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The Heir of the Dragon: A Rhaenyra Targaryen Quest

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Zimmerwald1915 said:
You're overthinking this. Approaching Beesbury wouldn't be an option if his support wasn't likely to be efficacious. Lannister, Westerling, and Mellos have all been excluded as options, and they're all equally on the Small Council.
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Maybe but we really need to fully convince him for him to throw his weight behind us.

Lord of Sturgia said:
I agree with Zimmerwald, not only do I think this is very likely to succeed, but also, actually showing Otto in tangible ways that we can be a very powerful ally for him and his family will certainly help in our efforts when we ask him for an alliance to keep Alicent by our side.
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Zimmerwald1915 said:
"I will say you can absolutely use any bribes made now as part of an argument to convince Otto later."
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I don´t like us going to him for this because i think we would be approaching him in a position of weakness and he would absolutely fleece us. We are not that good on intrigue.
It is other thing if we get RTA approved and then offer him a slice of the pie as an incentive for accepting us and Alicent.
 
Zimmerwald1915 said:
It's also not lost on me that managing toll-collectors is something Alicent is well-suited for and which would also give her some financial security if she could be convinced to skim a little off the top.
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CharlieKing said:
is there a way to do that legally?
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Actually a historical legal way to pay for Tax and Toll collector service. Salaried bureaucrat is more modern innovation though not modern as probably first used in China in their ancient bureaucratic tradition.
 
[X] [Ship] Queen Aemma
[X] [Toll] Approach Otto Hightower
-[X] Attempt to Bribe Him

If there's one thing we know about Otto its his receptiveness to being bribed. And we may as well take the opportunity to butter him up before we tell him about our relationship with his daughter.
 
Zimmerwald1915 said:
Apropos of this, TeenSpirit on Discord:

"I will say you can absolutely use any bribes made now as part of an argument to convince Otto later."
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OK I don't particularly like this option, but if it serves to butter him up for the next turn when we bring the Alicent Issue, then I'm all for it.

[X] [Ship] Queen Aemma
[X] [Toll] Approach Otto Hightower
-[X] Attempt to Bribe Him
 
I really liked the idea that the ship we got as gift from our Arryn relative to be named for our Arryn mother.

Current Tally for the Curios.
Adhoc vote count started by UrbanAvena on Apr 9, 2025 at 9:10 PM, finished with 43 posts and 27 votes.
[ship] [toll]
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[X] [Ship] Queen Aemma

I had actually been wondering if we wouldn't name a daughter Aemma since Visenya's been nixed atm. Though the idea of naming anything feminine in our vicinity Aemma is also funny.

Our new ship? Aemma. Our firstborn daughter? Aemma. The kitten Johanna gave us as a nameday gift? You better believe that's Aemma. One of our sons? Aemma? No, Aemon. (We may or may not have nicknamed him Aemmy, though.)

[X] [Toll] Approach Lord Beesbury
-[X] Try and Convince Him
 
A58 said:
@Teen Spirit, i would like to do a write in. I´m not exactly sure how one does that but here is my attempt.

Write in: Joint presentation to Lord Lyonel and Lord Beesbury
[] Try to convince them
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Usually write in use the format as given with added bits to back with subvote in a new line and added (-) in front of their box.
As example yours would probably look like
[] [Toll] Write-in (Subject to QM Approval) Joint presentation to Lord Lyonel and Lord Beesbury
-[] Try to convince them
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[X] [Ship] Queen Aemma
[X] [Toll] Approach Lord Beesbury
-[X] Try and Convince Him
 
I don't know if we have promised him anything yet but I definitely want Isembard on our small council once we become Queen.
 
[X] [Toll] Approach Lord Beesbury
-[X] Try and Convince Him

I'm not quite certain what the thread is thinking right now. bribe otto high tower to support a venture which eases the difficulties of ruling on Corlys, who he somewhat hates as one of his rivals for influence? Surely we realize there's not going to be some arbitrary monetary cost to this? Otto wants influence and prominence. You want to ask for this with nothing really in mind that we could offer him woth the intent to ask him to retain alicent in the long term? Just, unlikely to work out.

also, why is queen Aemma so popular?
 
Randino Treviani said:
I'm not quite certain what the thread is thinking right now. bribe otto high tower to support a venture which eases the difficulties of ruling on Corlys, who he somewhat hates as one of his rivals for influence? Surely we realize there's not going to be some arbitrary monetary cost to this? Otto wants influence and prominence. You want to ask for this with nothing really in mind that we could offer him woth the intent to ask him to retain alicent in the long term? Just, unlikely to work out.
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Okay to be clear, and I freely admit I might be misunderstanding what you said. When I talk about bribing I don't mean money, that's not really the capital that Rhaenyra deals with. Bribing here means like political bribes.
 
PrimalShadow said:
It is our mom; honoring her is nice emotionally. More cynically, it might also win us points with dad.
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Ahh. I'm bad with names.

Teen Spirit said:
Okay to be clear, and I freely admit I might be misunderstanding what you said. When I talk about bribing I don't mean money, that's not really the capital that Rhaenyra deals with. Bribing here means like political bribes.
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Yes, thats pretty much what I'm attempting to emphasize. That the cost to this is highly political in nature and otto is likely to ask a lot, given the nature of it.
 
[X] [Ship] Queen Aemma
[X] [Toll] Approach Lord Lyonel Strong
-[X] Try and Convince Him
[x] [Toll] Approach Otto Hightower
-[x] Attempt to Bribe Him
 
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Randino Treviani said:
I'm not quite certain what the thread is thinking right now. bribe otto high tower to support a venture which eases the difficulties of ruling on Corlys, who he somewhat hates as one of his rivals for influence? Surely we realize there's not going to be some arbitrary monetary cost to this? Otto wants influence and prominence. You want to ask for this with nothing really in mind that we could offer him woth the intent to ask him to retain alicent in the long term? Just, unlikely to work out.
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Randino Treviani said:
Yes, thats pretty much what I'm attempting to emphasize. That the cost to this is highly political in nature and otto is likely to ask a lot, given the nature of it.
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The thing is that @Teen Spirit confirmed that "you can absolutely use any bribes made now as part of an argument to convince Otto later." so buttering up now with a bribe will make the deal regarding Alicent easier, and that is quite interesting...
 
Randino Treviani said:
I'm not quite certain what the thread is thinking right now. bribe otto high tower to support a venture which eases the difficulties of ruling on Corlys, who he somewhat hates as one of his rivals for influence? Surely we realize there's not going to be some arbitrary monetary cost to this? Otto wants influence and prominence. You want to ask for this with nothing really in mind that we could offer him woth the intent to ask him to retain alicent in the long term? Just, unlikely to work out.
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A reminder that Oldtown, the Hightower seat of power, is a port city. As well as that we'll be going ahead with the proposal anyway, likely successfully - it makes too much sense to not implement unless we fumble the talks - and going to Otto specifically to bribe him is the only route at this point that lets him (disproportionately) benefit from this.

Also, the update outright states that the nature of this venture makes bribing people very easy:
Teen Spirit said:
If there was one distinct advantage to this whole concept, it was that it made bribery very easy. Promises of favorable positions for family. Favors to certain merchants. Reduced rates in particular cities. There was plenty of ways to carve out a few favors and advantages for someone. If all else failed that should have worked with anyone sitting on the Small Council
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So we do have things to offer. Plenty of them, in fact.
 
[] [Ship] Sweet Alicent
Historian: 'Ah yes, Rhaenyra and Alicent were such good friends that Queen Rhaenyra even named her ship after Alicent.'

[X] [Ship] Queen Aemma
[X] [Toll] Approach Lord Lyonel Strong
-[X] Try and Convince Him
 
[X] [Ship] Queen Aemma
[X] [Toll] Approach Lord Beesbury
-[X] Try and Convince Him

Having this proposition come from both Corlys and the Master of Coin should be more than enough to convince Viserys.

I mean the only things that would make Viserys poke flaws into the plan is where the ship strength would come from, and whether it is financially feasible for the crown. With both answers already answered, Viserys should have literally no reason to reject it. Same for Lyonel.

Regardless of whether or not Otto or Lyonel supports the plan, Viserys will be still need to consult his Master of Coin.

I can see the reasoning for Otto, but I'd really rather not double dip on the amount of Favors we need to give him. We know from his relationship with Viserys, that regardless of how much he likes you, he's gonna try to hustle as much as he can.

So I'd rather keep the Favors we can give him in reserve until we talk to him about Alicent.
Giving Otto a Favor now means that when we talk to him about Alicent we'll just have less stuff to offer him. A mildly better rapport isn't gonna stop him from being vexed about a gay daughter that can't marry
 
Reasons to bribe Otto:

1) The Otto Relationship Seesaw must swing on! Last time it ticked down from Neutral to Skeptical. The order of things demands that we increase it now, to continue vexing him.

2) Just at the end of last turn, we got Qoren to fuck over the Peakes because their heir had insulted us. Otto was involved in the betrothal negotiations, he knows where this part came from. Following it up immediately with buttering him up for his support shows that we can both punish those who anger us and reward those who help us, seamlessly in the course of doing other things. (Which we do quite a lot - this Rhaenyra is proactive!)

3) He's the father of our love interest, so he's most likely not going to get any less powerful in the course of our life. Maintaining a good relationship with the Hand is just good sense.

4) He barely approved of the marriage with Qoren. Although he helped negotiate the terms, he's not even sure how much credit he should take. By showing him immediately some of the benefits it would bring, smoothing out trade and enriching port cities, at the same time as we show him our competence, would likely go some way towards reassuring him about the future - but if it also brings him more power and influence through us, he'll likely get considerably happier.
 
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