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[Exalted, ?] Most High

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If we fail to convince the two Dragonblooded who might be saved (but probably won't be), we wind up having to kill them anyway and facing a tougher battle with the Deathknight. Whereas we can take the Deathknight's help dispatching the Immaculates (saving resources and effort) and try to convince the two Dragonblooded who can be saved (but probably won't be) afterward. The argument for taking Vengeance is largely based on the extremely unlikely scenario that Ulyssian can somehow convince five Immaculate shikari that he isn't really an Anathema, or that he's a "good Anathema;" the part of it that isn't based on infantile pique over how dare an NPC present a significant challenge. Or a complete inability to recognize irony given Odyssial was Heartlessness 10.

At this point taking the Necromancer's offer to parley makes dealing with the Immaculates easier. It avoids a battle right away, or if there is one the preservation of motes and willpower would make it easier. We may as well hear out what he has to say and get his help killing the Immaculates. We can still take a shot at preserving the other two by intimidating them into loyalty or something of that sort. But the Immaculates simply cannot be saved and anyone voting on that basis is frankly delusional.
 
We butchered a circle of shikari (well, almost completely butchered) who were sent against us by Syn earlier. I fail to see how the current situation differs significantly from that; we don't even have the advantage of their hands being tied by our exoneration or of being able to foist anyone we spare off onto Zao, who knows the truth behind the Immaculate Philosophy and is in a position to prove it. The sad truth of the matter is that we were outmaneuvered and have to make the best of a bad situation. Delegate does that.
 
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Rihaku said:
If you pick Vengeance, you will knock them out first and then kill Seeds before trying to persuade them.

I don't recommend trying to keep Seeds unconscious.
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Wait so we have to fight our entire DB entourage regardless of what we chose? Would it be possible for us to get their loyalty before fighting Seeds and having them help us fight the Shikari if we had a stunt.
 
Da Boyz said:
Wait so we have to fight our entire DB entourage regardless of what we chose? Would it be possible for us to get their loyalty before fighting Seeds and having them help us fight the Shikari if we had a stunt.
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Not the Shikari - the other two, I guess we theoretically could. The chances of that though...
 
Orm Embar said:
I know; we're basically picking two Dragon-Blooded operatives and 150k experience and opportunity to ally with the other abyssals or the Fair Folk over being locked into an alliance with the Seeds, which is just a bad idea, at least from my perspective. We're not even guaranteed to win them over.
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FTY
 
Orm Embar said:
I know; we're basically picking two Dragon-Blooded operatives and 150k experience over an alliance with the Seeds, which is just a bad idea, at least from my perspective. We're not even guaranteed to win them over.
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Was talking to Cav.

An alliance with Poppy is not necessarily worth more than 150k, 2 DB and proof that we killed an Anathema. For one, there are other possible parties that we can ally with such as one of the other two Abyssals. Furthermore, even if we ally with him, his strengths are on the more obvious side, thus making it very hard for us to benefit from it. While he can offer help, it would be very hard for us to draw upon his workings or infrastructure, which is where he shines at.

In addition, if we do lose all 7 DB and come back empty handed, it is going to throw a huge blow on the reputation, respect and morale that we built up in Luseng. Even we if have to kill everyone else, if we choose Vengeance, we at least would have an Anathema to show for our losses, as well as 150k. XP is very precious at this stage, as due to the lack of training time, we basically have to flash buy anything and everything we need to get. It would also lessen any suspicion that we are an Anathema that lured the DB to their deaths to get rid of them.

We also don't know IC anything about his motivations, and were pretty horrified by the sights we saw when we entered. At least Parley has us exchange information before deciding if we want to ally with him, but delegate does so despite the fact that we have no IC reason on why we would want to ally with him.
 
Da Boyz said:
Wait so we have to fight our entire DB entourage regardless of what we chose? Would it be possible for us to get their loyalty before fighting Seeds and having them help us fight the Shikari if we had a stunt.
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Seeds is right there in a battle-ready gravestrider, so do you intend to convince the DBs to be loyal to you in one action when you've just been "revealed" as Anathema?
 
your argument was that we can't go back to luseng with a bunch of dead exalts and no anathema to show for it

we can easily have an "anathema" to show for it, we've been fooling them with the fire caste disguise this entire time

hell, the dead exalts can easily be fixed as well, and the shikari would be compliant for once
 
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Serous said:
An alliance with Poppy is not necessarily worth more than 150k, 2 DB and proof that we killed an Anathema. For one, there are other possible parties that we can ally with such as one of the other two Abyssals. Furthermore, even if we ally with him, his strengths are on the more obvious side, thus making it very hard for us to benefit from it. While he can offer help, it would be very hard for us to draw upon his workings or infrastructure, which is where he shines at.
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The Thorns is apparently not a very likely ally for us, as we have Nilul to cover the social angle and he's been avoiding us. The Lily is an uncomfortably persuasive murderhobo and the Raksha are... well, they're Raksha. Not ally material.

As for proof that we killed an Anathema, the Seeds could easily manufacture such, and might be amenable to laying low if we gave him something valuable... like seven Dragon-Blooded to experiment on. The loss of the shikari will hurt our reputation, but they're fucked anyway, it should be possible to deceive everyone else into thinking we killed the Seeds. The deception would serve a number of purposes, too, as it might let him take his fellow Abyssals by surprise. He could be one hell of an ace in the hole.
 
arsdraconis said:
your argument was that we can't go back to luseng with a bunch of dead exalts and no anathema to show for it

we can easily have an "anathema" to show for it, we've been fooling them with the fire caste disguise this entire time

hell, the dead exalts can easily be fixed as well, and the shikari would be compliant for once
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Faking Exalt-tier powers and their memories + personalities would be no easy feat.
 
Orm Embar said:
The Thorns is apparently not a very likely ally for us, as we have Nilul to cover the social angle and he's been avoiding us. The Lily is an uncomfortably persuasive murderhobo and the Raksha are... well, they're Raksha. Not ally material.

As for proof that we killed an Anathema, the Seeds could easily manufacture such, and might be amenable to laying low if we gave him something valuable... like seven Dragon-Blooded to experiment on. The loss of the shikari will hurt our reputation, but they're fucked anyway, it should be possible to deceive everyone else into thinking we killed the Seeds. The deception would serve a number of purposes, too, as it might let him take his fellow Abyssals by surprise. He could be one hell of an ace in the hole.
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If Seeds does lay low, it'll be harder for him to gather resources and it'll look worse for you when he inevitably does return. Unless you think you can persuade him to lay low forever!
 
Rihaku said:
If Seeds does lay low, it'll be harder for him to gather resources and it'll look worse for you when he inevitably does return. Unless you think you can persuade him to lay low forever!
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Hm, by that time we should've solidified our control over Luseng... It doesn't have to be forever, I'd just prefer whatever edge we can get when dealing with unknowns like the Gardener and combat-specialized Exalts like the Lily.
 
Orm Embar said:
The Thorns is apparently not a very likely ally for us, as we have Nilul to cover the social angle and he's been avoiding us. The Lily is an uncomfortably persuasive murderhobo and the Raksha are... well, they're Raksha. Not ally material.
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She's not persuasive she's charismatic, since she apparently futilely tries to get people to stop worshipping her so I don't think we need to worry THAT much about her turning us into her faithful sidekick (and allying with her saves us a boatload of XP spent on attributes and Solar Presence charms AND she'd be capable of taking care of herself unlike Nilul who remains squishy without us to protect her)
 
Orm Embar said:
Hm, by that time we should've solidified our control over Luseng... It doesn't have to be forever, I'd just prefer whatever edge we can get when dealing with unknowns like the Gardener and combat-specialized Exalts like the Lily.
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You're not going to fool the Gardener into thinking he's dead, because all she has to do is notice that his Exaltation hasn't returned to her. Mind you, allying with us doesn't necessarily involve Seeds rebelling against her, though it very well could. A parley would give us some much needed information here.
 
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1986ctcel said:
She's not persuasive she's charismatic, since she apparently futilely tries to get people to stop worshipping her
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The fact that she has people worshiping her without even really trying speaks volumes about the risk that interacting with her presents. Rihaku did mention being 'befriended' by her as a possible outcome.

I think developing Presence Charms of our own is worthwhile investment; Odyssial certainly found them very useful. Our allies will not always be around to do our persuasion for us, as this situation illustrates. Necromancy represents a unique capability we will probably never invest in.
Anasurimbor said:
You're not going to fool the Gardener into thinking he's dead, because all she has to do is notice that his Exaltation hasn't returned to her. Mind you, allying with us doesn't necessarily involve Seeds rebelling against her, though it very well could. A parley would give us some much needed information here.
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Fair enough. It could still be a valuable advantage against the Raksha or the other Abyssals. The information he could provide alone would be worth its weight in orichalcum.
 
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Making Poppy lie low basically means that his usefulness to us becomes a lot less. In terms of combat, he is quite weak outside of his Gravestrider, which is anything but subtle, and thus would be very hard to surprise anyone with.

His main usefulness is his infrastructure and necromancy, both of which would be far less attractive if he has to lie low. He is the only necromancer of real power that is currently active around Luseng, and thus any necromancy he carries out would be a blatant sign that he is not dead. If he does not abandon his known holdings, it would be easy for anyone who wants to confirm his death to find him by simply checking.

While he can set up base in a new location, the resources that would be needed to help him build his base need to come from somewhere, and since he is lying low, it would be hard for him to procure them. It also means that any research that he does would be slower and less effective than it otherwise would be.

Furthermore, this all assumes that he would be willing to do so. Even if we become allies with him, it would be a give and take relationship, and the price he might want for all this inconvenience might not be something that we are willing to pay.
 
Plus we could just sign a non-aggression pact with him (I leave you alone and you leave me alone) while actually allying with one of the others.
Orm Embar said:
The fact that she has people worshiping her without even really trying speaks volumes about the risk that interacting with her presents. Rihaku did mention being 'befriended' by her as a possible outcome.
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Simple then we don't fight her and simply engage in SOCIAL combat (you can't get befriended if they can't pound you into the dirt beforehand) when we come face to face.

Orm Embar said:
I think developing Presence Charms of our own is worthwhile investment; Odyssial certainly found them very useful. Our allies will not always be around to do our persuasion for us, as this situation illustrates. Necromancy represents a unique capability we will probably never invest in.
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Necromancy is just the death-themed version of Sorcery isn't it? It seems superflous since We're likely already going to get Sorcery ourselves AND we can work on turning Ayala to our side so we'd have two Solar Circle Sorceror's on our side.
 
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