Last time the Iron Orcs came up Boney said that it's a Mathilde solo action. It won't make sense to bring Kazador's dwarves or Eike along.
Regarding the Eonir, Kazador is a personal friend and the dwarves are pretty fond of Mathilde, we don't have that kind of connection with the Eonir. Besides, Eonir scouts are probably mostly Forestborn, and Mathilde has spent most of her time in Laurelorn inside Tor Lithanel. I suppose we could take the 'Explore a Ward' action for the Ward of Storm, their leader seems very pro-contact and they're apparently heavily militarized, that'll finish our Eonir, Advanced diplomacy skill and if we make a good impression maybe we could use that connection for some joint scouting. Hard to see when we'll be able to shake off the AP for that, though.
and the forest of laurelorn is a magical tangle of tripwire, outposts, barbed wire, scouts and what not. their own forest is under their control. it was mostly the edges where humans and beastmen ranged and those are pretty under control now too i think.
And Eike is utterly convinced that trade is good and vital for the health of the Empire, and presumably has the knowledge, education and conviction to argue her beliefs. I think it wouldn't be a bad thing for her to touch base with the Bursar, update each other's expectations yanno? (Not like the Grey College doesn't already know that about her, but a conversation after an applicable real life experience might still be useful).
im thinking morrslieb wins that fight... handily... that moon is too evil to die easily and when it dies it will rain onto the earth and kill it anyway...
Eike isn't backup though, she's apprentice. She can basically be attached to Mathilde wherever. Now sure, she's less sneaky, but...
The order does not actually care about being self serving, it pretends to, mostly to outsiders, but what really matters is that none of its magisters use their powers to screw over other imperial citizens. The only people who would be screwed over by any kind of Lothern deal would be Marianburgers, otherwise known as 'The Bursar might give her e medal for meritorious service'.
it does care about its magisters learning early on not to do the "bad money thing" and so stern words might still be had because its a bad example. it doesnt matter who gets hurt more that it was done for personal profit.The order does not actually care about being self serving, it pretends to, mostly to outsiders, but what really matters is that none of its magisters use their powers to screw over other imperial citizens. The only people who would be screwed over by any kind of Lothern deal would be Marianburgers, otherwise known as 'The Bursar might give her e medal for meritorious service'.
Oh, she should definitely join the Damsel recruitment for the negotations. Xeon-affinity isn't just about non-humans, it's about foreign cultures, and Bretonnia is very much that.
The charcoal trade, the ingots trade the RoW road will allow, and the ore trade (if we manage to make it happen) will all make crafting at scale much easier. That, along with the realization that the Empire isn't actually trading with Ulthuan for elven items but Middenland would very much like to buy some, might be enough to pull House Miriel to our side. The only thing I can see that might still keep them in the isolationist block is the fear that even a small amount of Ulthuan-made items making it to Tor Lithanel will be enough to hurt their prestige, but really the way to solve that is to make them realize that being anti-Marienburg is fully compatible with being pro-Empire.
Just for clarity, @Boney did you ever weigh in on this topic? Kattarin's descendants (Kalashinivik) had a royal bloodline of 'northern snow and southern sand' which might be an allusion to being descended from an Ice Witch, but northern snow could just be a poetic term for Kislev in general, rather than an association with ice magic. Quick search of the wiki's doesn't give any greater insight.
Apologies if this is a burdening world-building question, in which case please feel free to ignore:
Also being the new trade hub for ulthuan would definitely make the crafting houses mad. That would just directly undermine their position.
While I want to agree with this, Scouting has been at 2/3 for a long time. (I want to say since we finished the K8P expedition, but I can't seen to find where it reached 2/3 progress.) It would take an adventure action that consisted of lots and lots of scouting for the skill to tick up, I believe, and not just an adventure where Mathilde does a little scouting incidentally.
One day, there will be a Council of Kings where the Queens will outnumber the Kings.
Hence why she needs the practice on explaining herself early.
That's basically it, but it serves a lot more purposes than that too.
The Vow is a very flexible mechanism for the Grey Order to keep a watch on their wizards not doing things they're not supposed to and ensure loyalty toward the general good Empire over their wallets, which is a very real concern given how incredibly easy Ulgu can make it to fool people.
Iron Orcs is probably all scouting. It's about going around in hostile territory and trying to spot enemies in the distance without being spotted. That's pretty much the definition of scouting, isn't it? The Forest of Shadows may involve scouting or it may not, I'm still not sure how it's going to go down exactly, but really I think the Iron Orcs will probably be enough to give the skillpoint on their own.
Yeah, I agree. The only problem I have with bringing Eike is that she isn't as fast, or as sneaky as we can be. So if it comes to a confrontation we would have to protect her from black Orks and that's a dicey proposition...
