Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
[X] Plan Improving Mathilde and the Watch
- Location
- Norway
That's a bit rude. I think it might be better to say that many of the voters in this quest are getting incredibly easily tempted by the shiny, regardless of it's utility.
It is rude, and I'm sorry for that. I'm going to be leaving the thread for a while. Lately I'm getting far more frustration than enjoyment from participating in the quest.
- Location
- Memphis, TN
[X] Plan Mistress of Shadows
Yeah, a lot of people are enjoying that quest in the wrong way. Bad questers! Bad!
The only thing I really dislike about Veekie's vote is the Ranald option. It just doesn't really make sense risk wise. The Watch has been noted to be conservative and full of military veterans and we've just quelled some discontent, there is very little synergy going on there without forcing it and likely both exposing our characters allegiances (Ranald over Verena ... not particularly subtle) and meaning we have to take a morale action next turn. It seems likely the DC is going to be much higher to succeed too.
Grungni at least makes thematic sense as it's already established in Stirland and should synergy with the recent Sylvania expedition as dwarves played a fundamental role. This is important for two reasons; the first more broad reason is that dwarven reputation within Stirland should have risen considerably once stories spread due to the sheer Stirlandian hatred of Sylanvia, and the second more specific and relevant is as mentioned above that the watch is made up of military veterans. They should be highly appreciative of what occurred, and some of those that fought in the campaign are going to be retiring into the watch boosting this aspect even further. Grungni's themes are significantly more appropriate, and the Watch itself is expanding into dwarven areas of expertise such as underground fighting/patrolling, maintenance of the underground, and collection of waste for saltpeter for high quality gunpowder which should make weapons more consistent and reliable.
I'd also much prefer we keep organizations distinct rather than bluring the lines, as in future actions I would be in favor of spreading the Thieves Guild throughout Stirland too.
Grungni at least makes thematic sense as it's already established in Stirland and should synergy with the recent Sylvania expedition as dwarves played a fundamental role. This is important for two reasons; the first more broad reason is that dwarven reputation within Stirland should have risen considerably once stories spread due to the sheer Stirlandian hatred of Sylanvia, and the second more specific and relevant is as mentioned above that the watch is made up of military veterans. They should be highly appreciative of what occurred, and some of those that fought in the campaign are going to be retiring into the watch boosting this aspect even further. Grungni's themes are significantly more appropriate, and the Watch itself is expanding into dwarven areas of expertise such as underground fighting/patrolling, maintenance of the underground, and collection of waste for saltpeter for high quality gunpowder which should make weapons more consistent and reliable.
I'd also much prefer we keep organizations distinct rather than bluring the lines, as in future actions I would be in favor of spreading the Thieves Guild throughout Stirland too.
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- Location
- Burgundian Netherlands
There seem to be two very outspoken opponents against the embezzling action in my plan, so let me elaborate on my reasoning for a second. I added it in because the early consensus seemed to be in favour of embezzling either a little, or everything. I wasn't principally opposed to it as we sure as hell have embezzled before, and this is a virtually undetectable and relatively harmless form of skimming off profits from the conquest of the Haunted Hills. A conquest, that as so it happens, we completed. When I said that we should be entitled to a small cut from these new lands to add to our demesne or sell further, I wasn't really joking. We pulled the entire campaign in the end, and had we not gone through with it after capturing Town Drakenhof, there would still be a castle Drakenhof.
That being said, if enough people are persuaded to switch if I drop the embezzling, I'll drop it. I expect commissioning things like dwarven pistols, or raw materials when we start producing our own enchanted items will cost substantial amounts of money, but on the other hand there's a convincing argument to be made as well for refusing to take a cent out of Stirland's coffers (though we did in the past).
On the currently leading plan: I agree with its opponents in that converting the Watch to Ranald is not only very risky (you know, Ranald cults getting killed to man and so on) and counterproductive to its purpose, but also undermines the entire view Van Hal had for the Watch (and we agreed with). The Watch was supposed to be a strong counterweight to a potential Thieves' Guild, keeping each other in check, and a Thieves' Guild can only really operate in the way we want it to if there IS a strong Watch to contend with it to keep it in line.
Making Ranald the official patron deity blurs this distinction in what I feel is a very dangerous way. Yes, Ranald is the Protector, but in his other guises he's actually the diametrically opposite of what the Watch should be doing as their core job, and will bring them very close indeed to the criminal underworld they should be keeping in check. Having the Watch be under Ranald's protection kind of precludes a Ranaldite Thieves' Guild like we want(ed) it. Having both would just lead to a powerful underworld, having too many connections with a powerful Watch.
If people have drifted away from wanting a Thieves' Guild, that's perfectly fine as well, but I don't think it's viable to have both.
Oh and @veekie, I might have missed it, but why send the info on undead to our benefactors when we'll be...y' know...eliminating them? Also they're probably working with vampires, isn't it concerning to send detailed information on undead numbers to benefactors working with (or being) vampires?
That being said, if enough people are persuaded to switch if I drop the embezzling, I'll drop it. I expect commissioning things like dwarven pistols, or raw materials when we start producing our own enchanted items will cost substantial amounts of money, but on the other hand there's a convincing argument to be made as well for refusing to take a cent out of Stirland's coffers (though we did in the past).
On the currently leading plan: I agree with its opponents in that converting the Watch to Ranald is not only very risky (you know, Ranald cults getting killed to man and so on) and counterproductive to its purpose, but also undermines the entire view Van Hal had for the Watch (and we agreed with). The Watch was supposed to be a strong counterweight to a potential Thieves' Guild, keeping each other in check, and a Thieves' Guild can only really operate in the way we want it to if there IS a strong Watch to contend with it to keep it in line.
Making Ranald the official patron deity blurs this distinction in what I feel is a very dangerous way. Yes, Ranald is the Protector, but in his other guises he's actually the diametrically opposite of what the Watch should be doing as their core job, and will bring them very close indeed to the criminal underworld they should be keeping in check. Having the Watch be under Ranald's protection kind of precludes a Ranaldite Thieves' Guild like we want(ed) it. Having both would just lead to a powerful underworld, having too many connections with a powerful Watch.
If people have drifted away from wanting a Thieves' Guild, that's perfectly fine as well, but I don't think it's viable to have both.
Oh and @veekie, I might have missed it, but why send the info on undead to our benefactors when we'll be...y' know...eliminating them? Also they're probably working with vampires, isn't it concerning to send detailed information on undead numbers to benefactors working with (or being) vampires?
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Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
[X] Plan Mistress of Shadows
Seriously though, consider that people can have different utility functions. I, for one, have a [mad] longterm goal of spreading Ranald faith to Skaven, so getting a strong Ranaldite vibe in our organisations is fine by me. Other people can go for different narrative and in-character voting ("Look, Sigmar, how nice is my city watch here is, spreading Ranald faith all around") or just plain fun. There's a possibility that some people judge the risk or gains differently than you, even if you have more or less similar goals in mind.
My thinking is that's to make ourselves look harmless until the heads start rolling.
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Personally I'm not that concerned about the embezzlement, or at least I'm not too concerned with that alone especially since we'll probably feed it straight back to Stirland to cover our debts. Sketchy? sure but it's not likely anyone's go to do much about it. And if that was the only sketchy action in that plan I wouldn't mind too much.
It's the other actions that really concern me.
Attending the Elector's meet for example is the biggest concern. This is actually far scarier when taken into context with the other actions such as suborning gustav, massive fraud and trying to turn a trade company into a dominant power and spyring. Do these actions remind you of anyone?
Attending the Elector's meet might get us some contacts but it's far more likely alienate and piss off a bunch of important people, especially if Mathilde tries to manipulate the proceedings which is explicitly what the action says.The grey order really won't be happy with this sort of thing since it's against the Order's laws, particularly concerning since we'll be doing this in Altdorf the home of the wizard colleges.
Basically it looks like a blatant powergrab and that's dangerous as hell.
Edit: check out this quote
It doesn't just look like a blatant powergrab it is a blatant powergrab.
We should remember the oaths we've taken. I'm fairly sure one of them was don't perform blatant powergrabs for political power especially when you have no reason to do so.
I assumed sending them the messages would be a potential way to track them or if nothing else misdirect them on who's going after them. It's basically public information anyway so I don't see how it hurts.
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- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
Word of QM is that economic actions of this kind can be finagled to not turn a profit until after the ne EC has looked over the Watch budget status quo. In fact, it will probably cost money the first few months. So then the budget surplus can be sold as an unexpected and early surprise, the first miraculous achievment of a loyal Spymistress. But I agree with all of your other criticism of Veekie's plan, especially the Ranald part.
Edit: Actually not true. Ranald's blessing is on the patron god action. You must have gotten confused somehow @WorldSlayer.
What do you mean by lately? I had the impression that except for this particular voting session everything else we've voted for has been considered fine. At least till it was used in updates with terrible rolls, but that's just life and has little to do with the voters.
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- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So much discussion and way too many plans. Yikes. Might be time to put in a voting moratorium?
[X] Plan Protector Of Stirland
Only plan that doesn't do stuff I don't like. Ranald for the Watch is risky, but we have +17 Piety and the +20 from Ranald's Blessing on it. I still think religion for the watch is an action that can be delayed, but I like the daring of going for Ranald and it might be harder to pull off in future turns.
[X] Plan Protector Of Stirland
Only plan that doesn't do stuff I don't like. Ranald for the Watch is risky, but we have +17 Piety and the +20 from Ranald's Blessing on it. I still think religion for the watch is an action that can be delayed, but I like the daring of going for Ranald and it might be harder to pull off in future turns.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The plan in veekie's post has the blessing on the watch currently. I guess the tally's picked up the wrong version, since I just redid the tally and it changed to having the blessing on the watch.
- Location
- Burgundian Netherlands
The QM explicitly said to include any plans to take power with our votes. The absence of such a plan means there is no such plan.
Attending the meet is there to forge connections that could long prove invaluable (hey, we don't like Sigmar and the Grand Theogonist, guess which important player doesn't either and who will also be present? Right, the Al-Ulric, to give an example). In addition, I also somewhat consider it our duty to be there as we are currently head and shoulders the most powerful person in Stirland, who by all accounts won the Empire its greatest recent victory. Yes, our diplomacy is below average, but I expect there to be a few opportunities to use our certainly above-average intrigue score as well. We should have a (covert) voice in who the next EC is if the children don't come through, because we are currently holding the reins, and everyone at the Meet is bound to know it.
Exerting our influence over Gustav is part of solidifying our position as the power behind the throne, as a lot of people seemed to envision this role for Mathilde during the vote of what we should do after the campaign ended, including myself.
And the only actions with the EIC involve 1) being an active shareholder and 2) selling our information to one bidder, instead of on the open market as we are now, I don't see how that relates in any way grabbing power?
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- Location
- USA
[X] Plan Improving Mathilde and the Watch
I don't like pushing Ranald on the Watch or expanding them into Drakenhof. Everyone else has already commented on the Ranald thing. Expanding the Watch into Drakenhof would be overreaching, it's fairly far from everywhere else we have covered, the Watch themselves won't like it because it would mean going to Sylvania and we can't trust any people we could potentially recruit from there. Leave Drakenhof to the army and the Witch Hunters until we've investigated it more and have Stirland covered.
I don't like pushing Ranald on the Watch or expanding them into Drakenhof. Everyone else has already commented on the Ranald thing. Expanding the Watch into Drakenhof would be overreaching, it's fairly far from everywhere else we have covered, the Watch themselves won't like it because it would mean going to Sylvania and we can't trust any people we could potentially recruit from there. Leave Drakenhof to the army and the Witch Hunters until we've investigated it more and have Stirland covered.
[X] Plan Improving Mathilde and the Watch
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
@Siual
Your reasoning for trying to attend the Elector Meet seem sound to me. But personally I still can't approve your plan for two reasons:
1. The land grab is something that will be known to anyone with a high intrigue looking into us. Which includes all of the Grey Order once we go for Magister. Even if they don't find out we got it illegally, it is already illegal to simply have it. And remember that our Wizard oath first and foremost subborns us to the laws of the land. Even if we can excuse why we have it, the how can still get us into trouble. And hiding both from Grey Magisters, well I wouldn't bet on that.
2. Do you remember why Gustav is the Marshal of Stirland in the first place? He is a direct plant by the Emperor's spymaster. The Spymaster gave us three to choose from and we went for the least negative one, but he is still beholden to a greater power than us. What do you think he will do if we try to put him under our boot? And what do you think the imperial spymaster's response to that will be? If we get on his bad side he can exploit so many vulnerabilities, especially since we are a Wizard, and a Grey one at that.
Other than that I have a dislike for the Verena option, but there's worse options to choose from (like going full Ranald).
Your reasoning for trying to attend the Elector Meet seem sound to me. But personally I still can't approve your plan for two reasons:
1. The land grab is something that will be known to anyone with a high intrigue looking into us. Which includes all of the Grey Order once we go for Magister. Even if they don't find out we got it illegally, it is already illegal to simply have it. And remember that our Wizard oath first and foremost subborns us to the laws of the land. Even if we can excuse why we have it, the how can still get us into trouble. And hiding both from Grey Magisters, well I wouldn't bet on that.
2. Do you remember why Gustav is the Marshal of Stirland in the first place? He is a direct plant by the Emperor's spymaster. The Spymaster gave us three to choose from and we went for the least negative one, but he is still beholden to a greater power than us. What do you think he will do if we try to put him under our boot? And what do you think the imperial spymaster's response to that will be? If we get on his bad side he can exploit so many vulnerabilities, especially since we are a Wizard, and a Grey one at that.
Other than that I have a dislike for the Verena option, but there's worse options to choose from (like going full Ranald).
- Location
- Minnesota
[X] Plan No Gods Only Guns
Thanks for the update there. Not sure if that was mistake caused when I was removing the X's from the voteboxes (it was adding to the tally despite being in spoilers) or if Veekie actually had it that way originally, either way I'm glad that the blessing is on Ranald, or at least find it preferable to not having the bonus on such a dangerous action.
(Edit: Also my issue with the saltpeter isn't setting that up but rather why spend dwarf favors on doing so? Especially since it actually costs more to do the set up without dwarfs meaning our budget will look better later. I'd rather just set everything up and then call the dwarfs in, especially since we might not even be the spymaster soon which would mean essentially wasted dwarf favors.)
Well the big clue is the mentions in the original vote, you know the ones that say we should grab as much power and influence as we can.
But even ignoring that is the number of dubious actions you have us take, I'll go through them all.
The trade guild, we'll be buying up a larger share of the company and using them as our spy network. Even on it's own it looks fairly suspicious and that's despite the unfortunate parallel to our predecessor.
Some pretty blatant fraud to make money off the haunted hills. Another unfortunate parallel to a predecessor (the military one is a closer comparison this time) and another grab for money and power without a firm target.
Spending time with Gustav to securing his subordination is once again another one of those dubious acts. He's Stirland martial and having the spymaster have him under he thumb is a pretty scary idea. Worse he's already reporting to the Empire's spymaster which makes this doubly dangerous.
Spending time with Anton would normally be pretty innocent but after all the previous actions just about everything is starting to look insidious.
Attend the Elector's Meet yourself, to take any opportunity that arises to manipulate events in your favour. The most dangerous of the lot, especially since it explicitly states that we should take any opportunity to manipulate events. We don't and shouldn't have any voice at this meeting, Anton is going and he's capable of saying anything that needs to be said.
Any one or two of these would be OK. The fact you've taken so many of them and in your original post specifically mentioned wanting more power it indicates a firm direction in your planning. Hell you just mentioned wanting to be the power behind the throne, this is something the Grey Order is very much not going to be happy about and the new elector count is probably going to be even less happy with.
I'm perfectly fine with skimming a few gold off the top to pay for college loans and the enchanting lab, I'm much less OK with attempting to seize power over Stirland and worse being so blatant about it. We're already pretty powerful and our voice carries far, there's no need to go over the top into rogue wizard territory.
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- Location
- Norway
That particular goal does sound fun.
To be more serious myself: what's annoying me isn't any particular decision but the general accumulation and spread of so many risky ideas being proposed at once.
To illustrate one particular example at length, the Grey Order's vow of poverty has some big loopholes for things like "necessary expenditures" and "organizational budget", as well as the general standby of skimming a little off the top that probably won't be noticed.
Buying a large chunk of land seems too big to fit through any of those, but I imagine it could be excused given our otherwise good service.
Buying a large chunk of land to resell it for profit seems even more risky, and I thought this option was nonetheless the least risky of the Power Vacuum options when compared.
Buying a large chunk of land to resell it for profit with faked documents is what we're looking at doing, in an environment where we have the additional complicating factors that Mathilde can't go to ground or flee the country as easily as a regular swindler can, and the Grey Order is creepily well-informed sometimes (Mathilde writes letters to Regimand in a locked chest; Regimand casually cracks Mathilde's eye-cipher), and the next Elector Count is up in the air but possibly a Witch Hunter who won't be as forgiving as Abelhelm when it comes to looking into what the wizard has been doing.
And finally on top of that, what would that money even be for? We have 200+ gold and we're making a profit without embezzling. Regardless of your utility function, I expect diminishing marginal utility to kick in.
Similarly, trying to get the conservative Watch in conservative Stirland to adopt a new god would be fun on its own. Trying that after we've just placated the Watch from previous innovation seems ill-timed. Trying that with either the God of Thieves or the Enthusiastically Suppressed God strikes me as ill-timed and a longshot. At least I'd want to make the Watch happier by getting them those Dwarf Trainers first if I were doing this.
Then there's so many plans and suggestions that repeatedly violate the Articles of Magic or rules of the Grey Order that I half-seriously think it might be safer to just read the Libris Mortis; at least that can be done in peace and quiet and only violates one Article (maybe two if you count "obey the law" and assume there's Imperial laws against studying necromancy separately from the Article against studying necromancy), and the potential reward is larger.
Trying to suborn the Council of Stirland for no clear purpose. Turning up to the Electors' Meet as a wizard with below-average Diplomacy. Accumulating more property and debt in the EIC. Et cetera. I can see possible reasons, like how it would provide money and perhaps it's a bad idea to have Private Citizen Wilhelmina in charge of ~half the New Stirlandian League, but the overall pileup compounds a very great deal of risk, with interest and possible cross-contamination.
Finally, NPC agency. Even if we're lucky enough to pull off all the dubious ideas at once and nobody notices right now, several NPCs - in particular I'm thinking of Magister Examiner, New Steward, New Count, and possibly New Spymaster if we don't/can't stay on - might nonetheless wind up investigating and discovering what we pulled later.