Slightly frustrated that all, and by that, I mean all order religions seem to be depicted as 100% better than Sigmar in every single way, I mean seriously the the Foamborne can perfectly identify if someone is a heretic.

For one, they can identify if someone is a Manannite heretic, and it involves some stuff that would look heretical to Witch Hunters to do it.

For another?

The Ulricans had to copy the Cult of Sigmar and the War Altar business. They have heretical groups of their own, some not even revealed by the previous piety/intrigue actions, and some they don't even know they have to deal with. Gunthar is an Ulrican, and he's an ass. Your own child, Logan, was nearly sabotaged in his effort to become a priest because a White Wolf, a religious templar of Ulric, decided to try and beat a child for not accepting other Ulricans beating him unconscious. Because despite his clear blessings, they dislike him for their own reasons.

The Cult of Taal and Rhya deliberately refuse to go with scientific inventions, and were therefore explicitly responsible for a goodly portion of the more rural Ostlanders from not using the seeding drill despite its obvious benefits. An action had to be taken to try and convince them otherwise, because despite the fact that the enemies of the Empire can come at them in full plate armor, some of their most zealous and devout would try to smack a Chaos Knight with an axe made of stone.

Shallyans dislike surgery, and general medical care, in favor of 'soothing the pain away', and due to their influence a lot of people distrust physicians in general despite the aid they can bring. They also canonized their version of Typhoid Mary as a SAINT, and follow Her teachings when dealing with plague situations, which from a modern standpoint is incredible horrific.

Northern Kislev worshippers of Dazh still do human sacrifices to the flames on the regular, and if the massive slave-driving murdering sacrificing bleakness methods of the Cult of the Widow in building up her temples and structures across Kislev doesn't seem 'worse' than what Sigmar does, then I don't know what to tell you.

The Cult of Morr refuse to let people to autopsies, and any scientific investigations of the body after death are regarded as outright heresy and necromancy punishable by death. They have choked back scientific progress on the human anatomy for years, and have thus enshrined beliefs such as 'the blood is an ocean inside the body that ebbs and flows like the tides' that in turn dominate the landscape when it comes to treatment of the body.

The Cult of Myrmidia had the entire Knights of Margritta fiasco, literally shifting more manpower and wealth than the Cult of Manann has done at this point, and stealing it away from the Empire to lose it all on one big gamble in Estalia, and one of their divine 'blessings' is to fall into uncontrollable vengeful fury.

Verenans literally do have corrupt tomes of knowledge, things like the Book of Ashur have shown up in their libraries before, and they hoard all information including things that can corrupt your soul simply by being in the stacks as you peruse the books even if you've never gone near it in particular. They can, have, and will step over the dead and dying to save books if given the choice. One of their punishments they can give to people who have harmed the Cult is to tear off a huge patch of their skin and flesh, turn it into parchment, and make you write your confessions and an essay on why you should not have done it with a steel tipped pen and ink that is made out of your blood. And if you are illiterate, they will make you literate so you can finish the trial. Frederick is fully aware of them sometimes storing knowledge they shouldn't, it is in the action on the Turn post proper.

Ranaldians are often thieves, or worse, fanatics who think anyone who they think puts on airs deserves to be accused of being a heretic and mutant and thus turn the Witch Hunters and other people of the Empire fatally against them. This is known, but not depicted IC to Frederick's knowledge because he's as of yet not done something that could tick them off to that extent.

I have depicted other Cults of the Empire standing against the progress of civilization, scientific endeavors, stealing money and manpower from the Empire on ridiculous endeavors that end up in nothing, and have stated IC that the Verenans do have issues that they must deal with. The Cult of Manann DID FUCK UP, their previous leader DIED, and the current Matriarch is unfortunately coming in at the end of that and trying to do the best that can be done with a shit situation.

'depicted as 100% better than Sigmar in every way'?

Yeah. No. This one? This one I can flat out state 'You are mistaken' to.
 
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No. My main reason is that I don't think our kids' names should be tied to Freddy's penace. Especially not Oskar's.

At most, I think there's a possible case to be made for Alexandra because she's the head of Kislev's secret police.

I don't see it that way. I see it as ships of Ostland that Frederick had built, his pride, being used to reconcile with the cult.

That being said. Oskar wanted to be a sailor and probably would have dedicated himself to Manann. His ship actually being used by the cult to protect its followers, the Empire, and Ostland seems like something he would approve of.
 
[X] Plan Not Killing Ourselves
-[x] Sacrifice Them To Manann: Set the things aflame, get some dockspace back, and offer a minor but appreciated appeasement to Manann. [Minor Appeasement/Maghda Approval]
-[X] The Greatships of Ostland: Sacrifice requires actual sacrifice. Wolfships are common vessels, and war galleys are meant for close coastal patrolling. You can rebuild later. Perhaps even with actual blessings and aid from the Cathedral, if you accept a bit of loss beforehand.
--[X] Give Them: It stings, yes, but you'll know that the Cult of Manann will not misuse them. It would literally be sacrilege to do so. They will be honored vessels, surely, given what they are they'll not just sit in dock doing nothing. It could, even, show them off to the rest of the Empire in a positive light given time. (Write-In How Many If Any/Which Greatships) [Major Appeasement/Approval For Each Ship]
---[X] All the Greatships
-[X] Accept the Keelhauling: It will hurt. That's rather the point. The only thing to think about is how sever you want to be about it. This is less about appeasing the priests, and more about quieting the mob, the fury of the common flock....and some of the priests who are especially angry. Who wish punishment, regardless of the fact that very, very technically, you were legally in the right. (Choose Ship Choice From Below)
--[X] Five-Tined Hunter: A wolf ship of the Cult of Manann that sails regularly against corsairs, pirates, worshippers of Stromfels, Druchii, and so on. [Dangerous/Appeasement/Approval Gain]

Torroar has said Maghda won't allow our coastal defences to be jeopardized as it would be mainly Manann's faithful being hurt by it, so I'm changing my mind to giving them all away. As for keelhauling, level 2 offers only minor appeasement while level 4 is still described as an extremely large ship that is also uncleaned, meaning a frankly unacceptable risk. Therefore level 3 offers a reasonable compromise between pain and gain.
 
Let's be clear on Oskar.

He was a child, who was interested in boats. He was five years old when Zacharias had him dashed against a wall.

We will never know who he might have become or what he might have done.
 
[X] Plan Not all the Great Ships

Normally I would vote all in, but I think two ships are enough at this time.
 
[X] Plan Not all the Great Ships

I get the strong impression that this should be more than enough.

Talabecland and the Fuerbachs go to show that there are some people who will never accept penance, even if we die for it, but this should be sufficient for any moderately reasonable person to say: "Yeah, he screwed up pretty bad, but he made it right soon after."

People don't need to like us, they just need to work with us professionally enough not to impair our maritime activities.

As a stretch goal, I'm hoping that this fortifies the matriarch's position of "not being a corrupt, indolent, money grubbing jackass" as the superior method of serving Manann, and weakens whatever political faction it was that decided "Yeah, we've got the ability to search out the members of this crazy cult of infiltrators, but we're not gonna."

As long as the ships are being used for the Empire, good. If this ends up being a good advertisement that results in an advancement to the Empire's Open Ocean navel technology, even better.
 
"How…barnacled are we talking here?"

"I have five ships, five options," she answers swiftly. "The least is both the smallest ship and is in fact relatively clean. You'd more likely get bruises than cuts. It would also be the least effective in convincing anyone of anything compared to the others."

"And let me guess, the most severe is one I'd be in significant danger from."

She nods.

"Yes. If you did not receive immediate intensive medical attention afterwards, you would be in considerable danger of dying quite quickly."

Of course.
She definitely Implied it wasn't necessary and not only that we'll probably upset our wife again if we go the most dangerous here my real question here is why do we constantly go with the most harm for Fredrick when we don't actually need to? I also got that she didn't want to do the worst Keelhauling from the QM when he was talking about it.

See the above quote from the update for the keelhauling options. Almost certainly fatal if we didn't have ways to heal ourselves...which we do have and Maghda is aware of us having (specifically confirming those).

Nothing about Maghda suggesting one ship over the other.


Let's be clear on Oskar.

He was a child, who was interested in boats. He was five years old when Zacharias had him dashed against a wall.

We will never know who he might have become or what he might have done.

Fair enough. But I think my point stands that these are not Frederick's kids or their good names. They're ships. They were built to defend Ostland with his wealth and are a symbol of his pride as Elector Count and what he's done with Ostland's navy.

Giving them over to the cult does not remove them from defending Ostland/the Empire, Maghda wouldn't allow that. It also doesn't remove prestige from the ships. It actually gives them a chance at greater prestige in the wider world as working for the Cult of Manann. But it's still an important sacrifice and show of humility on Fredericks' part personally. That's what is key here. All while having those ships continue to do what they were actually built to do.


[X] Plan Not all the Great Ships

I get the strong impression that this should be more than enough.

Talabecland and the Fuerbachs go to show that there are some people who will never accept penance, even if we die for it, but this should be sufficient for any moderately reasonable person to say: "Yeah, he screwed up pretty bad, but he made it right soon after."

You got the wrong thing out of paying the tribute.

You will never satisfy everyone, yes. Adolf not forgiving us and Talabacland not particularly liking us was never in the cards after what happened. But going all in on recompense silenced the greatest amount of and most vocal critics. And those that remained either dialed it down or were considered too harsh by everyone else. That's only possible by going overboard with reconciliation rather than just 'good enough'.

[] Plan Not all the Great Ships

I get the strong impression that this should be more than enough.

Talabecland and the Fuerbachs go to show that there are some people who will never accept penance, even if we die for it, but this should be sufficient for any moderately reasonable person to say: "Yeah, he screwed up pretty bad, but he made it right soon after."

I think you're focusing on the wrong part of that situation.

You will never satisfy every single person, yes. Adolf not forgiving us was never in the cards after what happened. But going all in on recompense silenced the greatest amount of and the most vocal critics. And those that remained either dialed it down or were considered too harsh by everyone else. That's only possible by going overboard with reconciliation rather than just 'good enough'.
 
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For people who don't know the difference in the leading plans, I'll list them:
  • Plan: All In, As Usual has us give all our Greatships to the Cult and do the most extreme Keelhauling option and the most dangerous. (Triton's Fury)
  • Plan Not Quite ALL the Way has us give three of our Greatships and do a lesser Keelhauling option, but not as dangerous. (Marvelous Maisel)
  • Plan Not all the Great Ships has us give two of our Greatships and do the most extreme Keelhauling option and the most dangerous. (Triton's Fury)
Remember to vote by plan and not by action.
 
[X] Plan Not Quite ALL the Way

As nice as it would be to stack the odds in favor of getting Manaan's boon and an ally against Rutger, I'd like to be a little careful with our health.
 
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Why the fuck are we doing keelhauling at all. It's not fucking necessary.
[X] Do the bare minimum penance an take no personal risk.
 
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Why the fuck are we doing keelhauling at all. It's not fucking necessary.
[X] Tell Mannan to fuck off.
Because there is a narrative aspect to Torroar's quest and we still have the masses, because Manaan's boon is a very useful thing, and there's no guarantee of it being enough without it.
No, I can vote however I want.
No, you can vote according to the stipulations set up by the GM, and Frederick has decided he doesn't want Ostland to get fucked.
 
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OKAY @Acolyte

I WILL QUOTE MYSELF QUOTING MYSELF AGAIN, JUST FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!!

I have seen some new 'why do we care' posts. I will quote myself again, ironically the one where I said I would be saying it 'one last time'.

But here we go again.

I'll say this one last time.

It's not about Manann sending a storm to destroy your ships. That is a potential thing, but not the main thing. The main thing is the fear of all the faithful on the coasts and rivers of his potential wrath. It's these people, who do your fishing, who do your naval trading, who could come to or leave Ostland by boat, that are the main thing. And their fear of that wrath will, as I have stated previously in a much larger and angrier post than this one, will drive them to run from the waters. Your trade will dry up, because people will be afraid and will not come to Ostland, or set sail from Ostland. Your fishing boats will not sail. Your coastal settlements will wither and die, and it won't matter how many Greatships you try to build, the Cult won't bless them forth from the docks, and the crews won't crew them. Because they are afraid of pissing off Manann. That is what Maghda is trying to get going here. For all affected peoples across Ostland, and further beyond who care, to see and think and say 'Ah, Manann has been appeased, thus we can and should sail our boats and fish our fish and so on and so forth'.

The People. Of. Ostland's. Coasts. And. Rivers. Are. Afraid. Of. Manann. They also worship him, because fearing and respecting him is literally the whole deal of the faith, placating him and very occasionally getting spiffy rewards. Spitting on their faith, stomping on it and saying 'it doesn't matter, shut the fuck up about Manann it doesn't matter his desires don't matter' will quite simply not work.

Furthermore:

There's a reason I explicitly pointed out Salkalten being a point of holy wrath in defense of the people by Manann in my angry post a short while ago. And why I've characterized Maghda as caring deeply for the Faithful of Manann explicitly in these past two updates, focusing explicitly on 'how can we make things better for them/reassure them'. Because she really cares about them! And, like, yes, the Greatships would not be under Ostland control, but my god, why would you think she would want to explicitly harm the Faithful of Ostland. The point is for Frederick to make the sacrifice because of the pride and money put in them, not anyone else. Otherwise, she would have been like 'hey, yeah, let's do some penance for the wife and the ogre and all the Greatswords and so on and so forth'. The punishment is for Frederick, no one else's. She also sneered on the tendency for there to be collateral damage when the Sigmarites go a-bashing. So why...why...why...would you think she'd accept causing collateral damage to Manann's Faithful in Ostland in the course of this?

It was supposed to come up organically next update, as the levels of appeasement could improve Maghda's level of authority amongst the Cult, meaning she could allocate more funds and effort to protecting the holy site of Salkalten's temple or things like that, but I didn't want to explicitly spell that out here, because its supposed to be a personal vote of thought not something that metagames on the potential offerings afterwards.

She would never, ever, ever countenance an act that would cause more harm to Ostland's faithful to the Cult, especially when she's made it clear how this is supposed to help them spiritually and mentally so that they can go out and do stuff physically.

Just...try to consider the subtext and extrapolate, please? I'm sorry if it was too obscure, if it was, that's on me, but...just...yeah.

Causing Ostland's coastal defenses to weaken, and thus bring harm to Manann's Faithful? Is explicitly anathema to her.

She is Sea-Born. She has not been involved in the political infighting of the Empire, or even the Empire in general for her entire life. What she cares about is Manann's Faithful, and reassuring and protecting and aiding them how she can. She has explicitly spat on her predecessor's policies and political acting, and made sure to read up on Frederick as best she could before he got to Marienburg, and I noted in the update how she's pleased that he's proving some of the stories told about him right, and some of them wrong.

The point, again, is not, under any measure, for the Faithful of Ostland to suffer because of this, but in fact to be reassured and revitalized. Which is why Frederick is doing the penances, because to them, a significant portion of the province's population, 'They Don't Like That Thing That Happened'. These aren't thousands upon thousands of priests, these are thousands and thousands of sailors, fishermen, stevadores, and so on, who are scared shitless that something is going to happen if Manann is never placated, or even a gesture made towards said stuff. Faithful of Manann are noted to be the outright most absurdly superstitious in the bevy of the Empire. They basically have an endless stream of weird gestures, rituals, mutters, prayers, stances, acts, etc. the moment they hit open water to when they hit shore. Even if Manann never does anything, well neither will they out of fear of the day that 'nothing' becomes 'something', and are trending towards doing 'nothing' themselves because of said fear.

You can, I suppose, treat that swathe of Ostland's population like hostile dirt. I just...don't think that seems in-character, at the very least.

If anything the only thing I would say is that the Matriarch of the Mannanites feels like she's being to reasonable, I can only imagine it's because she's read up so extensively on Fredrick that she does actually respect his deeds and accomplishments even as she's disgusted with what the witch hunters did.

Ironically, I thought it would be an interesting subversion for her to be extensively more reasonable than most normal religious authorities in the Empire by virtue of her spending her life at sea separate from the politics and infighting of the Empire. She's a Priestess-Captain turned Matriarch of the Cult, and by that virtue alone she's already begun to have friction with certain elements who had gotten used to a leader who was far less willing to utilize the wealth of the Cult for other measures, and more willing to use its influence on other matters than she feels they should have.

But here we are, regardless.

----------------------------------------------------

Vote's open.

Dude?

Just. Stop.

I have posted so many goddamn fucking time about this, and SOMEHOW you have managed to make it past all of those things, and somehow either missed them or deliberately ignored them on purpose. I have fucking stated REPEATEDLY that this entire bullshit fucking goddamn idiotic 'Manann Bad Manann Bad' shittery is completely missing the fucking point of reassuring YOUR OWN. GODDAMN. FUCKING. PEOPLE. OF. OSTLAND.

I'll quote myself. AGAIN. I won't even put it in a quote box you can miss.

The People. Of. Ostland's. Coasts. And. Rivers. Are. Afraid. Of. Manann. They also worship him, because fearing and respecting him is literally the whole deal of the faith, placating him and very occasionally getting spiffy rewards. Spitting on their faith, stomping on it and saying 'it doesn't matter, shut the fuck up about Manann it doesn't matter his desires don't matter' will quite simply not work.

Does this work? Does cursing work? Does making it bold text and underlined work? Do I have to make an absolute ass of a rage-baboon out of myself, screaming, for people to read the things I post that aren't in the update proper? Do I need to put it in all caps too? Will that do it?

EDIT:

I'm done. I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done.

Goodbye for the rest of the day, possibly the rest of the week, possibly until who the fuck knows when, because I'm just fed up with this.
 
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[X] Plan Not Quite ALL the Way

Hmm...Yeah I need to stop frequently changing my mind about this sort of stuff.

Alright I'm picking this plan as it gives three of our ships and picks the 4th level of Keeling. That's good enough for me.
 
I understand your points. I am just willing to face economics and societal problems if I can avoid having Freddy suffer. It's deeply uncomfortable to read about and I give a lot more shit Freddy than some peasants near the shoar.

So, yes I agree manann is important big God. But I don't care about him making Freddy suffer.
I just care more for the characters you have created instead of nameless peasants.

@torroar
 
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