- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
That is exactly what I want. Well that and for us to roll well.
Also, has Egrimm been to the tower of Serenity?
That is exactly what I want. Well that and for us to roll well.
This, this, this! Mixing friendship and actual surveillance, on someone who's already heavily traumatized and afraid, is the last thing we should be doing. I would like it if Eike and Sofia became friends naturally, if such a thing is possible, but in that case I'd want to make it EXTREMELY CLEAR to all involved parties that keeping an eye on Sofia is a job forForcing a friendship between Sofia and Eike seems like a terrible idea to me. Sofia will be always aware that Eike is part of the secret wizard police, but might also be too afraid to tell her off. Which would lead to even more pressure and stress than she is already feeling, because she has to pretend that everything is fine, while knowing that her 'friend' is actually there to surveil her.
"Have" appears twice in his second sentence when I think it should only be there once. Either as "I'd have rather lost" or as "I'd rather have lost.""This is what victory looks like, apparently," he yells as he leads you towards a quieter corner of the work area. "I'd have rather have lost my bloody palace.
This is an incredibly funny scenario to me. Because it means that somebody learned the spell because they got assigned to (or volunteered tbf) and then immediately the perfect opportunity to use it just fell into their lap, and there is a zero percent chance that any Grey Wizard would react that by just going "oh, funny coincidence that probably means nothing" without a hint of suspicion. So I'm just seeing them going back to whoever tasked them with that and it going like:Someone has to learn the spell to confirm that it's a learnable spell. It just so happened that this time the person that volunteered or was assigned the spell just so happened to have an immediate need for it.
I'm not reading all the pages of discussion so apologies if this has been brought up, but I can't help but note that Keep the Wagons Rolling has been revealed as one of Eike's traits, so now I'm wondering if the other Capitalized phrases here will be appearing on her character sheet as well. Keep Us/Them Honest certainly seems plausible, as does Don't Skin the Sheep. I'd check what we've learned about her already to cross-reference but I can't seem to actually find Eike's charsheet-in-progress anywhere, possibly because it's past 1:20 AM thanks to me underestimating how much catching up I had to do but my trusty pal hyperfocus feeling strongly that I should finish anyway.She nods firmly. "When oma retires. Going to Keep The Wagons Rolling and help everyone by getting the things where they need to be." You can practically hear the capital letters in her voice as she parrots a phrase she probably heard from Wilhelmina.
You smile. "That's one way to describe what we do."
"Oma says that you're here to Keep Us Honest and it's a good thing that I'd be in charge because if my father was you'd have to shoot him." She eyes the revolvers on your hip curiously. "Would you?"
"If I had to," you admit. "Getting everything where it needs to be is important. Some people think they can make money by interfering with that."
"They try to Skin The Sheep," she says, nodding. "Oma says not to, and that when my Dooming said to 'beware the cloven hoof' it wasn't talking about sheep, and it's a metaphor anyway."
"She's probably right." You consider all the other possible cloven-hoofed dangers, and decide to move the conversation along. "So if you've had your Dooming, have you had your Quickening too?"
She makes a face. "The Priestess explained a whole bunch of things she said I'll be interested in one day."
You nod. The Dooming and the Quickening are supposed to happen at about the same time, but in small villages they happen whenever the right Priests come by, so you'd ended up never having yours. "And what did you do after?" you ask casually.
"Fed the doves. I had to go to the park to do it because oma said if I fed them here they'd hang around and poop on her chair."
You nod. She's a Shallyan, then. You can work with that.
We now know all of Eike's traits, so it won't. The only things still hidden in Eike's charsheet are a single diplomacy skill and a single intrigue skill.I'm not reading all the pages of discussion so apologies if this has been brought up, but I can't help but note that Keep the Wagons Rolling has been revealed as one of Eike's traits, so now I'm wondering if the other Capitalized phrases here will be appearing on her character sheet as well. Keep Us/Them Honest certainly seems plausible, as does Don't Skin the Sheep. I'd check what we've learned about her already to cross-reference but I can't seem to actually find Eike's charsheet-in-progress anywhere, possibly because it's past 1:20 AM thanks to me underestimating how much catching up I had to do but my trusty pal hyperfocus feeling strongly that I should finish anyway.
Core Corporate Policies:
Don't Skin The Sheep: The EIC will always choose indefinite small profits over single windfalls.
Eike has 3 +1 diplomacy boni, of which only two are visible (Eonir of Laurelorn, Empire of Man). Her final diplomacy skill must be completed to give +1 diplomacy.I reckon that the Diplo trait is something like "Karaz Ankor 1/3" or something. I don't think we've seen her interact with a dwarf since she became our apprentice, and even if the few weeks she spent in K8P as a child weren't enough to begin building the skill, shed probably pick up something from osmosis via the EIC (dwarves are a major trade partner) and the College library.
Was it discomfort? I'd have to reread the chapter and the thread discussion leading up to the vote.We left the Empire after becoming a Magister because we were uncomfortable sticking around there. Wasn't about the Colleges, was about the Empire as a whole after the trauma of losing our boss and then our job, but we were definitely uncomfortable at the prospect of staying in Altdorf.
"Remain silent at the start and see how she reacts" would be a write-in I wouldn't vote for but also not hate. But a vote like this would be interpreted by me to mean that Mathilde should just remain silent throughout. Which seems terrible.
please have mercy on Sofia's soulAre either of you planning on making your vignettes into plans?
It's a social vote, not just a vote to hangout with someone but choosing what approach to use etc. etc.I am surprised there are so few distinct votes, though, as well as so few votes in general; it's been open two and a half hours and we only have 21 voters. With how popular Sofia was as a social option, I kind of assumed this would be a very contentious vote. Maybe Americans are just busy on Saturday night? I'd be unsurprised to learn that the readers of Divided Loyalties are extremely cool people with rockin' social lives.
The main reason I want Eike on the Windfall action is because the main reason I'm interested in the Windfall paper at all is because it engages with Egrimm's Issues about having a superior. Here is a post I made where I went into some detail about this.The EIC action is obvious, and the Lustrian book study is within her skills, but what's the envisioned contribution for the windfall paper?
Having our own Apprentice along for this action is another way to demonstrate to Egrimm "hey, I'm not Alric and I don't treat the people over whom I have institutional power the way he did."For me, personally, I do want to do Windherding, it's just that Windfall took priority for me because we've got plenty of cool magical research to do, but the Windfall paper furthers Egrimm's character arc and develops Mathilde's relationship with him. That's a slam-dunk for me; ultimately, I think most of us are in this quest because we fell in love with the way Boney writes characters. The Windfall paper action isn't about the paper, it's about the responsibility that superiors have to their subordinates, the way that Egrimm is carrying trauma from someone who viewed him first and foremost as a resource to be exploited, and the way that Mathilde can offer him a better sort of relationship because she was fortunate enough to have three good bosses in a row (Regimand, Abelhelm, Belegar) and can model that sort of behavior in her own relationships with people working for her.
I checked for you and it's implied that he has; T37 we wrote about Johann's prosthetic arm and Egrimm was involved. The Tower of Serenity was not specifically mentioned in the action, but it was a [SERENITY] action and so presumably the writing took place there at least in part.I don't remember, I'd have to go through all the Serenity actions to check.
With Johann and Egrimm, you sit down to write a paper on your observations of the prosthetic arm. After a few false starts, you and Egrimm take Johann to his quarters to sleep off the concussion he managed to pick up in his latest adventures with Kadoh. It's slightly more difficult to write a paper on the prosthetic with the bearer no longer involved, but you took copious notes and your memories of the investigation are still fresh enough that it doesn't matter too much. You know the paper itself isn't really going to make much difference in the grand scheme of things, as there's only one of these arms and there's unlikely to be any other users of it in the near future, but it's not just utility that makes a paper have an impact, but also novelty. A prosthetic arm of completely unknown origins - no, a prosthetic talon, acquired in hazy circumstances, and stitched onto a bold volunteer? That gets attention.
And perhaps there might be some utility to this paper. Though the arm is unwilling to give up its secrets, being able to state for a fact that it's possible for Hysh to interface with the nerves of the human body could make some people more willing to experiment with achieving that, especially since it's confirmed it can be done without harmful leak-through to a non-Hysh Wizard. The Empire has quite a few amputees, and some of them would be in positions to pay quite well for a functional prosthetic, or would be of sufficient importance that the Empire would pay on their behalf. Perhaps one day this paper could lead to some sort of replication of this phenomenon by the Colleges.
By the time you and Egrimm wrap up the paper, you're feeling a lot happier about having spent the time to write it than you had been at the start. There is no such thing as useless information, you remind yourself, merely information you haven't found the use for yet.
[Mathilde's contribution: Learning, 87+29+10(Fresh)=126.]
[Johann's contribution: Learning, 1+19=20.]
[Egrimm's contribution: Learning, 39+23=62.]
[Observations on a Golden Prosthetic Talon of Unknown Origin, 2488. Subject: Unique, +3. Insight: Revolutionary, +2. Delivery: Compelling, +1. Exotic, +1. Total: +7.]
I wonder if there's a merchant-"culture"-specific Skill. Or alternately something like Politicking: Negotiating? But then I would have expected us to see it from the EIC actions we've taken with her.Eike has 3 +1 diplomacy boni, of which only two are visible (Eonir of Laurelorn, Empire of Man). Her final diplomacy skill must be completed to give +1 diplomacy.
It might depend on the specific wolf, and the breed, but some of them are pretty huge
I've only seen one in person up close once, and it was a long while ago so maybe my memory is playing tricks on me
But when it reared up on two legs it was taller than I was then, and would be a similar height to me now, maybe a bit shorter
And I'm not a short person, around 6'2 to 6'3
Mathilde mused once that Wolf could kill a full grown man by the time he was 1
I don't think she was exaggerating
I mean, a 6' long wolf isn't unusual...they also weight within the range I cited, if at the higher end. Bigger wolves than that are possible, but extremely unusual once we're talking 120 lbs and up...especially if you're not talking a wolf that just gorged itself (which can add 20 lbs of meat in a distended stomach). Higher than about 140 lbs even including having gorged themselves is vanishingly rare.
I once again would like to remind everyone involved that he is still trying to be a lap puppy to our 5-feet-in-a-hat-and-riding-shoes protagonist.I am going to use the (I believe) largest still existing wolf breed as an example
But the Northwestern Wolf Canis lupus occidentalis averages between 99-159 lbs for males, 79-132 lbs for females, in recent studies
That's significantly larger than the Doberman you are comparing it to
The absolute largest Northwestern Wolf recorded (and killed) weighed 230 lbs
Though that was obviously exceptional
Still, others have been documented at 175 lbs
I know it happened due to an OOC oversight, but since it's canon now I think that Egrimm buggering off to do other stuff during our Reikland exploration and being allowed to do so without comment is a good indication that he already realizes that Mathilde isn't a domineering boss.Having our own Apprentice along for this action is another way to demonstrate to Egrimm "hey, I'm not Alric and I don't treat the people over whom I have institutional power the way he did."
(Also, I expect Eike to get some value out of it herself, because the Windfall paper included Windsight observations by some people with nonstandard forms of it. But mostly it's so Egrimm can see Mathilde interacting with her Apprentice, and Eike interacting with her Master, and hopefully chill the fuck out a bit more.)
Could just be a Stirland diplomacy skill. We haven't spent any time in Stirland with Eike so it makes sense we wouldn't see it. Maybe it'll be revealed when we send Eike to study with the Hochlander in the Sunken Palace.I wonder if there's a merchant-"culture"-specific Skill. Or alternately something like Politicking: Negotiating? But then I would have expected us to see it from the EIC actions we've taken with her.
I kind of get your point,this vote is because Boney isn't sure what to write here so we should give him something to work with, but I'm also not sure what to say here so I have a hard time getting into details. Would something like this be more up your alley?Plan Soft Touch approaches the intro from a more serious angle, but might have good results. I do wish there was a bit more meat on it though. Or at least some kind of prompt for Boney.
Personally I don't think your Panoramia section needs expanding. Boney is definitely capable of writing out a fitting section just from the prompt already in your plan and if anything all that extra detail might be more stifling than helpful.I kind of get your point,this vote is because Boney isn't sure what to write here so we should give him something to work with, but I'm also not sure what to say here so I have a hard time getting into details. Would something like this be more up your alley?