I mean if it goes off successfully it accomplishes all our goals and is both cool while being a nice callback to in terms of narrative as this sort of reaction was mentioned all the way back when we reverse engineered the Matrix.
The vote had opened early on my workday, when I only had so much attention to spare, so I just voted for NV and NVvS as the closest fitting options at the time (I did not like the public Matrix option). My heart was always with the NHA tho, so I changed my vote the moment I noticed that someone wrote an option for it xD
I don't think he needs political justification to do that. The Ice Witches are well regarded, by and large. If anything, there's probably a political cost to shunning them.
At this point in time they're fairly politically isolated I believe, as much feared as respected. It wouldn't normally be until this guy's daughter that they start getting a lock on political power.
There's a great many ways a Lahmian could assassinate someone. The Empire's vampire hunters still can't agree which historical deaths were or weren't the work of Lahmians. We've plenty of leeway to work with here.
The Ice Witches power waxes and wanes. It's not unusual that there's a Tsarina who is an Ice Witch, at which point they obviously have a ton of power. But it's also not unusual for them to get pushed out of power. I suspect it's a cycle. If they're not in power, they use their influence (and that is anchored deep, you're not getting rid of that) to make the case that they should have more power. If they are in power, they're going to try and drive their agendas, while any opposition argues they shouldn't be in power. Similar to how you see the cycles in a two-party system, though that is stretched analogy.
That, or Marienburg.
"Alright buddy, here's the deal. Laurelorn's thinking of building a new port with access to the Sea of Claws, but they're not committed. I want you to rustle up some ships from Erengrad to go there for their elven goods to help incentivize them. They'll probably be cheaper than the current route anyways. Win-win for everybody!"
They know what they have to do if they want us to stop fucking with them."Alright buddy, here's the deal. Laurelorn's thinking of building a new port with access to the Sea of Claws, but they're not committed. I want you to rustle up some ships from Erengrad to go there for their elven goods to help incentivize them. They'll probably be cheaper than the current route anyways. Win-win for everybody!"
"Except Marienburg?"
"Except Marienburg."
The failure state would have basically the same effect as the Nighttime Visit with style. So could I persuade you to at least put a vote on the knife variant.
Hagranyms.
