Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

We still have some (almost certainly embezzled) liquid capital from before we left for K8P, right? we could use that for college services without worry.

I'd love to spend a while picking up useful knowledge, but each tutoring session seems to take an AP, and most subjects also seem to need multiple successful sessions, so it'd be quite an action sink.

EDIT: Isn't it traditional/wise to construct your own staff, because color magic cares a lot about symbolic and sympathetic qualities, and a staff you make with your own hand and power will always be more in tune than one build for you by others?

(just checking the tally, as well)

Thor's Twin said:

Also, this is totally why insider trading is illegal in America. The massive amount of wealth that can be generated from having insider knowledge about what will happen before anyone else is just ridiculous. And it gives an almost insurmountable advantage to the holder of the information.

The EIC just made a tremendous profit off of the Countess, and will then make a profit off of the profit by trading the silver to the Stirland Mint. If EIC was an economic Kraken before, it will become an ouroboros with the upcoming deals.

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I think it isn't actually insider trading. It's more economic reconnaissance, and perfectly legal. We are not using the information against shareholders, we are using it for.

Reliable_2IC said:

You have two "routes", for lack of a better classification. The first is the Grey College, in which a staff is designed to aid the usage of magic. The second is having the dwarves construct a staff, which will be inert to the winds but have a number of features of the dwarves choosing.

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Hmm, well I'd personally like the magic assisting staff. We should have a reasonable killing weapon no matter what vote on favor wins, should we should have something to assist in our casting abilities. Plus we get to up the Gandalf Comparisons!

[X] Marry them...
- [X] Reinhild Gerber
[X] Court Wizard
[X] 'Head Ranger' (Spymaster), Internal Focus

[X] Court Wizard
[X] 'Head Ranger' (Spymaster), Internal Focus

Kornet said:

I think it isn't actually insider trading. It's more economic reconnaissance, and perfectly legal. We are not using the information against shareholders, we are using it for.

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It's pretty close though. Information is being used that is not available to the public in order to profit. A lot of business is done with information that the public doesn't know about but the scale of this is pretty immense.

Harried said:

EDIT: Isn't it traditional/wise to construct your own staff, because color magic cares a lot about symbolic and sympathetic qualities, and a staff you make with your own hand and power will always be more in tune than one build for you by others?

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In theory yes, but as Mathilde has become very familiar with, in practice there's not enough hours in the day and better an alright staff now than a perfect staff whenever you manage to find the time to learn woodcarving.

Incidentally guys, if you want to check the tally you don't need to post a whole new tally. Just go to the last tally, click the "i" in the top right corner, than erase the "end point" on the right so its blank and says "To end of thread", then hit the Tally button.

Also can you imagine how salty the Countess is going to be when all those rich soldiers get back to buy farms just as she finishes selling them to the EIC.

[X] Stay single. Marry for love.
[X] 'Head Ranger' (Spymaster), External Focus

BoneyM said:

As you wheel your weight in silver through the streets, you're entertained to see the same set of events play out on a dozen different faces: eyes alighting on an enormous stack of silver and widening in greed, then those same eyes spotting that a Grey Wizard was in possession of that silver, and that person freezes on the spot as self-preservation and greed go to war.

Self-preservation always wins. Those with more greed than sense have long since been weeded out of the neighbourhood.

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Grey wizards are so mean. Teasing those poor people like that.

BoneyM said:

And Wilhelmine von Bucht, who shattered the House of Goellner when they thought their trade empire had made them too powerful to tax, who dismantled every Smuggler Guild from Middenheim to Fortenhaf, who concealed the Imperial Regalia and forced the just-deposed Dieter IV to retreat to Talabheim without performing one final theft. Who in the twilight years of a successful career settled down to serve her College as Bursar. Who is now sitting across from you and offering you a nice cup of tea.

Lord Magister Wilhelmine looks anywhere from thirty to fifty, her hair the pure grey of Ulgu rather than the interspersed whites of age, and it rather unnervingly wriggles from time to time as it tries to escape from the bun it's been forced into. Her frame is thin but not quite gaunt, and she has the air of a friendly aunt, seeming nothing like the figure of legend that inspires even the most arrogant of nobles to meet their tax obligations. As you sip on the tea - mild, with a hint of mint - she turns the bar of silver over in her hands, running her fingertips over the imprint attesting to its origin, weight and purity. She also has in front of her the paperwork you filled out to go with it, and though she only appears to have glanced at it you're sure she knows every detail you entered.

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Ooh, me likey. I love the description of a Grey Wizard who's live long enough to settle down, and is now enjoying the relatively sedate challenge of making sure that the members of the College keep close enough to their Vow of Poverty that nobody has to do anything drastic. Mathilde is probably in the "Idealist, clever, make sure she understands, but is reasonable" group. Also, I would be massively unsurprised if she doesn't have a technique to read a stack of paperwork at a glance.

BoneyM said:

"Lovely. I'll be watching your affairs with great interest. Oh, and if you could do me a small favour?"

"Yes, Lord Magister?"

"Do tell Magister Johann to stop playing silly buggers. He can poke at the ratties if he really must, but it's unseemly to play pretend with our allies."

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Heh. Subtle warning and approval all in one. And then the "good girl, here's a bonus". Mathilde will have fun implying she knew this whole time, but now has to dispense with the pretend in order to pass along the message. Because the Greys know everything, or at least are very good at making you believe they do.

BoneyM said:

You frown at the map in thought, trying to decide how much you disapprove of Wilhelmina's string-pulling. It could be argued it was in his best interest - after all, 16% of the EIC's profits were Anton's profits. "Or," he says nervously, "I could just marry you." You almost laugh off his words, but Anton doesn't generally joke about such topics, and your surprised stare spurs him to continue. "It's like with Wilhelmina and trade. There are things I," he waves his hands vaguely in the air. "I don't understand, and I know I don't understand them, and I'd much rather just let someone who I trust that does know what they're doing take over. Probably whoever I end up marrying is going to be able to get me to do just about anything they want to, so I might as well marry someone that can already do that and hasn't done anything bad with it, right?"

There may have been moments where you imagined what it would be like to be proposed to, and none of them were anything at all like this, but nevertheless you're at least a little touched. Anton faced a future where his life was probably going to fall completely under the sway of a woman, and in his straightforward way he had decided that you were the most trustworthy woman for the job. You let him know that you'll think about it, and he hastily says that that's perfectly okay, and even if you say no that it would be okay, and he shouldn't have even said anything, and you just smile and hug him until he calms down again.

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Aw, that's adorable. That's an amazing complement, and is actually quite accurate. Mathilde could get Anton to do just about anything, but hasn't, so yeah, she's trustworthy. In that sense.

Stirland: Well, that's a thing. I mean, there's worse ways to misrule Stirland than to basically give the economy to your father's old Stewardship Advisor, while going and stomping on undead... But eventually she's going to run into a dry treasury, and realize that she dun goofed when she chased off Abelhelm's council. (The best part, at least.) It will be an interesting day when that happens.

Nice job by Wilhelmina in setting up the EIC to take advantage of Anton's ridiculous luck/ability... I am kinda inclined to go her route with Anton, just because she's also not going to take too much advantage... and it would also likely get her to put some effort into improving Blutdorf, which would be nice.

I'm kinda inclined away from having Mathilde marry Anton, mostly because of the Barony - it feels to me like it would tie her down too much. Not sure though.

Thoughts on Council position later.

Sinsystems said:

Also can you imagine how salty the Countess is going to be when all those rich soldiers get back to buy farms just as she finishes selling them to the EIC.

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Extremely, and I, for one, am going to revel in it. and fear for Stirland. but mostly revel.

Edit: also, some weird and cruel part of me now is shipping the countess with Mathilde. Reformation story Ahoy! (not seriously, though. too many problems there to count)

Kornet said:

I think it isn't actually insider trading. It's more economic reconnaissance, and perfectly legal. We are not using the information against shareholders, we are using it for.

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Insider trading doesn't necessarily have anything to do with being for or against shareholders. It has to do with using knowledge that only a limited amount of people are privy to in order to prevent a loss or to make money.

If, for example, you have special knowledge that a company wants to purchase a certain plot of land to build something on, and you use that special knowledge to buy the land before the company only to sell it at a higher cost to the company, that would be a rudimentary form of insider trading. Or depending on how you got the information a breach of the duty of loyalty/care.

However, modernly the primary concern is not insider trading for property or land or goods, but rather insider trading in securities. Stocks and such. Which is what the security laws actually forbid because of how bad it can get.

So, to get ever-increasingly specific, what Mathilde did here would likely not be modernly illegal. It would likely be illegal if what the EIC was purchasing was stocks instead of land, however.

[X] Marry them...
- [X] Reinhild Gerber
[X] Court Wizard
[X] 'Head Ranger' (Spymaster), External Focus

So wait, does that mean that whatever economic good the EIC does for Stirland doesn't make up for the lack of taxation and other such things Roswita has done? For Stirland that is, economically. As I understand it the EIC is at least partially invested in Stirland as a whole.

Thor's Twin said:

I would love to drop money on the College to learn as much as we can. The tricky thing is, however, we have to make sure not to spend too much money because a chunk of it shouldn't leave the Karak Anzor because that's the loop hole we choose.

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We can only spend a quarter outside the Karaz Ankor, but a quarter of 14000 still leaves us with 3500 to drop on lessons if we really wanted to.

Alliterate said:

No grudges? Good job we're not picking up any Dwarfy traits, then.

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Drakenhof felt like a grudge to me.

[X] Marry them...
- [X] Wilhelmina.

[X] Court Wizard

EVA-Saiyajin said:

So wait, does that mean that whatever economic good the EIC does for Stirland doesn't make up for the lack of taxation and other such things Roswita has done? For Stirland that is, economically. As I understand it the EIC is at least partially invested in Stirland as a whole.

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Well, I mean Stirland no longer has an interest in the EIC, which means that any profit the EIC makes doesn't go to Stirland anymore. Except through the already predetermined paying of the debt that the EIC owes to Stirland. But that debt was already obligated to be payed no matter how wealthy the EIC got.

[X] Court Wizard
Has a nice mix of everything it think.

[X] Marry me...
- [X] Soon

I am reminded how much I like Anton.

EVA-Saiyajin said:

So wait, does that mean that whatever economic good the EIC does for Stirland doesn't make up for the lack of taxation and other such things Roswita has done? For Stirland that is, economically. As I understand it the EIC is at least partially invested in Stirland as a whole.

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The Elector Count's teasury ≠ Stirland's economy. The economy is probably booming; the issue is that Roswita doesn't have a way to extract wealth from the boom.

Man I haven't seen a thread get so many mod posts. It feels like the thread might get locked for a week or something so people stop breaking the rules.

You're all going on about how Stirland's coffers are doomed... But remember, she just found a new gold mine in Sylvania!
Sure her decisions are terrible, but she has a safety net.

Thor's Twin said:

Insider trading doesn't necessarily have anything to do with being for or against shareholders. It has to do with using knowledge that only a limited amount of people are privy to in order to prevent a loss or to make money.

If, for example, you have special knowledge that a company wants to purchase a certain plot of land to build something on, and you use that special knowledge to buy the land before the company only to sell it at a higher cost to the company, that would be a rudimentary form of insider trading. Or depending on how you got the information a breach of the duty of loyalty/care.

However, modernly the primary concern is not insider trading for property or land or goods, but rather insider trading in securities. Stocks and such. Which is what the security laws actually forbid because of how bad it can get.

So, to get ever-increasingly specific, what Mathilde did here would likely not be modernly illegal. It would likely be illegal if what the EIC was purchasing was stocks instead of land, however.

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I believe insider trader is very specifically about using info about the company you are privy to because of your position inside it for self-enrichment. So, Mathilde the EIC shareholder is not doing it - she is using information about things outside of the company. But Mathilde the Head Zhufokri of Karak Eight Peaks Expedition probably is doing insider trading.