[Exalted, ?] Most High
- Thread starter Rihaku
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- exalted (white wolf)
Guile
Having a really great time right now
You guys are voting for the Prophecy that involves us fighting three simultaneous wars.
Where'd my cautious peeps go?
EDIT: Heck, why is Zao in danger of losing control of the navy at all? We had literally one update where we had completely solidifed our control and marginalized all of Anys's agents, and then the next update we're on the ropes?
I thought the navy was relatively apolitical, not like the Legions.
Where'd my cautious peeps go?
EDIT: Heck, why is Zao in danger of losing control of the navy at all? We had literally one update where we had completely solidifed our control and marginalized all of Anys's agents, and then the next update we're on the ropes?
I thought the navy was relatively apolitical, not like the Legions.
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Hmm... so, strategies to pursue. All of the Titles open up doors. If we go for Waking the Sleeper, I'd advocate assassinations and false flag operations. Killing off Ragmar, hopefully turning his horde against the Gardener's Abyssals with a judicious use of Perfect Mirror. Perhaps we could task our Shikari minders with coordinating an offensive against the Fair Folk while we embark on our own mission; would they being amenable to that, or are they incapable of leaving our side for more than a moment? Ragmar's death does run the risk of his army simply being slaughtered in the absence of Exalted support, so hopefully he's got some younger Lunars around to put up a fight, but even without them it should buy us some more time to deal with the Fair Folk; speaking of them, if we get Absolutely, perhaps a stronger offensive against the Fair Folk could be in organized. With Shaping defenses in place, meeting them in open battle is less of a risk.
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Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Not much we can do, again, we lack a lot of data on what we'll even have when we hit the ground.
We have five Shikari who may or may not follow our orders (Though are unlikely to actively sabotage us), we have a scrub tier aide (Who may or may not be a junior Sidereal playing charades, either way, we'd need cultivation to get use out of them), and out of date intelligence on our enemy. If we still hold the Mountain in Three Kingdoms ,it's a solid choice, but all we know is our assets are "Half a Realm Legion" (Approximately 5,000 infantrymen) with a gutted officer corps (No more then 10 surviving Dragon Blooded at best), plus whatever is already on hand.
That's certainly a start, but we know too little about the terrain to effectively come up with detailed strategies. Where is the Mountain with regards to the rest of the region? Can we set anything up to deny it to our enemies while we fort up? Is it in our effective area of projected power when we turtle up? What other assets are on hand in the Satrapy that we can draw upon? Where is all the money going that they can't even afford basic public works? (Even with the tax burden to the Realm).
Who is the local ruler? Or have they been eliminated and we can take open control? What kind of history does the Gardener have with this region and what changed to suddenly shift them to a total war footing? How long has the Lunar been in this region, and where is he pulling his Beastmen from? Will we be able to load iron-shot and do a strafing run with our ships on the approaching behemoths to help break the initial rush? Will the capital even still exist by the time we get into place?
The general plan is sound--divide and conquer, three targets--two of which definitely want The Mountain and are in this for the long haul (Which is likely an enormous strategic resource to justify why they've gone All In here). The Fair Folk just seem to want to dick with the locals, given how they're the only ones that are apparently actually marching on the Capital in earnest--can they be turned on the others?
What happened to the Grand Master? Was he assassinated, or did he sally outwards and get crushed? If he sallied out, what happened? What killed him? Few with that title are easy prey. Where are his surviving Shikari? It says "Scattered to the Winds", not obliterated--so what happened that completely shattered their ability to operate?
I have so many questions, but our profile doesn't seem to have much more than a very, very vague strategic overview of the situation. Furthermore, the City-state is incredibly rich, but they have exploited only a small fraction of their potential evidently given how much corruption is in place--so where is all their wealth coming from? As a trade port, the Northwest isn't one of the better Directions to make a living off of trade alone, and Nexus only gets away with it because the greatest river system in the world all meets up on the place where it's built. You can't run an economy solely on trade unless you have hundreds of countries by the balls with your positioning.
Now, a few responses I Can think of...
A) If the locals know a talented new Satrap is coming, then our enemies do too. Expect an assassination attempt shortly after arrival, quite likely from an Abyssal to guarantee the kill, such would likely shatter morale. Can we capture them and interrogate them for data? Could we have one of our Minders "Take an arrow" for us to get them out of play? Or would subversion be more appropriate?
B) Three Kingdoms Prophecy still requires set-up time, if we are denied this, we may very well waste our initial Prophecy. How do we ensure this happens without intervention?
C) What military and economic assets do we have on hand at this very moment? Is it just a very fast courier carrying our immediate staff and the Shikari "Minders"?"
D) Do we know any of the attributes of the approaching Behemoths at this time? Or are our reports sketchy on that point?
EDIT:
Also, changing my vote again.
[X] The Scarlet Flag Prophecy
[X] Unbreakable Will
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[X] The Scarlet Flag Prophecy
[X] Wake the Sleeper
[X] Wake the Sleeper
Van Ropen
Angry, angry about elves.
Oh man, that was great.
As for these options...fuck. All of them are fantastic. The Grand Heretical Prophecy is fucking crazy, but I want it want it want it - occupying Anys alone seems worth it. The Scarlet Flag likewise does a lot to keep the Realm safe, and a less pissed of Zao would be nice. But when it comes down to it, I think we need the breathing room the Three Kingdoms will give us - so we can give these people the full Ulyssian Experience.
[X] The Three Kingdoms Prophecy
[X] Wake the Sleeper
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meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
After thinking about it a great deal, I'd say that protection Zao's influence is one the better moves we can make at this point. If Anys manages to erode his power, she can potentially focus more and more of her attention on us as she marginalizes about the only real internal political opponent that she has. To complement this, Wake the Sleeper seems necessary. While it leaves us less optimal for commanding our armies or standing against magic seeking to corrupt our being, we are not bad or even medicore by default at waging war when considering our stats, and Destiny-Manifesting Method that we already have can blunt the edge of any insta-game-over shaping effects, even if they can become substantial problems to us.
There is also that getting WtS now might allow us to use it sooner in the future again.
And when it comes right down to it, one the truths in Exalted is that being to able to turn your greatest enemies to chunky-salsa with pure personal power one of the best methods of winning wars. Troops without Exalted-tier commanders alive come at to a disadvantage quickly against ones that have a one. Also, Heaven-Turning Calculations will be a great for leadership, and makes Sorcery more potent if we later on get it.
[X] The Scarlet Flag Prophecy
[X] Wake the Sleeper
There is also that getting WtS now might allow us to use it sooner in the future again.
And when it comes right down to it, one the truths in Exalted is that being to able to turn your greatest enemies to chunky-salsa with pure personal power one of the best methods of winning wars. Troops without Exalted-tier commanders alive come at to a disadvantage quickly against ones that have a one. Also, Heaven-Turning Calculations will be a great for leadership, and makes Sorcery more potent if we later on get it.
[X] The Scarlet Flag Prophecy
[X] Wake the Sleeper
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- Location
- The end of all things
To a certain extent this is a good time for making up facts that might fit the country(and be useful to us). This is actually an official feature in Ex3E, and Ulyssian's build is actually really good at this, with a maxed Int+Lore pool and a couple of filler charms.
So wait we can basically make shit up? How does this work exactly?
Reading through the summary of Luseng, the thing that caught my eye was that the populace considered the Satrap to be more of a King than anything else. probably due to how recently they were conquered. Thus, they should not have a very high level of loyalty to the Realm, which means that if we pull this off, we should have a relatively strong powerbase here.
Of the three choices, Grand Heretical appeals to me the least. While its long term benefits are possibly the greatest, while also ensuring that Anys is caught up trying to put up fires instead of sitting around making trouble for us, our current situation needs something to happen ASAP to help Luseng. Furthermore, it will require our direct support and intervention, which we currently do not really have time for, needing to win this war. All these long term plans also seem relatively useless, with how greatly a situation can change from update to update.
Of the other two, I would be fine with either.
The biggest benefit of the Three Kingdoms is that it allows us to start empire building. It slows down the advance by the Coalition and splits them up into more manageable chunks, while buying time for Uly to prepare. Furthermore, by withdrawing the vast majority of the population into the capital, it makes their lives easier while also helping to reduce the amount of casualties that would be inflicted, thus helping garner goodwill towards us. The addition time can be used for us to put into place our various plans, reorganize as well as use our charms, while also allowing to request resources from the Realm to fortify our position. It makes large scale troop movements disadvantageous for all sides, which is only beneficial to us, considering that our forces are currently heavily depleted. And while the forces are nominally allied, if they decided to bull through the prediction, damn the bodies, they would be severely weakening their own faction, leaving them prey to the other two.
However, that time would also allow our enemies time to prepare, and unlike us, they have three different sources to draw reinforcements from. In addition, I seriously doubt Anys would allow us to happily sit here building up our powerbase if we are not weakening the other three factions. Conversely, she also cannot do anything too overt. She is unlikely to sabotage our military situation and make it less costly for the Coalition to claim Luseng, but will probably work on the civil and social aspect, to try and ensure that even if we are successful in saving Luseng, the inhabitants would not be as grateful as they could be.
In addition, allowing the Deathlords and the Lunars access to the mountain does not sound like the safest proposition. The best case scenerio for what is hidden inside the mountain is that it is merely a solid core of jade, whose strategic implications are already devastating enough. Its entirely possible that it is some extremely valuable first age creation. However, neither the Deathlords nor the Lunars are going to be really willing to split the mountain up, as its the main prize of this campaign. This also means that they probably would be less willing to be aggressive, as they already got part of what they really want Furthermore, there seem to be some outer defense in the mountain, which would make it harder for them to unravel whatever it is the mountain is hiding.
However, our forces are currently outnumbered, so even thought we are surrendering the mountain, we might have not been able to hold it anyway even if we chose the other options due to lack of manpower, so consolidating to save resources and manpower might be the wiser choice. Maintaining the security of our territory with less than a Legion seems nonviable, especially considering how outnumbered we are, so we could simply be smartly giving away territory to save the remains of the Satrapy.
Another factor would be small scale combat would still be a viable method with Three Kingdoms, which benefits our faction the most. While we might have the smallest army of the factions, we are the faction with access to the greatest number of Exalts, which means something. Uly's skill set is also quite suited to this, having perfect disguise charms to help him move through enemy territory while also possessing high level combat power that allows him to fight the opposing Exalts.
As for Scarlet Flag, its main advantage is that it helps to shore up Zao. He is our main and strongest supporter in the Realm, so increasing his power and influence would help to mitigate how much impact Anys has on the navy. Furthermore, since Anys is now moving openly, if her actions are less than successful, it would help weaken her power and influence, which would be useful. Dealing with Zao would also tie up her resources and time, thus meaning that she would have less ability to assert her influence in our part of the world. Furthermore, Luseng is a coastal satrapy, so having the navy behind us would give us more options for our plans. With the benefits of Prophet, there would be fewer losses, so more manpower from the Navy can be directed by Zao to help reinforce us here in Luseng. The navy could also be used to help ferry our men for when we go on the offensive.
On the other hand, strengthen Zao too much might cause backlash from Anys. While Zao is too powerful, and she is juggling too many balls, if Zao is becoming too powerful for her to deal with, she might try something stupid to deal with him. While her priorities are kinda screwed, the execution of her plans are still good, no matter how retarded the aim of the plan is. Furthermore, since we are not using Prophet on the Satrapy, it means that if the position in the Satrapy is truly horrible, we still would have to deal with it. Basically, go big or go home. As soon as we arrive, we would need to do something big to unbalance the Coalition and buy ourselves some breathing room. This also means that we would have lesser time to familiarize ourselves with the troops and the terrain, which means a higher chance of screwing up. Due to the lack of information, we would not really be able to decide until we reach there, thought.
However, there are certain thing I believe can be done regardless of which choice wins. Firstly, I think we might want to approach the people on our ship to learn about them. Without a good idea of their abilities, we can't really make plans which will make full use of their abilities, after all. For example, we know that our aide flunked out of the Heptagram, but can he cast sorcery, how good is he at occult? We don't know those things even thought they could be helpful to us, allowing us to know who to delegate to what task, if nothing else.
Also, I don't really think that we might want to approach the city while staying on the ship. While the ship itself is being nice and visible, it might be better for us to sneak into the habour and observe who and what individuals are there. I don't believe that there are no spies from the other factions inside the city, so getting there before the ship gives us a chance to try and see if there are any suspicious individuals loitering around. It would also protect us just in case one of the three factions decide to alpha strike us when we are still on the ship.
Speaking of which, the Brotherhood who are following us can make themselves useful by helping to keep law and order in the city. They should have plenty of experience in investigating Anathema and calming civilians, so they can use those abilities while we try to get the house in order to restore order. The Immaculate Mission here is known for neglecting the civilians, so if we change that it should help with morale problems. In addition, the number of indisposed people means that we have a lot of idle hands which could be put to better use, and I doubt the war has helped the situation any
One thing we should take note of is that we currently still have a lot of resources in Luseng. Thus, we should make full use of it. Hire the pirates to help with our manpower. Contact Ayala and see if she is willing to trade us a Working for anything we have here. Bribe the gods into helping. Carry out investigations and find out more information about the situation and the mountain. If nothing else, the local legends and rumours about it can probably help us narrow it down.
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Of the three choices, Grand Heretical appeals to me the least. While its long term benefits are possibly the greatest, while also ensuring that Anys is caught up trying to put up fires instead of sitting around making trouble for us, our current situation needs something to happen ASAP to help Luseng. Furthermore, it will require our direct support and intervention, which we currently do not really have time for, needing to win this war. All these long term plans also seem relatively useless, with how greatly a situation can change from update to update.
Of the other two, I would be fine with either.
The biggest benefit of the Three Kingdoms is that it allows us to start empire building. It slows down the advance by the Coalition and splits them up into more manageable chunks, while buying time for Uly to prepare. Furthermore, by withdrawing the vast majority of the population into the capital, it makes their lives easier while also helping to reduce the amount of casualties that would be inflicted, thus helping garner goodwill towards us. The addition time can be used for us to put into place our various plans, reorganize as well as use our charms, while also allowing to request resources from the Realm to fortify our position. It makes large scale troop movements disadvantageous for all sides, which is only beneficial to us, considering that our forces are currently heavily depleted. And while the forces are nominally allied, if they decided to bull through the prediction, damn the bodies, they would be severely weakening their own faction, leaving them prey to the other two.
However, that time would also allow our enemies time to prepare, and unlike us, they have three different sources to draw reinforcements from. In addition, I seriously doubt Anys would allow us to happily sit here building up our powerbase if we are not weakening the other three factions. Conversely, she also cannot do anything too overt. She is unlikely to sabotage our military situation and make it less costly for the Coalition to claim Luseng, but will probably work on the civil and social aspect, to try and ensure that even if we are successful in saving Luseng, the inhabitants would not be as grateful as they could be.
In addition, allowing the Deathlords and the Lunars access to the mountain does not sound like the safest proposition. The best case scenerio for what is hidden inside the mountain is that it is merely a solid core of jade, whose strategic implications are already devastating enough. Its entirely possible that it is some extremely valuable first age creation. However, neither the Deathlords nor the Lunars are going to be really willing to split the mountain up, as its the main prize of this campaign. This also means that they probably would be less willing to be aggressive, as they already got part of what they really want Furthermore, there seem to be some outer defense in the mountain, which would make it harder for them to unravel whatever it is the mountain is hiding.
However, our forces are currently outnumbered, so even thought we are surrendering the mountain, we might have not been able to hold it anyway even if we chose the other options due to lack of manpower, so consolidating to save resources and manpower might be the wiser choice. Maintaining the security of our territory with less than a Legion seems nonviable, especially considering how outnumbered we are, so we could simply be smartly giving away territory to save the remains of the Satrapy.
Another factor would be small scale combat would still be a viable method with Three Kingdoms, which benefits our faction the most. While we might have the smallest army of the factions, we are the faction with access to the greatest number of Exalts, which means something. Uly's skill set is also quite suited to this, having perfect disguise charms to help him move through enemy territory while also possessing high level combat power that allows him to fight the opposing Exalts.
As for Scarlet Flag, its main advantage is that it helps to shore up Zao. He is our main and strongest supporter in the Realm, so increasing his power and influence would help to mitigate how much impact Anys has on the navy. Furthermore, since Anys is now moving openly, if her actions are less than successful, it would help weaken her power and influence, which would be useful. Dealing with Zao would also tie up her resources and time, thus meaning that she would have less ability to assert her influence in our part of the world. Furthermore, Luseng is a coastal satrapy, so having the navy behind us would give us more options for our plans. With the benefits of Prophet, there would be fewer losses, so more manpower from the Navy can be directed by Zao to help reinforce us here in Luseng. The navy could also be used to help ferry our men for when we go on the offensive.
On the other hand, strengthen Zao too much might cause backlash from Anys. While Zao is too powerful, and she is juggling too many balls, if Zao is becoming too powerful for her to deal with, she might try something stupid to deal with him. While her priorities are kinda screwed, the execution of her plans are still good, no matter how retarded the aim of the plan is. Furthermore, since we are not using Prophet on the Satrapy, it means that if the position in the Satrapy is truly horrible, we still would have to deal with it. Basically, go big or go home. As soon as we arrive, we would need to do something big to unbalance the Coalition and buy ourselves some breathing room. This also means that we would have lesser time to familiarize ourselves with the troops and the terrain, which means a higher chance of screwing up. Due to the lack of information, we would not really be able to decide until we reach there, thought.
However, there are certain thing I believe can be done regardless of which choice wins. Firstly, I think we might want to approach the people on our ship to learn about them. Without a good idea of their abilities, we can't really make plans which will make full use of their abilities, after all. For example, we know that our aide flunked out of the Heptagram, but can he cast sorcery, how good is he at occult? We don't know those things even thought they could be helpful to us, allowing us to know who to delegate to what task, if nothing else.
Also, I don't really think that we might want to approach the city while staying on the ship. While the ship itself is being nice and visible, it might be better for us to sneak into the habour and observe who and what individuals are there. I don't believe that there are no spies from the other factions inside the city, so getting there before the ship gives us a chance to try and see if there are any suspicious individuals loitering around. It would also protect us just in case one of the three factions decide to alpha strike us when we are still on the ship.
Speaking of which, the Brotherhood who are following us can make themselves useful by helping to keep law and order in the city. They should have plenty of experience in investigating Anathema and calming civilians, so they can use those abilities while we try to get the house in order to restore order. The Immaculate Mission here is known for neglecting the civilians, so if we change that it should help with morale problems. In addition, the number of indisposed people means that we have a lot of idle hands which could be put to better use, and I doubt the war has helped the situation any
One thing we should take note of is that we currently still have a lot of resources in Luseng. Thus, we should make full use of it. Hire the pirates to help with our manpower. Contact Ayala and see if she is willing to trade us a Working for anything we have here. Bribe the gods into helping. Carry out investigations and find out more information about the situation and the mountain. If nothing else, the local legends and rumours about it can probably help us narrow it down.
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meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
What do people think about getting Evocations for our armor by WtS? Because it would net us more of them, and the capstone Evocation is a pretty good situational insta-semi-perfect defense, continuos defense-booster and army-wrecker in one package, if used wisely.
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To introduce a fact, we must first clear the fact we want to introduce to the GM. We need a plausible excuses for why we might know the fact. Basically, we need either a lore specialty or background relating the fact we want to introduce. Then we make a roll. For every success over the difficulty we can introduce an addition fact. Now, you have an excuse t0 know OOC info IC.
IIRC, WtS would give us 8 to 10 evocations, which means that if we use it on the armour, we would be wasting unlocked evocations since we would unlock more evocations than the armour has.
Also, with our current XP total, I'm more partial getting to WtS, leaving 80k to either flashbuy Phoenix Renewal or Celestial Bliss
IIRC, WtS would give us 8 to 10 evocations, which means that if we use it on the armour, we would be wasting unlocked evocations since we would unlock more evocations than the armour has.
Also, with our current XP total, I'm more partial getting to WtS, leaving 80k to either flashbuy Phoenix Renewal or Celestial Bliss
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
On the other hand, we would likely be getting still less Evocations on Ambition than on the armor (because getting those for N/A Artifacts via WtS is much more difficult), even if they are more potent. And the capstone of the armor fits our current needs near-perfectly, so there is also that.
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We get ((Successes-Difficulty)/2)+1 Evocations, and we can probably expect around 25+ (max pools, stunts, Willpower, Excellencies, Peerless Skill, FSSA, HTC, Lore-boosting effects) successes. Difficulty is equal to Artifact rating +2 and 10 for N/A Artifacts.
So we'd be expecting to earn 9 Evocations for Storm Armor (with the potential to get 11 limited by SA's lack of Evocations) thus wasting successes. For Ambition we'd get 8+ Evocations.
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Van Ropen
Angry, angry about elves.
Rating + 2 I think?
Thanks. Good catch.
meianmaru
The Devourer of Fiction
Our rolls are starting to get somewhat ridiculuos for these kind of things, it seems. But yeah, I concede the point on the number of Evocations. I would still weight carefully if getting Eye of the Storm might be worth it anyway, and the Evocations along the way to it are by no means weak.
And as SA is, well, armor, its increased defensive benefits with its true power unlocked are not to be dismissed. It also seem some of the tricks it gives could work quite well when in conjuction with Ambition and our own native Charms, like making Clashing and overwhelming first-striking (which we have been kind of doing till now in our fights) more effective.
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[X] The Grand Heretical Prophecy
Vote tally:
##### 3.18
[X] The Grand Heretical Prophecy
No. of votes: 4
Usernames, afterthought53, Robotninja, CrawlingChaos74
[X] The Scarlet Flag Prophecy
No. of votes: 16
sithmor, Mannan, SirLagginton, Cavalier, Yun, VanusDraco, veekie, me.me.here, TMIoverload, 1986ctcel, Vitaris, Gaudy Guise, CharlBaal, Alectai, Dark Lord Bob, meianmaru
[X] The Three Kingdoms Prophecy
No. of votes: 4
Orm Embar, Guile, Anasurimbor,Van Ropen
[X] Wake the Sleeper
No. of votes: 5
Anasurimbor, CharlBaal, Dark Lord Bob, Van Ropen, meianmaru
[X] Unbreakable Will
No. of votes: 1
Alectai
##### 3.18
[X] The Grand Heretical Prophecy
No. of votes: 4
Usernames, afterthought53, Robotninja, CrawlingChaos74
[X] The Scarlet Flag Prophecy
No. of votes: 16
sithmor, Mannan, SirLagginton, Cavalier, Yun, VanusDraco, veekie, me.me.here, TMIoverload, 1986ctcel, Vitaris, Gaudy Guise, CharlBaal, Alectai, Dark Lord Bob, meianmaru
[X] The Three Kingdoms Prophecy
No. of votes: 4
Orm Embar, Guile, Anasurimbor,Van Ropen
[X] Wake the Sleeper
No. of votes: 5
Anasurimbor, CharlBaal, Dark Lord Bob, Van Ropen, meianmaru
[X] Unbreakable Will
No. of votes: 1
Alectai
[X] The Scarlet Flag Prophecy
[X] Wake the Sleeper
[X] Wake the Sleeper
I'm not sure I really like The Scarlet Flag Prophecy.
Rihaku already noted that with Luseng's resources the support the navy can actually offer us could very well turn out to be not that necessary or at least less useful than advertised and, while The Grand Heretical Prophecy doesn't have much immediate benefit, its effects can ultimately mess with Anys Syn's powerbase to a ridiculous degree, which can easily end up outweighing the benefit of reducing her erosion of Zao's powerbase.
It's worth to keep in mind that The Grand Heretical Prophecy or something along those lines will ultimately take a long time to cultivate and with us being incredibly busy in the immediate future and it being very unclear when enough shit will hit the fan that the conflict over the Realm comes to a climax, choosing something else now is probably going to lock us out of that approach forever.
Even if The Three Kingdoms Prophecy poses the risk of the Deathlord or Lunar getting access to the mountain and may deprive us of the opportunity for the immediate and impressive heroics we can use to start up our reputation as a Hero of the Realm and solidify the loyalty of this Satrapy (though Three Kingdoms is still very much worth it in my opinion), I'm not sure I can accept that as a reasoning to default to the Scarlet Flag.
Rihaku already noted that with Luseng's resources the support the navy can actually offer us could very well turn out to be not that necessary or at least less useful than advertised and, while The Grand Heretical Prophecy doesn't have much immediate benefit, its effects can ultimately mess with Anys Syn's powerbase to a ridiculous degree, which can easily end up outweighing the benefit of reducing her erosion of Zao's powerbase.
It's worth to keep in mind that The Grand Heretical Prophecy or something along those lines will ultimately take a long time to cultivate and with us being incredibly busy in the immediate future and it being very unclear when enough shit will hit the fan that the conflict over the Realm comes to a climax, choosing something else now is probably going to lock us out of that approach forever.
Even if The Three Kingdoms Prophecy poses the risk of the Deathlord or Lunar getting access to the mountain and may deprive us of the opportunity for the immediate and impressive heroics we can use to start up our reputation as a Hero of the Realm and solidify the loyalty of this Satrapy (though Three Kingdoms is still very much worth it in my opinion), I'm not sure I can accept that as a reasoning to default to the Scarlet Flag.