive, but digging a tunnel network only on the border would be cheaper and would allow for better intelligence on any Shellman incursions during the day. The tunnels could also be collapsed under an incursion, if necessary.
-[x]Also, traps. Now that you know a bit more about the territory, you need to talk to Caras about defenses that don't require the presence of soldiers. You are quite certain pit traps, at the least, should be a viable option, and so far as you know Caras has taken no such measures.
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Vote tally doesn't ignore struck through things. You need to interrupt having an [] with an x inside at the start of the line, or it's still counted.

Not sure how I want to vote as yet, personally... Hmmm.
 
Hmm. Votes are a bit of a mess right now. Not sure what would've been better, but clearly this was not the optimal way to handle this.

There seems to be a general agreement to have the prisoner gotten under a blanket and fed, but disagreement as to whether to send for a doctor or not.

The main point of agreement on the second vote seems to be "We need to talk to Caras/Virmire and get even more information."

I'm considering doing an update moving forward on the premise of

-Get the prisoner handled, make a vote as to whether Sabrina pushes for sending for a doctor or not. (A simple binary yes/no)

-Meet up with Caras and Virmire and talk out more options.

Unsure how to better construct the second vote, though. Maybe something a bit more abstract, like a series of vague notions (eg "weight interest toward Subterran Maggots" and so on) to then shape Sabrina's priorities without demanding a specific plan from the voter base. (eg "weight interest toward Scaled People" has the highest vote total, and so it's Sabrina's first priority, followed by "weight interest toward breed modification", etc etc)

Because clearly having voters generate and agree upon a plan is too problematic, but narrowing it down to a pre-made list of options would either be unfairly constrictive or take an insane amount of work on my end, and probably still end up artificially constrictive. So I definitely need to Take A Third Option.
 
Ghoul King said:
Unsure how to better construct the second vote, though. Maybe something a bit more abstract, like a series of vague notions (eg "weight interest toward Subterran Maggots" and so on) to then shape Sabrina's priorities without demanding a specific plan from the voter base. (eg "weight interest toward Scaled People" has the highest vote total, and so it's Sabrina's first priority, followed by "weight interest toward breed modification", etc etc)
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Something like [] focus on x topic and run them in order from highest to lowest, write-ins allowed, perhaps?
 
Though I will note you are talking about closing the vote in significantly under 24 hours, which may be part of the problem- the voters might sort it out in the next 6~ hours.
 
Terrabrand said:
Something like [] focus on x topic and run them in order from highest to lowest, write-ins allowed, perhaps?
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That was the rough idea, yes.

Terrabrand said:
Though I will note you are talking about closing the vote in significantly under 24 hours, which may be part of the problem- the voters might sort it out in the next 6~ hours.
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Eeeeh. I'm skeptical. I provided an overly broad range of options (Giant infodump to act on that could go any number of directions) and put a lot more of a burden on the voters as individuals (Here! Have a mandatory write-in!), and I know not everyone is interested in bothering to invest that kind of time/effort/thought into an individual Quest. Sure, more people might vote, but that wouldn't really address the actual problem.
 
Terrabrand said:
Vote tally doesn't ignore struck through things. You need to interrupt having an [] with an x inside at the start of the line, or it's still counted.
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Ah, thanks.

Ghoul King said:
Because clearly having voters generate and agree upon a plan is too problematic, but narrowing it down to a pre-made list of options would either be unfairly constrictive or take an insane amount of work on my end, and probably still end up artificially constrictive. So I definitely need to Take A Third Option.
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I think the generating part went fairly well; "copy Subterran Maggots to produce a defensive line" is a fairly obvious option that came through without an explicit entry, and "talk to the scale people" is a fairly weird idea that might not have been listed. A write-in to generate things followed by a more structured list to agree on them (likely with some clarifying preparation or inquiry in between) might be ideal for this sort of thing.
 
[X] Get the prisoner warm and under a blanket, and send for a doctor.
 
Tentative list for the update, in spoilers to try to reduce the odds of people thinking this is currently a part of the vote:

[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the North Sea's Scale People.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Ice Lake's Scale People.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Viscount of Dire Hollows.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Baron of Freewheeling Raptors.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Baron of Subterran Maggots.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Baron of Shifting Sands.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Northseamen.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of breed manipulation.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward further digging in Virmire's study.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of the Council.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Ice Lake's unclaimed/indeterminate villages.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of military alliances.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of diplomacy.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward defensive fortifications that remain useful in broad daylight.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward sunproofing.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward Burner Worms.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Common People.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the possibility of raising more taxes.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward preparing herself for military duty.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward emotional warm fuzzies with Caras.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward clarifying what the sheep tax is for.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the possibility of digging tunnel networks.

I'm 99% confident I'm missing some obvious options, and I definitely intend to allow write-ins. Still, I think this is a workable model, and definitely something to return to if it does work and similar open-ended situations recur -which seems likely, frankly. Better to construct a model I can re-use than to kludge a one-time solution for a situation that is likely to crop up again and again.

Honestly, I think I kind like this model, aside from it being a bit of a pain up-front to break everything down to 'component parts' and think of all the things that are worth including. I think it manages to simultaneously be clear and straightforward for voting but allow some voter creativity.

IronyOwl said:
A write-in to generate things followed by a more structured list to agree on them (likely with some clarifying preparation or inquiry in between) might be ideal for this sort of thing.
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Definitely going to need to figure out some way to avoid the abstract approach leading to things like:

"Mass votes for war on the Shellmen!"

"Mass votes for diplomacy with the Northern Scaled People!"

"Outcome: Votes for war outnumber votes for diplomacy, but votes for Northern Scaled People outnumbered votes for Shellmen, ergo we have voted for war on Northern Scaled People!"

Maybe some way for voters to 'connect' some votes to others? Hmm.
 
Ghoul King said:
Maybe some way for voters to 'connect' some votes to others? Hmm.
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Sub votes.

[] The Northseamen
-[] Diplomacy prep
-[] Military prep

Tally will recognize that as being the latter things (or separately, if placed individually) contingent on the main vote, basically. So, for example...

[] The Northseamen
-[] Diplomacy prep

getting 13 and

[] The Shellmen
-[] Military prep

Getting 11 and some other countries/peoples getting military prep votes won't pollute it any since you are specifying it as a sub-vote to thinking about that country etc.
 
[x]Hmm. Has Virmire gotten him under a blanket, or fed him at any point? Possibly the Shellman just needs basic care. He has been subjected to cold water for hours on end, unable to sleep. Perhaps he is hypothermic.

I say no Doctor, still. And trying to reformat second part:

[X] The Northern Scalefolk
-[X] Diplomacy!
[X] Subterranean Maggots
-[X] Military prep, specifically tunnels.
 
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Detente with North Fishmenistan seems pretty reasonable. However, I don't understand this proposal:

[] Subterranean maggots
-[] Military prep, specifically tunnels.

Does "subterranean maggots" refer to the polity or the unit type? Also, although tunnels have been referred to like some sort of device for spying, it strikes me that tunnels would be a way to move troops around during the day, even if they still couldn't act above-ground. For example, Gatekeepers could use them to make their rounds more efficiently, because they could travel by day and inspect by night.

Also, this society has a bizarre allocation of production tools if the military can dig enough tunnels to spy on the populace that supports it in any reasonable timeframe. Should we be lending some boulders to till fields in order to increase food production or something? Economy is important. If I understand correctly, our relationship to the humans is basically that we provide governance and protection in exchange for food.

[x]Hmm. Has Virmire gotten him under a blanket, or fed him at any point? Possibly the Shellman just needs basic care. He has been subjected to cold water for hours on end, unable to sleep. Perhaps he is hypothermic.

[X] The Northern Scalefolk
-[X] Diplomacy!
 
Alright, I botched the prior vote, and instead of making an update proper -because honestly that would probably leave basically everybody unhappy right now- I'm providing a restructured vote.

First, since voters seem to be broadly in agreement on the topic of how to deal with the Shellman prisoner aside from the doctor issue:

[]Yes, send for a doctor.
[]No, do not send for a doctor.

is our first vote, since I'm doing this anyway.

More importantly, instead of demanding a write-in, I'm doing this for the second vote:

[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the North Sea's Scale People.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Ice Lake's Scale People.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Viscount of Dire Hollows.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Baron of Freewheeling Raptors.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Baron of Subterran Maggots.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Baron of Shifting Sands.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Northseamen.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of breed manipulation.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward further digging in Virmire's study.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of the Council.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Ice Lake's unclaimed/indeterminate villages.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of military alliances.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of diplomacy.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward defensive fortifications that remain useful in broad daylight.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward sunproofing.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward Burner Worms.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Common People.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the possibility of raising more taxes.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward preparing herself for military duty.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward emotional warm fuzzies with Caras.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward clarifying what the sheep tax is for.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the possibility of digging tunnel networks.



You can vote for as many of these as you like, and can provide write-ins if you feel I missed an obvious possibility or whatever.

Additionally, you can put these two (Or write-ins, if you feel these are too broad):

[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of waging war.
[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of diplomacy.

as sub-points for a given diplomatic entity, eg:

[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Common People.
-[]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of waging war.

When I'm tallying votes, instead of having a single winner, Sabrina's priorities will be based on how the votes are weighted.

So if there's 20 votes for being interested in sunproofing, and 19 votes for being interested in having Sabrina prepare herself for military duty, and no other votes for some bizarre reason, then Sabrina will be most interested in sunproofing but almost as interested in getting herself armed, armored, and trained for battle.

Aaaaand go.

Genial Precis said:
Should we be lending some boulders to till fields in order to increase food production or something?
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Wriiiiiite-iiiin.
 
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[X]No, do not send for a doctor.

[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the North Sea's Scale People.
-[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of diplomacy.

[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward clarifying what the sheep tax is for.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward preparing herself for military duty.

This works as a format, yes?
 
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NemoMarx said:
[X]No, do not send for a doctor.

[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the North Sea's Scale People.
-[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of diplomacy.

[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward clarifying what the sheep tax is for.

This works as a format, yes?
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Yes, exactly.

(Though you can totally do a lot more votes than that)
 
[X]No, do not send for a doctor.

[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Baron of Subterran Maggots.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward defensive fortifications that remain useful in broad daylight.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward sunproofing.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward clarifying what the sheep tax is for.
 
[X]No, do not send for a doctor.

[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the North Sea's Scale People.
-[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of diplomacy.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward emotional warm fuzzies with Caras.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of breed manipulation.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward Burner Worms.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward clarifying what the sheep tax is for.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest towardpreparing herself for military duty.
 
[X]Yes, send for a doctor.

[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Baron of Subterran Maggots.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward defensive fortifications that remain useful in broad daylight.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward sunproofing.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward clarifying what the sheep tax is for.
 
[X]Yes, send for a doctor.

He might still let something else slip.

[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the North Sea's Scale People.
-[X]Weight Sabrina's interest towards the topic of diplomacy.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward further digging in Virmire's study.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the topic of diplomacy.
-[X]Specifically, who is the most open to it thus far? Was that always the case?
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward Burner Worms.
-[X] Detection and extermination
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward the Common People.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward emotional warm fuzzies with Caras.
[X]Weight Sabrina's interest toward clarifying what the sheep tax is for.
 
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