[X] [KAU] In the Silver Tower, an ancient structure on the southwestern face of Karagril
I know I keep hammering this point, but it's because I don't think I've ever seen somebody voting for Kvinn-Wyr actually respond to this: Karak Eight Peaks is at very real risk of having its outer defenses breached, even with everything the Okral did for us on that front. The total dwarven population of K8P is more like what would be considered sufficient to defend one Karag, and the human population doesn't fill that out all that much (and even if that grows I'm skeptical the dwarves would be okay with ceding more than one mountain to them from a cultural standpoint, anyway). K8P has, as the name suggests, eight of them. If a sizable enemy force makes it inside, it is extremely plausible that the defenders could be forced into a position where they would need to consolidate their defenses around the locations that must be kept.
Seriously, I think the thread overestimates how secure K8P as a whole is due to how decisively the very strong Waaagh Birdmuncha was defeated. But the only reason that was possible was because they didn't know about the Eye of Gazul, and they put more than half their force in position to be wiped out with a single firing of it. That's not going to happen again, because the Eye of Gazul's cover has been well and truly blown. If we had had to defend K8P conventionally against that Waaagh, it would have been very likely that all the new peaks we just reclaimed would have filled back up with greenskins and we would have more-or-less returned to the status quo ante of having a few inhabited mountains resisting a siege. The Okral helped make K8P as a whole much more defensible than it was before, but that's a very relative statement. Overall, K8P is still in an alarmingly precarious strategic position vis-a-vis being able to hold onto every Karag against a serious large-scale attack. Being able to hold their "core" Karags that hold the bulk of their defenders/settlers even against such an attack is much more likely, though.
So. If in the future it comes to that, which do you think a responsible King of K8P will prioritize consolidating their defenses around: the citizens of K8P, or the books of a big library? If there's time to evacuate the contents of the library I'm sure they would, but depending on how severely/quickly things are going south that may or may not be entirely feasible. If we want to guarantee the library will be defended to the last even in the case of a breach of K8P, we really really should put it somewhere that's already filled with defenders/inhabitants. Like, say, atop Karagril in the very cool Silver Tower, just saying. As I've said before, if our goal is to build an archive that will stand the test of millennia, it behooves us to put it somewhere that we know will be at the top of the priority list for defending. Incidentally, AFAICT from eyeballing it on the map, the Silver Tower is in position to be covered against overland attack by the Eye of Gazul. So there's that as a security factor as well.
I think the thread is also overestimating how quickly the other mountains are going to develop populations of their own. Again, K8P doesn't have the population to actually fill Karag Lhune by itself, and dwarven population growth is nearly an oxymoron in this Age. If they move people into additional mountains, it will be a case of knowingly spreading themselves thin so that they can say they're technically reinhabiting the homes of their ancestors (because dwarves). That shouldn't be expected to hold up against a major invasion; those thinly-populated Karags would be evacuated to the "core" Karags.
Incidentally (and maybe somebody can check the relevant portions of the quest to confirm), AFAICT from just checking the map of K8P Kvinn-Wyr is close to the East Valley but doesn't actually border it. So holding it wouldn't be necessary for keeping the farmland there secured against casual raids.
[X] Plan Efficiency, EIC, and Swords
-[X] MAX: Recruit him into the research branch of WEB-MAT
-[X] JOHANN: Recruit him into the research branch of WEB-MAT
-[X] DUCK: Continue to work with Panoramia with implementing the Waaaghsoak Mushrooms as an aid to spellcasting.
-[X] EIC: Insert agents into a particular province, cult, company, or institution to start gathering their secrets. (Cult of Karnos, Talabecland)
-[X] Suggest Eike spend a few weeks in Karak Eight Peaks, so she can grow familiar with Dwarves and their ways.
-[X] Branulhune's ability to disappear and reappear at a thought allows entirely new forms of combat. Continue to work on them.
-[X] Investigate the possibility of using one Wind to directly manipulate another.
-[X] Attempt to recruit Egrimm van Horstmann into WEB-MAT
--[X] COIN: Gambler
-[X] SERENITY: Write a paper: Daemonic Concealment of Karak Vlag
-[X] PENTHOUSE: Build a basic tower of single-Wind environments for each of the 'missing' Winds: Light, Amber, Amethyst, and Gold
[X] Plan Efficiency, EIC, and Divine Vitae
-[X] MAX: Recruit him into the research branch of WEB-MAT
-[X] JOHANN: Recruit him into the research branch of WEB-MAT
-[X] DUCK: Continue to work with Panoramia with implementing the Waaaghsoak Mushrooms as an aid to spellcasting.
-[X] EIC: Insert agents into a particular province, cult, company, or institution to start gathering their secrets. (Cult of Karnos, Talabecland)
-[X] Suggest Eike spend a few weeks in Karak Eight Peaks, so she can grow familiar with Dwarves and their ways.
-[X] Investigate how the Vitae reacts with Divine Magic.
-[X] Investigate the possibility of using one Wind to directly manipulate another.
-[X] Attempt to recruit Egrimm van Horstmann into WEB-MAT
--[X] COIN: Gambler
-[X] SERENITY: Write a paper: Daemonic Concealment of Karak Vlag
-[X] PENTHOUSE: Build a basic tower of single-Wind environments for each of the 'missing' Winds: Light, Amber, Amethyst, and Gold
I like these plans a lot. I'm going to skim some of the others to see if there's something I want to approval vote, but these are by far the best collection of stuff I actually care about.
Approval voting so far:
[X] Plan Papers, papers, and fiddly tongy things
[X] Plan Papers, papers, and Eike bonding time
[X] Plan Papers, papers, and EIC stuff
[X] Plan Papers, papers, and our non-suspicious friend
[X] Plan Slacking with Shrooms
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