Castles of Steel - Lesbians Good, Imperialism Bad

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Lieutenant Arisukawa Haruna

Balance Stats
❁ • ❁ Work / Life ❁ • ❁
❁ • ❁ Warrior / Princess ❁ • ❁
❁ • ❁ Radical / Respectable ❁ • ❁

Tactical Stats
Gunnery 0, Navigation +2, Command +2, Technology -4, Personal -2, Strategy +3

Stress: 3​


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PLEASE READ THE QUEST RULES BELOW

You collectively vote on the actions of Arisukawa Haruna, the first woman to serve openly in the Imperial Akitsukuni Navy.

This quest is set in a universe which is much like our own circa 1910, but with different politics, cultural norms, and ideas about gender and sexuality, as well as some unusual and advanced technology in places.

We are using this quest to explore themes like breaking the glass ceiling, divergent outlooks on gender and sexuality, colonialism and imperialism, and the place of royalty.

Content Warning
This quest goes some dark places.

There is violence, often explicit, often unfair, often against undeserving targets.

There are not always good options forward. The protagonist is not necessarily a good person.

There is implied content and discussion of sexual harassment and assault.

This is a world where people are often racist, sexist, queerphobic bigots. Sometimes, even the PC and the people they are friends with.

Voting Rules

We will tell you if write-in votes are allowed. If we do not say that write-ins are allowed, they are not. This is to prevent people from unrealistically hedging their bets.

You may proposal other options in a non-vote format, subject to approval, on non write-in votes.

We will tell you when a vote allows approved voting. If we don't say the answer is no, pick an option. We like making people commit.

Discussions makes the GM feel fuzzy.

Game Rules
When we ask you for a roll, roll 3d6. You are aiming to roll equal or under the value of your stat. If you succeed, Haruna gets through the situation with no real difficulties. If you roll above the target value, Haruna will still succeed, but this success will cost her something or add a complication.

Whenever Haruna loses something or faces hardship from a botched roll, she takes Stress. The more Stress Haruna has, the more the job and the circumstances she's in will get to her, and it'll be reflected in the narrative. Haruna must be kept under 10 Stress: if she reaches 10 Stress, she will suffer a breakdown and the results will not be great for her.

Haruna loses stress by taking time for herself, by making meaningful progress on her dreams, and by kissing tall, beautiful women.

Meta Rules
Author commentary is in italics so you know it's not story stuff.

Please don't complain about the system or the fact we have to roll dice. We've heard it before, we've heard it a thousand times across multiple quests. We're not going to change it, and it wears at our fucking souls.

Just going "oh noooo" or "Fish RNGesus Why!" is fun and fine. Complaining at length because you didn't get what you want less so.

If you have a question, tag both @open_sketchbook and @Artificial Girl. If you only tag one of us, you will be ignored. Seriously, we both write this quest.

And yes this is an alt-history type setting with openly gay and trans people, ahistoric medicine, and weird politics. Just... deal, please?

This quest employs a special system called Snippet Votes. Please read this post for more information.
 
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Unarmed torpedo is... Nn. Trading a monitor for a coastal sub is, in the cold mathematics of war, probably worthwhile.
 
I like the idea of shooting a lagged spread of torpedos, ideally at a time when the wakes can be spotted. We shoot the first a bit to one side, the second almost hitting on the same side, and the other two at the thing itself. Basically try to force it to either clear the channel or eat a torpedo, and with luck both.
 
Thinking about it more, I believe that trying to lure out some ships from the harbour is the best strategy. Obviously surfacing under the guns of the coastal batteries and monitor is a nonstarter, so we need to cause some chaos at a bit more distance.

[]Radio the other coastal subs to go and start harassing nearby fishing vessels and villages, fire some warning shots and maybe brass up a light house or two.

Ideally we would have one of our subs surface near a fishing boat and fire off a few warning shots, before letting it go. Hopefully causing it to run back to port and get the base commander to send out his DDs to sweep.
But really anything that will get a reaction will do.

Hopefully between the Caspian ships slipping thier moorings, and running into the minefield laid in the harbour, there will be an opportunity for the trapped sub to escape.
For bonus points we can even try to torpedo the monitor when it moves out of the way.
 
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Just a note, the coastal boats have no deck gun, only a machine gun. So shelling targets isn't something they can do.

Also remember that your squadron is spread out along the coast, not concentrated.
 
Artificial Girl said:
Just a note, the coastal boats have no deck gun, only a machine gun. So shelling targets isn't something they can do.

Also remember that your squadron is spread out along the coast, not concentrated.
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Letting some bursts of MG fire off will work just as well. And the other subs being already spread out is even better as it will save time in getting them to out there to cause trouble. IIRC they have radios, so we should be able to transmit the plan to at least some of them.

As for triangulation, there is always going to be some risk inherent to the endeavour no matter what we do. It can be mitigated by relocating a few miles away and then transmitting, before returning back to the mouth of the harbour. If picking up our transmissions is enough to get the Caspians to come out to play, then so much the better.

The idea is to get the local Caspian commander chomping at the bit to go clear out these nuisances with his ships, necessitating the monitor to move to let said ships past.
No actual damage even needs to be done, just for the local civilian population to feel harassed and aggrieved enough to start bombarding the Caspian navy with complaints.
 
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Oksbad said:
Ahem! I'll have you know I have over 100 hours of submarine combat Silent Hunter 3 experience. :V
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Of course, and my Mass Effect experience (which obviously qualifies me to lead any army in the world better than the incumbent) teaches me that dead bodies fade into non-existence after a few seconds :)
 
I just finished binging the reader mode, and this quest has reignited my love for the things. How dare you =0

Probably not going to vote for a while because I know little about subs or the thread outside of story posts. But God bless, this quest is good food.
 
[X] Torpedo the monitor while submerged and hope Ha-17 can make it out. (Fate roll)

Clever schemes and crazy dreams do not always make the best tactics. Just torpedo the bugger and give our guys a shot to get out.
 
[X] Move away from the harbor to radio the other coastal subs and instruct them to and start harassing nearby fishing vessels and villages, fire some warning shots and maybe brass up a light house or two. Then return to watch the harbour again. Hopefully this gives Ha-17 the opening it needs to move out.
 
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[X] Move away from the harbor to radio the other coastal subs and instruct them to and start harassing nearby fishing vessels and villages, fire some warning shots and maybe brass up a light house or two. Then return to watch the harbour again. Hopefully this gives Ha-17 the opening it needs to move out.
 
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