Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
I think that Panoramia is being unfairly maligned for her reaction here, so I'd like to take a second to be completely serious about it.

Panoramia was absolutely correct to reject our research proposal, and when we made a joke she responded in kind.

Panoramia's gardens feed upwards of fifty thousand people. A crop failure means that people die. Lots of people die. Production is sufficient and manpower is not lacking, so the only remaining objective to optimize is risk. Specifically, Panoramia's objective is to minimize risk. Using the dwarf hell tower to weed her gardens is just about the riskiest possible proposal. It might work, sure! But if it does, it doesn't gain them anything - they're already producing enough food. And it might not work, and if it doesn't work, how wrong will it go? The correct answer is to not try it at all.

That's just an obvious (and very poor) excuse. The tower is selective. It could weed a tiny plot or even a single weed.
 
"Mathilde, I've just invented a new spell that lets me selectivity decompose certain things. Should I do it to your library? I'm reasonably certain it will only effect any insects that might damage the books, and probably won't melt your books into piles of inkstained wood-pulp."
 
"Mathilde, I've just invented a new spell that lets me selectivity decompose certain things. Should I do it to your library? I'm reasonably certain it will only effect any insects that might damage the books, and probably won't melt your books into piles of inkstained wood-pulp."

I mean if you could try it out on a single book first and see the reaction and the scale up in sane safety trials, the reasonable answer is yes IMO.
 
"Mathilde, I've just invented a new spell that lets me selectivity decompose certain things. Should I do it to your library? I'm reasonably certain it will only effect any insects that might damage the books, and probably won't melt your books into piles of inkstained wood-pulp."

We didn't just invent burning shadows though, and whilst it became dwarven anti-hellfire adjacent because of the gazul rune that wasn't part of the vote when we did it and two it's still perfectly selective.
 
[X] [ROMANCE] Journeywoman Panoramia
[X] [ROMANCE] Magister Johann
[X] [ROMANCE] Elector Countess Roswita van Hal
[X] [ROMANCE] Baron Anton Kiesinger II

[X] Hubert, as he settles in to his niche with Ulrikadrin.
[X] Belegar, to discuss the northern Karaks and the Expedition.
[X] Elder Hluodwica, High Priestess of Esmerelda and civilian leader of the Eight Peaks Halflings.
[X] Barak Varr, to watch the progress of the canal.

[X] Julia, to see what she has gotten up to as Stirland's most experienced spy master.
[X] Kasmir, to see how he's keeping himself busy in Sylvania.
[X] Eike Hochschild, to get to know your future business partner.
[X] Follow up on your donation of the Skaven organ-vat, and see what has been made of it.
 
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@BoneyM would talking to Kragg and/or Thorek about the Karag Dum and about Karag Dum's Runesmiths, or about the expedition, be viable actions? (Thorek did already advise the Expedition. I want to know more about what he said, and what he knows and advises about travel through the Chaos Wastes.)

Some of our plans and ideas included trying to recruit Azul Runesmiths to come onto the expedition. So talking to a Runelord first, and getting a feel for what they think and what their juniors would feel about, could be very valuable.

In short... Taking the "talk to the Runelord!" social action now, might give us more insight as to whether or not we really really want to hire Azul Runesmiths next turn or not.
 
I think that Panoramia is being unfairly maligned for her reaction here, so I'd like to take a second to be completely serious about it.

Panoramia was absolutely correct to reject our research proposal, and when we made a joke she responded in kind.

Panoramia's gardens feed upwards of fifty thousand people. A crop failure means that people die. Lots of people die. Production is sufficient and manpower is not lacking, so the only remaining objective to optimize is risk. Specifically, Panoramia's objective is to minimize risk. Using the dwarf hell tower to weed her gardens is just about the riskiest possible proposal. It might work, sure! But if it does, it doesn't gain them anything - they're already producing enough food. And it might not work, and if it doesn't work, how wrong will it go? The correct answer is to not try it at all.

As for the part where she says "no" a lot and runs away... We walked up to her and asked her if she thought it was a good idea to use the eternally-burning fires of Dwarven Hell to weed her gardens. Our research proposal was, at that point, a joke, and her rejection took the same form - a joke. I am absolutely certain that everyone laughed when they got to this line of the update. People wouldn't have laughed if she'd just said "no". And that kind of thing isn't limited to our reading. Like all the other times Panoramia has rolled her eyes at us, she was actively indulging in Mathilde's silliness when she turned us down with maximum drama.
There's also the fact that Johann works for us, so we are constantly working with him, while Panoramia is working on her own thing, and thread keeps ignoring anything involving her.
Johann gets signal boosted for being immediately useful for furthering Mathilde's agendas, while Panoramia is not.
Johann also has puppies.
Then we got the sad backstory, the self inflicted injury, and now a super awesome master.

While Panoramia is out there, feeding an entire Karak, out of sight, out of mind.
 
[X] [ROMANCE] Journeywoman Panoramia
[X] Belegar, to discuss the northern Karaks and the Expedition.
[X] Francesco Caravello, proud Viceroy of the Undumgi.
[X] Barak Varr, to watch the progress of the canal.

I'm not fundamentally opposed to Johann, so far I've never felt a spark in their interactions while Mathilde and Panoramia do have a fun dynamic going.
When I want to go "somewhere hell adjacent" your dumb best friend goes with you, your wife asks if you are dumb.

The canal and Caravello are just idle curiousity on my part. Getting a view on the "after action report" from of the Undumgi seems interesting.
 
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[X] [ROMANCE] Baron Anton Kiesinger II
Best Boy

[X] [ROMANCE] Elector Countess Roswita van Hal
best girl.

[X] Kasmir, to see how he's keeping himself busy in Sylvania.
Why not
[X] Eike Hochschild, to get to know your future business partner.
Little kids are fun
[X] Pay a visit to your fief, to see if anything has changed. It probably hasn't.
I feel like we should give this a look every so often
 
@BoneyM would talking to Kragg and/or Thorek about the Karag Dum and about Karag Dum's Runesmiths, or about the expedition, be viable actions? (Thorek did already advise the Expedition. I want to know more about what he said, and what he knows and advises about travel through the Chaos Wastes.)

Some of our plans and ideas included trying to recruit Azul Runesmiths to come onto the expedition. So talking to a Runelord first, and getting a feel for what they think and what their juniors would feel about, could be very valuable.

In short... Taking the "talk to the Runelord!" social action now, might give us more insight as to whether or not we really really want to hire Azul Runesmiths next turn or not.

Look at how long it took to get a straight answer about the Prince Ulthar situation, and you only got that because you knew him and he was disgusted enough with the situation to spill it. Dwarves react to internal conflict by pretending it doesn't exist. That counts for double when it comes to Guild or Clan or Cult matters, and this is all three.
 
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[X] [ROMANCE] Journeywoman Panoramia
[X] [ROMANCE] The Ice Dragon of Karag Zilfin

Dragon, obviously, plus Panoramia.

[X] Elder Hluodwica, High Priestess of Esmerelda and civilian leader of the Eight Peaks Halflings.

We should probably talk to her, yes.

[X] The Amber College, to check in on the salamanders.
[X] Follow up on your donation of the Skaven organ-vat, and see what has been made of it.

We need to cash in some favor, plus these are cool.

Save checking in on the Golds for a bit later, when they'll have gotten further in.
She has one big job or thing she does in her life. A passion or interest that she works toward and takes responsibility for. And that's "farm for a Karak." That's just not interesting to me.
Straight up false, and I'm getting annoyed that people keep propagating this incorrect claim:
Oh! And speaking of, that's another thing to take on once I'm done with the soil. Never even heard of a circular Waystone cluster anything like this big before, there's a paper or two in that."
Panoramia is working on farming because it's the single biggest magical thing-that-needs-doing in the entire Karak other than murdering Skaven and Orcs. Not because she only cares about farming. "A paper or two in that" my ass.
What? Why in the world would she have any reason to do so?
When there was fighting to be done, Panoramia was the only journeymanling that was fighting so hard that we had to tell her to back off. She's not fighting right now because there's no fighting to be done. You know how she gets all that work done in the growing season and then can't do anything when things aren't growing? Her focus works the same way: When she's focusing on something it's the only thing in the world for her. As soon as she moves on to something else she's going to focus on that just as hard as she focuses right now on her farming. She's guaranteed to end up fighting again, if only to defend her friends the Halflings against the next Waaagh, and as someone who understands preparation and maintenance and timelines, she's going to be ready for it.

Also, remember how we talked with her about miscasts? She might have suffered one or two by now - we'd probably have to ask her - but she probably still hasn't gotten one bad enough to make her worry about magic. She's no more afraid of Battle Magic than she was of spamming Father of Thorns in the middle of the night. She's sufficiently skilled, powerful, and responsible enough that I think she's guaranteed to be offered the opportunity to learn Battle Magic, and I think that she's guaranteed to take it. And you know what? Even if she miscasts horrendously on her first attempt, I don't think that she'd swear Battle Magic off entirely the way Regimand did. Look at how she reacted to our lecture about miscasts: She could have gone home and never gotten in another fight. Look at how she reacted to K8P's Waystones: She just casually grabs power out of them. Look at how she reacted to the chance to rebuild the Karak's ecology: She could have gone home and qualified as a Magister, but she stuck around and took over the whole project. She's going to look at Battle Magic the same way.
There's also the fact that Johann works for us, so we are constantly working with him, while Panoramia is working on her own thing, and thread keeps ignoring anything involving her.
Johann gets signal boosted for being immediately useful for furthering Mathilde's agendas, while Panoramia is not.
Johann also has puppies.
Then we got the sad backstory, the self inflicted injury, and now a super awesome master.

While Panoramia is out there, feeding an entire Karak, out of sight, out of mind.
Yes, this too. Johann is the physical incarnation of hurt-comfort, while Panoramia is being a protagonist whose specialty is arcane enough that it doesn't show up on Mathilde's radar.
 
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Look at how long it took to get a straight answer about the Prince Ulthar situation, and you only got that because you knew him and he was disgusted enough with the situation to spill it. Dwarves react to internal conflict by pretending it doesn't exist. That counts for double when it comes to Guild or Clan matters, and this is both.

Wouldn't it technically be guild, clan and cult matters as Runesmiths are also priests of Thungi? I imagine this is the kind of stuff that they avoid thinking about even in the privacy of their own heads.
 
I was speaking of the Ottoman Empire's harem, which was indeed filled with slaves, captured Christians mostly taken from the Caucasus because it was unlawful to enslave freeborn Muslims. As for it holding daughters and sons, that was not a good thing. Many Sultans left the harem already deeply disturbed as their mothers went to extreme lengths to keep them safe from their brothers. Fratricide was sadely common in the Sublime Porte. That is the image the word 'Harem' conjures to me having been exposed to Ottoman before anime.
Except that the image of Ottoman harems being universally cutthroat dens of intrigue serviced by Christian slaves is a massive overexageration within the Ottoman empire alone*, and letting that historical caricature tar something practiced across the middle east and Mediterranean is almost willfully ignorant***.

*Harems weren't for sultan's alone, it was a space within any household large enough to support it. That follows the full range of wealth and privilege. Sure some sultan's harems could be trauma central, but that was likely a result of the already traumatic politics surrounding the throne than any result of a literal safe space for women. In the vast majority of Muslim households they were courtyards or family rooms where women didn't have to wear a full hijab. Sure there's the unfortunate matter that they had to do so outside of the harem, thus why it's rarely practiced anymore, but "sanctuary for women in a culture that oppresses them" is miles different from "weird sex cabal where objectified and enslaved** women plot and scheme against each other for male attention and favor."***

** And yeah, sure you can point to the fact that a few Ottoman sultans bought sex slaves and put them in their harem, but claiming that proves the entire practice across the entire Muslim world of having a harem involved slavery, even in times and nations where slavery was illegal, would be like pointing to the fact that a few US Presidents owned slaves and claiming it means all English speaking households past and present with a kitchen own slaves.

***A big reason, possibly the reason this myth of what a harem is has been repeated for nigh on three centuries is because it serves an orientalist anti-islam narrative very well. It was born of a false, somewhat racist assumption, and was continued for so long because clearly it's justification for why "we can't allow Islam to spread to our fair shores were we totally treat women right". I'm not accusing you of anything, it's fine to think or even repeat it if you don't know any better, but repeating a blatantly false islamaphobic scare story when you should know better makes you look pretty islamophobic
 
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This is really not the place for debating the historicity of different depictions of harems. Whatever they were like, it's not the right term for any relationship Mathilde's going to end up in. And @Tealg I really don't like that you're leaping to those accusations over it.
 
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Look at how long it took to get a straight answer about the Prince Ulthar situation, and you only got that because you knew him and he was disgusted enough with the situation to spill it. Dwarves react to internal conflict by pretending it doesn't exist. That counts for double when it comes to Guild or Clan matters, and this is both.
Damn. So we're not getting anything on the Runesmith history thing... I was hoping that Kragg being above it, might mean he wouldn't give a damn about the history and so would be willing to share. And that Thorek being outside it, would mean he wouldn't hold the same opinions about it; that, combined with his having traveled around the Karaz Ankor and so thus probably gotten to talk to a lot of Runesmiths, might mean that he would have become more knowledgeable about it (while still not having had the centuries and millennia of cultural momentum of the rest of the Karaz Ankor Runesmiths) while still willing to share it.

Argh. They're Runelords. Surely they'd have something useful to share about the furtherest north Karak or the Chaos Wastes, or even just about how willing Runesmiths would be to help out on an expedition...

But it's a no-go, then?

And none of the other topics -- Expedition advisory, Chaos Wastes travel, etc -- are really interesting enough or inspiring or deep enough, to really serve as a good topic, huh. Darn.

...

Actually, wait, what did Thorek end up doing with the Vitae we gave him? Is that a viable Social Topic to approach?

We looked into the Wizard College end of the exchange. What about the Dwarf Runesmith side?

Could we ask Thorek about what the Runesmiths have gotten up to with the Aethyric Vitae we've given them. If it's been used yet, what it was used for, how it's held up. About what the Runesmiths think of it. Or, heh, ask how long they've been arguing over it and debating over it, before even beginning to maybe agree to think about using it.

... Of course, I suppose it's possible that Thorek was the only Runesmith to have been willing to actually use the Vitae. Due to working with us on it, and us having fought for Karak Eight Peaks together. Other Runesmiths wouldn't know of Mathilde much.
 
Could we ask Thorek about what the Runesmiths have gotten up to with the Aethyric Vitae we've given them. If it's been used yet, what it was used for, how it's held up. About what the Runesmiths think of it. Or, heh, ask how long they've been arguing over it and debating over it, before even beginning to maybe agree to think about using it.

... Of course, I suppose it's possible that Thorek was the only Runesmith to have been willing to actually use the Vitae. Due to working with us on it, and us having fought for Karak Eight Peaks together. Other Runesmiths wouldn't know of Mathilde much.

It's for recharging Runes. If it's been used yet, it would be for that. There's not a lot to that story. "Yes, it did the thing. People were chuffed that the thing was done."
 
[X] Belegar, to discuss the northern Karaks and the Expedition.
[X] Eike Hochschild, to get to know your future business partner.
[X] Barak Varr, to watch the progress of the canal.
[X] [ROMANCE] Magister Johann
 
Except that the image of Ottoman harems being universally cutthroat dens of intrigue serviced by Christian slaves is a massive overexageration within the Ottoman empire alone*, and letting that historical caricature tar something practiced across the middle east and Mediterranean is almost willfully ignorant**.

*Harems weren't for sultan's alone, it was a space within any household large enough to support it. That follows the full range of wealth and privilege. Sure some sultan's harems could be trauma central, but the in the vast majority of Muslim households they were courtyards or family rooms where women didn't have to wear a full hijab. Sure there's the unfortunate matter that they had to do so outside of the harem, thus why it's rarely practiced anymore, but "sanctuary for women in a culture that oppresses them" is miles different from "weird sex cabal where objectified and enslaved women plot and scheme against each other for male attention and favor."**

**A big reason, possibly the reason this myth of what a harem is has been repeated for nigh on three centuries is because it serves an orientalist anti-islam narrative very well. It was born of a false, somewhat racist assumption, and was continued for so long because clearly it's justification for why "we can't allow Islam to spread to our fair shores were we totally treat women right". I'm not accusing you of anything, it's fine to think or even repeat it if you don't know any better, but repeating a blatantly false islamaphobic scare story when you should know better makes you look pretty islamophobic

Look you can try to nuance the sex slavery all you want, the fact of the matter is it did happen and was historically accounted for. We have documents of sale for slaves that went into the Sultan's Harem, just like we have accounts of fratricide and sultans who were unstable as a result of their internment in the Harem. I'm not saying western travelers treated the matter with an even hand or that islamaphobia was not involved (many of those accounts are clearly meant to titillate), but one should be critical of the enslavement of women in the medieval Islamic world just as one should be critical of how the West was treating women at the time.

Now I think we should stop this discussion before it derails the thread. If you want to continue it in PMs I'll be happy to have it
 
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[X] [ROMANCE] Baron Anton Kiesinger II
[X] [ROMANCE] The Ice Dragon of Karag Zilfin
[X] Belegar, to discuss the northern Karaks and the Expedition.
[X] Kasmir, to see how he's keeping himself busy in Sylvania.
[X] Julia, to see what she has gotten up to as Stirland's most experienced spy master.
[X] Eike Hochschild, to get to know your future business partner.
[X] Pay a visit to your fief, to see if anything has changed. It probably hasn't.
 
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