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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Bucolic said:
I think talking about the EIC as though it's for intelligence seems to be missing that it's the logistics backbone that of Stirland that sucks up all the room for any merchantly schemes and a diplomatic tool. More immediately importantly though, it's incredibly well-placed to take advantage of silk and is soon to be disgustingly profitable.
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I mean, our involvement with the EIC is to use it as an intelligence network. We literally voted for that.
Boney said:
Then there's the matter of the EIC. You've instilled values that guarantee their reputation with the Empire will be symbiotic, rather than parasitic or predatory. Is that all she feels is necessary?

[ ] Mathilde's intervention with the EIC was to prevent them from being a new Stirlandian League. That mission is accomplished. Pull back and let it manage itself.
Mathilde will stop being actively involved with the EIC, and will regain the one action per turn that is currently invested in it.

[ ] The EIC is a tool that can allow Mathilde to economically intervene in all sorts of ways. She will wield it as such for the good of the Empire and its allies.
The EIC mechanics will remain as they currently are, and Mathilde will be able to extend generous trade agreements to her allies through it.

[ ] The EIC has potential to be an amazing source of information, and now that it can be trusted, Mathilde will shape it as such.
Mathilde will build an information network within the EIC, keeping an eye on both it and on everywhere it reaches. This becomes an ordinary organization, and can be managed alongside one other organization or underling for one action per turn.

[ ] Mathilde wants to help the EIC grow and profit for the sake of riches. Vow of Poverty be damned.
The EIC mechanics will remain as they currently are, and Mathilde will continue to help the EIC gain economic footholds wherever she has influence.
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The bolded one is what we voted for. I agree that the EIC in general is a standard merchant consortium that is extremely crucial to Stirland and the surrounding area, but Mathilde isn't making most of the decisions about its expansion and activities, Wilhelmina is. That's why the Grey option in the Pickle Requests plan is to improve its spy network capabilities, because the thing about having a spy network embedded in the EIC is that we can't very effectively spy where the EIC isn't and we're way the hell on the other side of the Empire from the EIC's centers of strength.

Nobody is talking about divesting from the EIC entirely -- @Gavin Prince et al. are talking about giving up our active use of the EIC as a spy network, letting the Hochlander manage it for us (and presumably handing it over to Eike when she makes Magister), and reclaiming the half-action per turn while continuing to collect our passive income from it, because it's not very useful to us if we're not near where it is. If we'd picked Markgraf it would be amazing, if we'd picked Bodyguard or Loremaster-at-Large we'd at least be close to its stomping grounds, but picking to base the Waystone Project in Laurelorn is just rough for making its spy network stay relevant.
 
Don't get me wrong, I do really like the idea of helping cleanse the Forest of Shadows. Hell, maybe I'd even agree to then being a Spymaster for a hypothetical Schattenwald province, or a magic-advisor position like we did for Belegar. But I can't see myself leading all the efforts to both conquer and rule.

Besides which, it's quite possible that Nordland and Ostland might eventually put in effort to retake parts of the Forest of Shadows, particularly if we retake the nexuses. I don't think we need to commit to carving out a new province to make that part of the Empire safer.
 
[X] Plan Tower of Doom! and Research!
[X] Plan: The Prismatic Wanderer
[X] Plan: The Prismatic Wanderer (Researcher ver)
[X] Plan Pickle Requests mk IV
[X] Armor of von Tarnus
[X] Dispensation to study methods of destroying or beneficially transforming Dhar. 'I have seen Dwarven Rune magic that can burn Dhar into nothing or smash it into aspectless rune power, Qhaysh that can unravel Dhar, and the slow transformation under specific circumstances of Dhar into aspectless Earthbound magic, but have been unable to study them lest I fall afoul of the Articles. I would wish to study these and similar things I encounter (though taking care to not impinge upon Dwarven Runepriest secrets) in order to develop a form of destruction or beneficial transformation of Dhar that the Colleges of Magic can use.'
 
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Parabola said:
Don't get me wrong, I do really like the idea of helping cleanse the Forest of Shadows. Hell, maybe I'd even agree to then being a Spymaster for a hypothetical Schattenwald province, or a magic-advisor position like we did for Belegar. But I can't see myself leading all the efforts to both conquer and rule.

Besides which, it's quite possible that Nordland and Ostland might eventually put in effort to retake parts of the Forest of Shadows, particularly if we retake the nexuses. I don't think we need to commit to carving out a new province to make that part of the Empire safer.
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Apt points in every sense, but it misses the point of focus (for myself at the least). This isn't about logic or reason. This is about ego and transforming our desire, our want into a blade by which the world is shaped. This is about taking hold of the very levers of power and directing them as we see fit, not in the manner expected by the College of Shadowmancers or her God or her history, but in the most overt, most direct form possible. The wizard, damned and cursed by Sigmar, shall stand among His greatest inheritors as an equal. It is the ultimate act of spite. To spit in the very face of Deus Sigmar for His greatest failure. If magic is the method by which the impossible becomes reality, let us commit our greatest act of wizardry every seen.

(Yes, I have been reading Kill Six Billion Demons and no I will not apologize.)
 
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picklepikkl said:
I mean, our involvement with the EIC is to use it as an intelligence network. We literally voted for that.

The bolded one is what we voted for. I agree that the EIC in general is a standard merchant consortium that is extremely crucial to Stirland and the surrounding area, but Mathilde isn't making most of the decisions about its expansion and activities, Wilhelmina is. That's why the Grey option in the Pickle Requests plan is to improve its spy network capabilities, because the thing about having a spy network embedded in the EIC is that we can't very effectively spy where the EIC isn't and we're way the hell on the other side of the Empire from the EIC's centers of strength.

Nobody is talking about divesting from the EIC entirely -- @Gavin Prince et al. are talking about giving up our active use of the EIC as a spy network, letting the Hochlander manage it for us (and presumably handing it over to Eike when she makes Magister), and reclaiming the half-action per turn while continuing to collect our passive income from it, because it's not very useful to us if we're not near where it is. If we'd picked Markgraf it would be amazing, if we'd picked Bodyguard or Loremaster-at-Large we'd at least be close to its stomping grounds, but picking to base the Waystone Project in Laurelorn is just rough for making its spy network stay relevant.
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This seems to only be focusing on half of what was chosen and not on the monitoring of the EIC itself.

Boney said:
Mathilde will build an information network within the EIC, keeping an eye on both it and on everywhere it reaches. This becomes an ordinary organization, and can be managed alongside one other organization or underling for one action per turn.
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which is going to leap in importance.
 
[X] Dispensation to study methods of destroying or beneficially transforming Dhar. 'I have seen Dwarven Rune magic that can burn Dhar into nothing or smash it into aspectless rune power, Qhaysh that can unravel Dhar, and the slow transformation under specific circumstances of Dhar into aspectless Earthbound magic, but have been unable to study them lest I fall afoul of the Articles. I would wish to study these and similar things I encounter (though taking care to not impinge upon Dwarven Runepriest secrets) in order to develop a form of destruction or beneficial transformation of Dhar that the Colleges of Magic can use.'
[x] Plan Tower of Doom! and Research!
[x] Support in dispatching Battle Wizards to one major conflict of Mathilde's choice
[x] Plan Mammoth Battle Altar Cavalry/Mammothry
[x] Elector-Countess
Also approval voting the other two mount plan. Airships is just positively cliche when compared with mammoth and floating tower
 
I'd be down to have Mathilde end up as an Elector Countess. By the standards of noble rulership, Mathilde's workaholic nature alone would put her in the top 10% of possible rulers. It needn't be forever, either - if we decided an arc or 3 later that we wanted to quit, there's really nothing stopping us from abdicating and simply taking the prestige of "Elector Countess Emeritus" with us. We just say we don't want people to be worried about an immortal magical ruler stifling any potential heirs, and they'll thank us for it.
 
[X] Dispensation to study methods of destroying or beneficially transforming Dhar. 'I have seen Dwarven Rune magic that can burn Dhar into nothing or smash it into aspectless rune power, Qhaysh that can unravel Dhar, and the slow transformation under specific circumstances of Dhar into aspectless Earthbound magic, but have been unable to study them lest I fall afoul of the Articles. I would wish to study these and similar things I encounter (though taking care to not impinge upon Dwarven Runepriest secrets) in order to develop a form of destruction or beneficial transformation of Dhar that the Colleges of Magic can use.'
 
Whynot09 said:
Apt points in every sense, but it misses the point of focus (for myself at the least). This isn't about logic or reason. This is about ego and transforming our desire, our want into a blade by which the world is shaped. This is about taking hold of the very levers of power and directing them as we see fit, not in the manner expected by the College of Shadowmancers or her God or her history, but in the most overt, most direct form possible. The wizard, damned and cursed by Sigmar, shall stand among His greatest inheritors as an equal. It is the ultimate act of spite. To spit in the very face of Deus Sigmar for His greatest failure. If magic is the method by which the impossible becomes reality, let us commit our greatest act of wizardry every seen.

(Yes, I have been reading Kill Six Billion Demons and no I will not apologize.)
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Points for ambition and knowing what you want, but that's too much for me. I want an actual reward here, not exchanging years of work for a promise of power after years of more work.
 
Parabola said:
Points for ambition and knowing what you want, but that's too much for me. I want an actual reward here, not exchanging years of work for a promise of power after years of more work.
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Absolutely fair criticism and a reasonable desire to have. My only quibble is that she may possibly gain in the process of conquest, but that is as always a possibility.
 
[X] Plan: The Prismatic Wanderer
[X] Plan: The Prismatic Wanderer (Researcher ver)
[X] Elector-Countess
[X] Armor of von Tarnus
[X] Plan Not Pickle Requests Variant with Apparitions
[X] Plan: Wrong Turn at Albuquerque
Amending my vote to include Elector Countess, because it seems fun. Also, I'm now contemplating if Mathilde becoming Supreme Matriarch and Elector Countess could somehow finagle a combination of the two, as happened with the Elector of Reikland and Prince of Altdorf titles, thus giving the Colleges a vote in the Elector meet.
 
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Man, some people really seem against taking on any commitments that aren't ultimately self sufficient. Sheepfief, the dwarves, even the library at this point really, and most of our other connections can mostly take care of themselves without Mathilde there if they needed to, and people really don't seem to want to take on any larger responsibility to a group that a noble title of any kind would grant her that she couldn't just walk away from if she got bored. Even the potentially time limited Supreme Matriarch role gets a lot of folks up in arms.
 
[X] Plan: The Prismatic Wanderer

Not really a fan of a ship, but I guess it's better than our current strategy of requisitioning the nearest gyrocopter
 
Alliterate said:
[x] Posthumous Pardon
[X] Save the boon until we choose our next project
[x] Plan Pickle Requests mk IV
[x] Armor of von Tarnus
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The problem with the posthumous pardon is that we cannot pick it without outright telling the LMs of the entire empire that there is something we want to be pardoned posthumously for. So it has a very high chance to be fulfilled much faster than we want.
 
As for my vote:

[X] Elector-Countess
[X] Plan Tower of Doom! and Research!
[X] Plan: The Prismatic Wanderer
[X] Plan Pickle Requests mk IV
[X] Dispensation to study methods of destroying or beneficially transforming Dhar

To be completely honest, the only ones I really want to win here is elector countess and the dispensation to study dhar to destroy it, the rest are, to be frank, meh to me personally, but I also really do NOT want the von Tarnus armour (we will take it from other wizards that may need it and may delay the elfcation) or the tenure (it would reduce our incentive to write stuff, which has always been an interesting part of the quest) and would rather take something that I find only somewhat fun rather than the stuff I most most want, so I am also upvoting all the popular meh options.

If Elector Countess (or dispensation to study dhar, somehow) becomes second place, and/or Armor of von Tarnus becomes third, and I log in before the vote is closed, I may change my vote to just the stuff I really want, but until then, just approval voting all the stuff I kinda want to avoid the stuff I really don't want.
 
das_slash said:
[X] Plan: The Prismatic Wanderer

Not really a fan of a ship, but I guess it's better than our current strategy of requisitioning the nearest gyrocopter
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Point of order, Mathilde spent a boon on T34 during the Planning the Waystone Project mini-arc and received a new civilian gyrocarriage on T36. We hired Adela to pilot it. It doesn't really make a difference to what we see on-screen, but Mathilde hasn't needed to requisition gyrocopters since.
 
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