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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Jarrik32 said:
Huh. Is she genuinely suicidal? Is she really dumb enough to deliver such a blatant insult to a goddamn SPYMISTRESS... a frickin magical spymistress at that. Someone that quietly disappeared people from extremely secure locations more than once for her predecessor. While admittedly the response was controlled by dice and that sometimes things just go badly (we somehow botched -spectacularly at times- every role to save abelhelm) but I can't help but hope that theirs an option to remind the newly appointed Countess that yanking the chain of a grey wizard carries consequences either politely or less so.
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1) She'd consider keeping a wizard around to be suicidal,
2) she gave you a rather polite dismissal and offered a letter of recommendation, neither of which she needed to do, and
3) the pecking order is laid out unambiguously by the Articles of Imperial Magic. Elector Count trumps Wizard, period.

Keep that in mind before sparking off a campaign of terror that will end with Mathilde's execution at the hands of the Grey Order.
 
Actually, can she just take the EIC?

Like seriously, what stops her from just saying "Mine"?
 
MooseHowl said:
X] Plan Enchanting Gunwizard
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Your plan is essentially null as it reads like a bunch of "give" and "keep"s. You need to format it properly.
Alectai said:
To be fair, the League's problem wasn't that we didn't have the power to take them, it was that we'd have a hard time taking them without them scattering and going to ground, so we had to nail the whole group faster than word could travel, by lining up everything just right

Nobody gave a shit about it, especially since we replaced it with a new group that did the same thing.
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Because the League was working against the interests of literally everyone else. It was actively choking the life out of Stirland.

Randomly seizing private property from one of the most respected and feared nobles in the realm is downright stupid.

She doesn't seem to hate us to go as far as harming herself in "vengeance".
 
For those wanting to take over drakenhof I'm legitimately curious if we have any actual political justification for it.
 
King Arthur said:
I mean, if she's going to take our businesses, the Gong Farmers and Niter Factores away from us .... hows that different from the EIC? Or even our estate?

Why would she take that away from us and not the other things? It's just a business after all, same as the EIC is which we own a huge portion of. If she can take that away from us and would do it solely because either we are a mage and she doesn't trust us or she just flat out needs the money why wouldn't she take away our other sources of money?

Is there something I'm missing here?
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We have the EIC shares by way of our legal fiction as a Knight--and she can't strip us of that title without actually creating the clusterfuck that people think will happen if we seize the nitrate stuff--it's one thing to nationalize a business that's in your capital city, it's another thing entirely to start stripping titles.

The nitrate stuff isn't tied to that legal fiction, so we'd have to set that up.
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
Why?

Also, you have to indent the other two options.
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Mostly because Matty's got plenty of options for weaponry. She's got her greatsword, her pistols, and her magic. There's only so many things that can be voted for per turn; sure she'd get a bonus to training up rifles due to her pistol skills, but I feel like a vote for rifle training would be better spent improving one of her other weapon skills.

I understand wanting to keep it as a memento to remember Van Hal, but we've already got one of his hats, then there's the Liber Mortis, which many seem to wanna keep. I think Van Hal would want his rifle to be used; it would best be left to his heir in that case. I also think Rosy should have something of her father's; given the secrecy surrounding the Van Hal kids, she may not have anything of his. She screwed up big time dismissing Matty, yes, but she's clearly in over her head. I wouldn't begrudge her the rifle over it.
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
Because the League was working against the interests of literally everyone else. It was actively choking the life out of Stirland.

Randomly seizing private property from one of the most respected and feared nobles in the realm is downright stupid.

She doesn't seem to hate us to go as far as harming herself in "vengeance".
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To be fair the factory and Gong farmers are setup under the Watch's budget, so it is under Stirland Spy Master's (position) authority. At least it is a vaild argument.
 
BoneyM said:
1) She'd consider keeping a wizard around to be suicidal,
2) she gave you a rather polite dismissal and offered a letter of recommendation, neither of which she needed to do, and
3) the pecking order is laid out unambiguously by the Articles of Imperial Magic. Elector Count trumps Wizard, period.

Keep that in mind before sparking off a campaign of terror that will end with Mathilde's execution at the hands of the Grey Order.
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Was she surprised at Anton resigning?
 
Jarrik32 said:
Huh. Is she genuinely suicidal? Is she really dumb enough to deliver such a blatant insult to a goddamn SPYMISTRESS... a frickin magical spymistress at that. Someone that quietly disappeared people from extremely secure locations more than once for her predecessor. While admittedly the response was controlled by dice and that sometimes things just go badly (we somehow botched -spectacularly at times- every role to save abelhelm) but I can't help but hope that theirs an option to remind the newly appointed Countess that yanking the chain of a grey wizard carries consequences either politely or less so.
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She says things like that because we're the kind of asshole who quietly disappears people from extremely secure locations!

Not everybody has the intestinal fortitude to hire somebody like that.
King Arthur said:
I mean, if she's going to take our businesses, the Gong Farmers and Niter Factories away from us .... hows that different from the EIC? Or even our estate?

Why would she take that away from us and not the other things? It's just a business after all, same as the EIC is which we own a huge portion of. If she can take that away from us and would do it solely because either we are a mage and she doesn't trust us or she just flat out needs the money why wouldn't she take away our other sources of money?

Even if it's a territory thing the EIC runs through Stirland and is probably centered around Wurtbad so it's basically in the exact same situation.

Is there something I'm missing here?
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We didn't pay for the Gong Farmers or the Niter Factory out of our own pocket the way we did the EIC shares.

I mean, I want to keep them anyway, but I'm just saying. Not the same thing.
 
[] Plan For Abelhelm dispite his brat!
Report on the past eight years
-[X] Keep
The Runefang of Stirland
-[X] Give
Abelhelm's repeater rifle
-[X] Keep
Liber Mortis.
-[X] Keep
Miscellaneous contents of Abelhelm's Study
-[X] Keep
Information Network
-[X] Keep
Gong Farmers and Niter Factory
-[X] Keep
Discretionary Funds
-[X] Keep
Where will you call home now?
-[X] You're quite comfortable where you are, thank you very much. Wurtbad is your position of power; Spymistress was just one arrow in your quiver.
And what will you be doing?
Staying in Stirland:
-[X] Managing your institutions - the EIC, your land, and the Information Network and Gong Farmers if retained.

We helpped build this damned county, we'll be damned if some inexperienced child will piss it away. Do what we can to maintain stability in Stirland.

edit: [] Plan Keeping the Fruits of our Hard Labor. is close enough to this. Changing vote
 
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BoneyM said:
1) She'd consider keeping a wizard around to be suicidal,
2) she gave you a rather polite dismissal and offered a letter of recommendation, neither of which she needed to do, and
3) the pecking order is laid out unambiguously by the Articles of Imperial Magic. Elector Count trumps Wizard, period.

Keep that in mind before sparking off a campaign of terror that will end with Mathilde's execution at the hands of the Grey Order.
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^^^

Guys, calm down. Please? Let's not go all crazy paranoid here.


Everyone let's reasonably go down the list and think of what she MIGHT deal with.

Floom said:
Laws that she could just change?
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Like she's out to get us? She's not. And stirring up trouble with us seems like something she won't do considering she even offered a Recommendation to get us away from here. She doesn't like Wizards, but she goes 'Dad spoke well of you, I'm not gonna pick a fight with you'.
 
@BoneyM I want to try an unorthodox plan. Please tell me if it is invalid.

[X] Plan: Give Specifically, Go Wherever.
-[X] Report on the past eight years
--[X] Give
-[X] The Runefang of Stirland
--[X] Give
-[X]Abelhelm's repeater rifle
--[X] Give
-[X] Liber Mortis
--[X] Keep
-[X] Miscellaneous contents of Abelhelm's Study
--[X] Give all but his hat.
-[X] Information Network
--[X] Tell Julia to introduce herself. Also remind her which two people got her this gig.
-[X] Gong Farmers and Niter Factory
--[X] Ask Wilhelmina to incorporate into the EIC and reduce our debt accordingly if possible.
-[X] Discretionary Funds
--[X] Keep
-[X] Travel Plans
--[X] Default to next highest voted plan that leaves Wurtbad.

(EDIT: I'm willing to change the rifle vote depending of what most of my voters want. Just write it in the post in which you vote for me.)



One other idea I had was to go with Anton and become his father's spymaster (and then Anton's once he inherits). But it would be quite a step down and I'm not even sure if I like my idea. Would probably be a more relaxed position with plenty of study time though.
If one wants to make such a plan they should think about keeping Julia and the network.

@BoneyM what's going to happen to the things we have "Influence" in, like Bidenhof? Is it tied to our information network in any way or could we use that as a basis for stuff even if we vote to give up everything under Julia?
 
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But yeah, the EIC was set up under our legal fiction as a Knight, it's safe unless she goes full tyrant.

The Gong Farmers and Nitrate stuff was set up under our position as a Spymaster, using crown funds and backing--peeling that off would be a tougher sell.
 
LightMage said:
^^^

Guys, calm down. Please? Let's not go all crazy paranoid here.


Everyone let's reasonably go down the list and think of what she MIGHT deal with.


Like she's out to get us? She's not. And stirring up trouble with us seems like something she won't do considering she even offered a Recommendation to get us away from here. She doesn't like Wizards, but she goes 'Dad spoke well of you, I'm not gonna pick a fight with you'.
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Yeah, but I'm genuinely curious about the limits of her power. What exactly checks her power? I'm assuming she has limits, but what are they?
 
To clarify things and hopefully cool heads a little: Roswita doesn't hate you and didn't insult you. She recognizes your contributions and even feels sorry for your condition, but as far as she's concerned people who have a non-zero chance of exploding into demons belong a looooong way away from her. Which I think is not too difficult to understand. So thank you for your service to Stirland, good luck in your future endeavours, and here's a letter of reference to help you finding work somewhere where she's not in the demon-explosion radius.
 
I don't think that keeping our information network is a good idea; remember that there are two townhouses in Wurtbad, right by each other, from which the Watch and the intel network respectively are run. The intel net might work in a subtle way, but its existence and headquarters aren't secret- and it wasn't set up as our personal asset; it's Stirland's. The fact that it's Stirland's covers a myriad of sins that our personal intelligence organization wouldn't be able to get around/fall back on, for that matter; people reporting to Stirland is one thing while reporting to Dame Weber is... not exactly the same kind of show of loyalty to their legal lord. At some point the new Elector Countess will notice even if she has shit intrigue, which she well might not. Keeping the intel network for our use might be possible, but it's not reasonable.

It's a better bet to hand off the intel network but ensure/gamble that the new Elector Countess won't set even more of Stirland's administration on fire by offending/replacing yet more people. That means that Julia will still be in charge of it- and Julia, remember, is a friend of Anton and someone who undoubtedly rather likes us after working with us to positive effect for years. If we're exceptionally lucky she even has a chance of being promoted to our old job since she's frankly the person best suited to stepping into our shoes in all of Stirland. Even if she doesn't, we're still a major owner of the EIC- which means that we can turn around and offer her the intel/cash deal that we've been considering for years, and as part of the deal maintain high-level access to the network's intelligence reports even if we're not officially a part of it anymore.
 
Fried brain said:
Personally, because I want Stirland to keep improving as part of our legacy, and the Niter factories will probably help with Stirlands finances immensely. We personally don't require quite so large an income source anyways. We should probably hang a plate on it saying "Founded by Mathilde Weber in 2xxx, dutiful servant of Stirland" just to rub it in
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Did you forget how the gong farmers were treated before we came in ? Considerin average Stirland competence it is probably going to fall in disrepair again, so leaving it is a waste.
Same for the network, no Symaster is goin to trust one he didn't build himself.

VoidZero said:
The new steward will go through the book since it's their job and missing books will trigger spy master and count like it did us.
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No it won't because the last six months of the watch is orders of magnitude less than every book since Stirland was a thing.

REAPER35 said:
[] Plan For Abelhelm dispite his brat!
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Isn't that basicaly my plan ? Any chance we could consolidate ?
 
Alectai said:
We have the EIC shares by way of our legal fiction as a Knight--and she can't strip us of that title without actually creating the clusterfuck that people think will happen if we seize the nitrate stuff--it's one thing to nationalize a business that's in your capital city, it's another thing entirely to start stripping titles.

The nitrate stuff isn't tied to that legal fiction, so we'd have to set that up.
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Hrmmmm

BoneyM said:
That's a risk you need to judge, I'll not give a QM answer that nullifies all debate on the topic.
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Okay, that's fair, I understand and respect that.

If you don't feel like answering this I understand, but I was wondering if we actually have any legal right to the Gong Farmers and Nitrate Factory? Like, as someone above me pointed out, we paid for that with the Government's money as a governmental organization, so under what reasoning do we think that's a thing we can take with us and not have the government, or even just the people working for us, say not to?

Like, did we file it under our own name or something?

I want to keep this stuff, but the people are saying things that are making me wonder why it's something that we IC think we can even keep in the first place. What's our thought process behind thinking we have a choices between giving it to her and keeping it?

Again, I totally understand if you don't want to give any more information then you already have, I'm just having trouble understanding our IC view and the legal/organization structure of things here.

Feel free to ignore this.
 
[X] Plan: Focus
-[x] Report on the past eight years
--[x] Give
-[x]The Runefang of Stirland
-[x]Abelhelm's repeater rifle
--[x] Keep
-[x] Liber Mortis.
-[x] Miscellaneous contents of Abelhelm's Study
-[x] Information Network
-[x] Gong Farmers and Niter Factory
-[x] Discretionary Funds
-[X] Where will you call home now?
--[X] You're quite comfortable where you are, thank you very much. Wurtbad is your position of power; Spymistress was just one arrow in your quiver.
-[X]Staying in Stirland:
--[X] Managing the Gong farmers and Niter factory to provide funds for our private experimentation.
-[X] Either:
--[X] Return to Altdorf to face the Magister's tests, and determine what to do with your life later.

I don't want to just throw away what we have in Wurtbad or screw up Stirland after all the effort we put in unscrewing it.
 
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