@Loinvoyant I know you're just catching up with us, but we have a delicately balanced time table and valid reasons for doing most things on our docket, unless we randomly gamble at something when opportunity presents itself. For instance, the point of this trip was politically motivated, and was supposed to show both our strength and commitment in a multi-faceted manner to our hopeful allies, the Shaitan, fulfilling a contract from them in a nuanced manner.
We did/are doing this by the following:
1) Striking down a military convoy headed for the forward Efreeti position in the Dimwell Delving, probably somewhat relieving their lines, and at the very least creating a logistical snag for the Brazen Throne's forces there, and likely putting pressure on them because their relief force just got destroyed wholesale.
2) Striking at a key piece in the Sultan's bid for godhood, something that can't be quantified in reasonable valuation. What we have done was both critical but also harder to guess the effects of, but are sure to be appreciated. It also shows our commitment to make enemies in the face of our mutual foe the Grand Sultan, even should they be a Duke of Hell.
3) Destroying a military garrison and inciting armed rebellion among the Salamander corsairs, securing at least one tribe's allegiance to that end within a couple weeks of receiving our objectives from the Vizier.
This shows our intelligence, our might as well as our charisma in one action, in
a week of activity.
We aren't done yet, but we would have achieved all of our short term objectives with this and the following three day action, leading into our diplomatic action this turn.
Relax, we've got this.
To expand upon this, we have a few strategic goals for the conference and especially in regards to the Shaitan.
At first, let's look at the deal we got. We were supposed to keep our allegiance to the Shaitan hidden and strike at the Sultan in flashy fashion as to draw attention to his weakness. The questions here is: Why?
The Shaitan are in open war with the Brazen Throne, so they loose absolutely nothing from having it known that they hire mercenaries to strike at the Plane of Fire. If they wanted just someone to attack the Sultan, there is no point in hiding their involvement. If they wanted a deniable asset, they would have sent us somewhere were deniability would matter. This mission isn't about the Shaitan, the Sultan or the war, but about
us.
We had prior dealings with the Efreeti, so as far as they know, we might be a plant or just someone who would turn his cloak if the offer is good enough. If we humiliate the Sultan without it being obvious that it was done on their orders though, they gain blackmail material on us. If we ever betrayed them, they could reveal our involvement in these defeats to incite the Sultan to kill us.
This is no concern any longer. We openly attacked and destroyed a military convoy of the Sultan. This wasn't an act of regular piracy, but straight up war. And snatching the Coatl? The Sultan will never forgive us that particular act. Not before the heat death of the universe.
So we now picked a corner, regardless of our dealings with the Shaitan. They can trust us to not betray them to their enemies, because they are now also our enemies and nothing in the whole wide planes could ever change that again. Efreeti are vengeful bastards, the Sultan far more then anyone else, and we gave him ample reason to grind us down to Living Brass the first chance he gets.
As for the conference, the main goal is to present us as someone worth having treaties with. Not a peer power, we could never hope to sell that to planar empires at this point, but as an up and comer that already can affect the game to a meaningful degree and will become a peer sooner or later. Thus we become someone worth allying with.
To do this, we need to convince them two things:
1) Economic Relevance
We need to show them that we are a valuable trade partner and can produce and consume enough goods to affect their own economy to a noticeable degree. By scoring this point, we show them that open trade with us would benefit them financially and gain them a new source of supplies for their war effort.
We achieve this by showing off our industries in SD (which are not impressive by planar standards yet, but we can flat out tell them that we could scale them up considerably, if there was a market for the goods) and inviting our various allies and future vassals, thus showing that we have the size and the population to be important.
2) Military Relevance
They are currently at war and even if they were not, we need to score major points here. Both to show them that we can offer valuable support to their cause, but also to banish any ideas that we are some easily conquered colony waiting for a new owner. We are not nearly powerful enough to make them feel threatened, but we can show them that we can field meaningful forces capable of affecting the course of their war and, should they attack us, that they will have to bleed for every meter of land they wish to take.
To do this, we show off the captures ships (3 Efreeti war-ships and one highly guarded treasure ship from Dis), our new cloak (made from 100% Archduke) and attacking a military installation of the Efreeti during this trip. This neatly shows that our peak strike power is well within the region were we can do considerable damage to planar armies.
So, yeah. This whole trip? The loot is nice, but what matters the most is the lines in the sand we've drawn. And they paint a nice picture for anyone looking for allies.
