DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
I think this is mostly a wording issue, because an untrained and uneducated peasant is entirely capable of doing everything I'm asking, at least in the way I mean it. Build contacts means "deliberately try to make friends and talk to them regularly". Monitoring opinions is just "talk to people regularly and see what they like or dislike, or if particular things are bothering them". Reporting on personality and habits is a little harder but "does he drink, gamble, get manipulated by women, act like an asshole, bribe people to get his way, or have any other personal flaws" is something that frankly anyone can understand, particularly someone in an organization where people complain about superiors. In particular, all I'm asking the military/Gustav assignees to do is basically the stuff you said here.You might be overestimating what they're capable of. They're guys that marched around with a spear for thirty years. Building contacts, monitoring opinions, reporting on personality and habits, analyzing reports and passing on summaries? They're untrained, uneducated peasants. You can send them somewhere and they'll keep their ears open for rumours at the pub and gossip at the marketplace and pass on anything that sticks out, but that's about their limit.
And as I said earlier, there's a real danger in trying to get these veterans to spy on Gustav. As you reported to Van Hal, he's universally beloved by his men, and these are peasants suspicious of sneaky business in general and wizards in particular, so he'd be very likely to un-suborn the suborned men you send to him without even trying.
I'm aware that the Gustav guy is likely to be suborned, but he costs us 10g. Even a month or two of reliable reports before he decides that he likes Gustav better than us is worth that, and what's the downside? (Edit: Well, the downside is potentially Gustav getting angry but I'm not too concerned about triggering a conversation with him over having asked someone to make sure he's not an embezzling dick like the last guy.)
Wait, the Watch phrasing I stole from veekie. That one might be asking a bit much.
Last edited: