[Exalted, ?] Most High

[Orm Embar]

If we kill Lily, we definitely don't get Essence 5.

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We don't get E5 right this second. Saying will we never get is fearmongering just as much as what you're accusing us of doing. I mean, it's not as if we just had a decision point where we could get E5 in one action, right? The experience gained from killing her would go a long way towards bolstering our flagging reserves and would make Workings a much more economically feasible propositon.

We don't get a Solaroid-tier ally with social and combat competence. We don't get a useful second opinion with a differing perspective who might be able to point out things we miss and allow us to avoid making the HARD DECISIONS.

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I think I've made my views on that score clear. Conviction is nothing less than the cornerstone of Ulyssian's character, and turning against that is very thematically dissatisfying to me.

We don't have a friend who can help restrain Ulyssian in Limit Break.

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And by killing her in Limit Break now, we avoid the need for said restraint in the first place, and if we're lucky we can even figure out the problem.

We don't get a significant improvement in our chances to fight Anys Syn.

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We have already significantly improved our chances against her simply by acquiring the armor. The added training time we gain by not inciting war with the Realm should allow us to meditate our way up to E5.

We don't find out more about the Gardner.

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By not inviting the Lily to become our ally, we avoid having to worry about the Gardener gaining a foothold in Luseng; besides, the Seeds was said to know little of her, and he is much more knowledgeable than the Lily. In light of that, I think that allying her to gain insight into the Gardener is something of a false benefit.

We don't have the opportunity to start building a coalition of Celestial Exalted that can stand against any force in Creation, Yu Shan, Malfeas, or the Underworld.

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We already voted against the Seat of Empire, in favor of building taller and better. We have consistently chosen to preserve our connections with the Realm every time the option has been offered. I understand that you wanted to run off and do your own thing with fellow Celestials, but that decision point has come and gone.

We do murder a good person in cold blood because certain people were butthurt about the last vote. And the vote before that, for that matter.

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An excellent strawman. Indeed, we couldn't possibly have legitimate concerns. But anyway, better to murder the Lily in cold blood than potentially explode and murder the people that we actually have reason to care about in cold blood.

Because neither Ulyssian or Lily are presented as idiots.

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Ok, then how exactly are we to ally with an Anthema while not retroactively rendering all the work we have done to stay in contact with the Realm pointless? How is the Lily to employ her charisma without drawing attention? Of all the possible allies we could have, must we select the one with the least subtlety, when we are pursuing a path that virtually requires discretion?

 

[Aloysius]

I'm actually not that clear on why we would want to kill the Lily, I mean if we stay clear out of her way even without allying with her by leaving the Mountain alone, she play the role of buffer between us and whoever want what's inside or what want to comes out.
That's without considering the obvious benefit of an alliance, already outlined in the thread.
As to prevent our Anathema status to be revealed...we're nearly close to the time when we're supposed to disclose the truth to Saery and whatever Anys/Flame are cooking they're bound to reveal us for what we are pretty soonish. Cat's about to leave the bag. Beside let's not assume the Lily is incompetent either.

On thematic dissonance, while power and ruthlessness are staple of Odyssial, the end goal stays the birth of an utopia, him accepting that another perspective could better lead to the outcome he wish for is only a + to his totally practical mindset : he's not bound to any ideology. Beside whatever she say in the future, it will in an advisory role, if he think it's bullshit well we know the time he's ready to invest in such nonsense : none.
Let's also not forget that she did not come to her superhero mindset from raw shounen conviction but because her sister actually rationally proved or at least she think so, that her way was better than ours. What can be asserted in such a way can be disproved on the same terms. Our connection won't be unilateral.

The limit break is concerning, but if between Ramgar, whatever is in the Mountain, the checkefucks duo of Anys Flame, and whatver the Fae decide to do we don't find convenient target...we're really unlucky.

Anyway going to bed.

 

[Orm Embar]

A civil war doesn't matter if we can win it.

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Civil war doesn't matter? Are you serious? The hundreds of thousands of people who will inevitably die in such a conflict don't matter?

We don't miss out on the rapier/gauntlet since the Lily can make use of it.

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As could anyone who we bequeath the blade to. If we reach E5 (which seems likely to occur in the near future regardless of which option wins) we can Wake the Sleeper on it, bringing a new user up to par.

Severing us from the realm doesn't matter if we can beat the realm.

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This another one of those statements that is flatly dumbfounding. Even if we beat the Realm (itself a literally dicey proposition), surely there will be opportunity costs to doing so? Roads not taken, men and women (some of them friends and allies) lying dead in the streets simply because we could not undertake the simple acts necessary to avoid war.

A check on our power doesn't reduce our authority in Luseng it stops us killing people the next time we limit break. There's no way we can possibly solve the problem of limit breaking after doing it exactly once. If we limit break now we won't even notice the difference.

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No, a check on our power limits our power. That is literally the definition of the phrase. And no, if we accept an Intimacy, then Limit break, and have the time to analyze it, I think Ulyssian will catch on when he perceives the dissonance between his intentions and his actions.

Our powerbase isn't realm dependant that was the polis option where we gathered an army of dragonblooded. Metropolis relies on the strength of our mortal population who are already fanatically loyal to us.

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It was both the Polis option (to a lesser extent, because we can work to influence the Dragon-Blooded we have if they're not thousands of miles away) and the Metropolis. It was the Seat of Empire that was independent, which had us establishing the cadre of Celestials Cavalier seems to want so badly. The Metropolis leans heavily on economic power, useless if we get hit with boycotts, has no standing armies, and one of the primary benefits was standing within the Realm through securing the back of House Nellens. Nellens will drop us like a dead fish to preserve its own power if people connect us to the Anathema.

And no, the populace are not fanatically loyal to us anymore; we tanked that with our isolation, remember? It won't be recouped until our profits come in, which they won't if the Realm turns on us. I think compounding that with introduction of the Lily as an ally is a recipe for anarchy.

If we win the upcoming battle with Anys Syn we'll be ruling unopposed whether we get discovered or not since there won't be anyone in the realm strong enough to stop us. There's no point in maintaing the deception simply for the point of maintaining it, especially if it costs us valuable allies to do so. Maintaining the deception will continue to be an issue every time we try and ally with anyone who obviously isn't a DB.

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If we force Anys Syn to dismantle the Immaculate Faith in her efforts to kill then we can unravel it. But allying with the Lily will also cost us valuable allies, resources that are critically important, even if they don't have Appearance 7 and aren't starting us in the face. I see no point in handing Syn a convenient justification she can use to screw us over even more while protecting her assets.

We only spent half our XP on the battle with Lily and we've had several fan works since then so there's still plenty for sorcerous workings, especially with essence 5 and thus the cost reduction for adamant circle sorcery.

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And I want to get that. But the notion that it's the Lily and Sorcery or killing her and going without it is a false dichotomy being put forward by her advocates. We can get E5 and Sorcery in a single action, as the last decision point succinctly proves.

We've been pulling off the same sort of deception the entire quest despite also being terrible at lying and deceiving people.

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We are talented at subterfuge (Larceny 5), just not blatant manipulation. The Lily's personality is just horrible for it, anybody can see that.

 

[Cavalier]

You knew full well I meant we wouldn't get Essence 5 from this decision point. I was comparing the merits of turning her versus killing her at this decision point.

Ok, then how exactly are we to ally with an Anthema while not retroactively rendering all the work we have done to stay in contact with the Realm pointless? How is the Lily to employ her charisma without drawing attention? Of all the possible allies we could have, must we select the one with the least subtlety, when we are pursuing a path that virtually requires discretion?

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How about you raise an objection a third grader couldn't solve? We don't fucking tell anyone right away. But sooner or later it will become necessary to make open alliances with Celestial Exalted and cast down the Immaculate Order. When that time comes we can act openly. And in the short term we simply meet secretly and act independently but in concert with one another. Since Lily doesn't even seem to have objectives beyond guarding the mountain there's no particular reason this would be obvious, and since Ulyssian is not a moron we can trust he won't throw her a ticker-tape parade down the avenue in front of the Satrapal Palace.

And the Mountain is another area of ridiculous fear-mongering. "We won't get the financial resources of Jade Mountain!" Because it's clearly some mad whim of the Lily leaving her blocking it out, and not a shitload of narrative clues that there is something very dangerous there. An artificial mountain from the First Age; the only question is whether there's a Heckatonkhyre, Third Circle Demon, Automated defense system, or ridiculously power Hungry Ghost down there. And Rihaku already suggested raising the possibility of clearing the Mountain with her, which I already incorporated in the write-in.

And yeah I'm not a big fan of people acting like ideological robots. Ideology is always an incomplete and distorted way of viewing the world. Sacrificing consistency for not being a monster is always the right call. And if the Lily can help us not be a monster, if she can provide a coherent argument and actual alternatives to Ulyssian, then she's well worth having around. If we only wanted to be surrounded by a stable of lackies unable or unwilling to call him out on his bullshit then we should be playing Desus.

 

[Da Boyz]

@Rihaku when pursuing dialog with Lily we will be using Master Plan Meditation to boost our resolve right?

 

[Anasurimbor]

While not perfect, I really can't complain too much about the outcome, especially since we didn't spend all our XP.

[X] Spend Moderate Amounts of Willpower to Only Accept a Minor Intimacy of [Friendship towards The Lily]
This honestly seems pretty appropriate for the situation. Friendships formed in epic duels are not an uncommon thing. A major intimacy may be appropriate in time, but probably not yet.

[X] Continued Dialogue
I'll admit to being tempted to kill her, but ultimately she's too useful. We're going to need to work on her subtlety, though.

 

[Diller]

Yeah the whole reason we could even go with the disguise option was because Uly was already skilled at subterfuge. Lily is far more in your face as her presence based social indicates.

We really can't leverage Lily as much as we would like without her either taking time to train up skills that are litterally the opposite of how she acts or getting sorcery.

If we wanted Celestials to work openly we should have picked the seat of the Empire. Instead we picked the option that gave is the most influence in the realm.

Also while Anys May or may not bring the realm down on us.(As I've said before the bitch is both crazy and literally willingly to do anything if it fucks us over.) we really don't want to make it even easier for her. That might convince her to go down that particular route of fucking us over.

However all of this is kind of pointless without knowing if we've successfully turned her or not.

Thankfully the really good thing about Anys going into "gives no fucks" mode is she'll be personally coming to kill us to ensure we're gone which gives us te opportunity to kill her and with Anys gone the Realm will be ours. Especially if she's broke the immaculate faith as
She tried to kill us.

 

[LordOfMurder]

Civil war doesn't matter? Are you serious? The hundreds of thousands of people who will inevitably die in such a conflict don't matter?
As could anyone who we bequeath the blade to. If we reach E5 (which seems likely to occur in the near future regardless of which option wins) we can Wake the Sleeper on it, bringing a new user up to par.
This another one of those statements that is flatly dumbfounding. Even if we beat the Realm (itself a literally dicey proposition), surely there will be opportunity costs to doing so? Roads not taken, men and women (some of them friends and allies) lying dead in the streets simply because we could not undertake the simple acts necessary to avoid war.
No, a check on our power limits our power. That is literally the definition of the phrase. And no, if we accept an Intimacy, then Limit break, and have the time to analyze it, I think Ulyssian will catch on when he perceives the dissonance between his intentions and his actions.
It was both the Polis option (to a lesser extent, because we can work to influence the Dragon-Blooded we have if they're not thousands of miles away) and the Metropolis. It was the Seat of Empire that was independent, which had us establishing the cadre of Celestials Cavalier seems to want so badly. The Metropolis leans heavily on economic power, useless if we get hit with boycotts, has no standing armies, and one of the primary benefits was standing within the Realm through securing the back of House Nellens. Nellens will drop us like a dead fish to preserve its own power if people connect us to the Anathema.
If we force Anys Syn to dismantle the Immaculate Faith in her efforts to kill then we can unravel it. But allying with the Lily will also cost us valuable allies, resources that are critically important, even if they don't have Appearance 7 and aren't starting us in the face. I see no point in handing Syn a convenient justification she can use to screw us over even more while protecting her assets.
And I want to get that. But the notion that it's the Lily and Sorcery or killing her and going without it is a false dichotomy being put forward by her advocates. We can get E5 and Sorcery in a single action, as the last decision point succinctly proves.
We are talented at subterfuge (Larceny 5), just not blatant manipulation. The Lily's personality is just horrible for it, anybody can see that.

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You're adovcating for the Lathe of Heaven aren't you? In order to remake creation we'd have to destroy it first so all those people will die anyway.

I doubt it's going to be as useful in the hands of anyone else than in it would be in the lily's simply because she's stronger than any of our other allies. We can use wake the sleeper on it regardless of who has it except that the Lily also makes wake the sleeper more effective as well.

There are opportunity costs to every action. Besides it's not as if war with realm is inevitable if we ally with the Lily. However it's likely that a civil war will happen at some point regardless.

It's a check on our power to go mad and kill our friends. How is that not a good thing? Are you for freedom to the extent that you want the freedom to limit break and kill moon? As for accepting the intimacy I thought you were against that? In which case we'd just be killing someone who could become a threat if we let her live which doesn't exactly stand out as abnormal behavior.

The backing of House Nellens was because we were giving mortals a better standard of living not because we're an economic powerhouse. Given they're secretly ruled by mortals in defiance to the immaculate order I think we could talk them into supporting us regardless. Also the option specifically mentioned we'd pretty much have to ally with someone to survive and the Lily was one of those suggested allies. Unless you think we'd have more luck allying with the Fae.

What valuable resources does allying with the Lily cost us exactly?

Or we could get essence 5 now rather than relying on an option that might not show up before Anys Syn comes to crash the party.

The only insight we have into her personality is that she runs on virtue based ethics which doesn't really rule out disguise charms. Why would she not learn them when they'd be incredibly useful?

 

[Cavalier]

"Help me deal with Ragmar" and similar uses are not something that need be obvious to any Realm observer as long as she isn't parading with Ulyssian at the head of his legion, anyway. She isn't an assassin who can sneak back into the Realm and kill Mnemon (for example), but Ulyssian doesn't need an assassin.

NB: "Dealing with Ragmar" might just mean negotiating a secret nonaggression pact or it might mean murdering him. There are always multiple ways to skin a Lunar.

 

[Orm Embar]

You knew full well I meant we wouldn't get Essence 5 from this decision point. I was comparing the merits of turning her versus killing her at this decision point.

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Fair enough. Still, the prospect of getting E5 down the road means that this option does not provide an absolutely unique increase in personal power, which is what other people have seemingly been implying.

How about you raise an objection a third grader couldn't solve? We don't fucking tell anyone right away. But sooner or later it will become necessary to make open alliances with Celestial Exalted and cast down the Immaculate Order. When that time comes we can act openly. And in the short term we simply meet secretly and act independently but in concert with one another. Since Lily doesn't even seem to have objectives beyond guarding the mountain there's no particular reason this would be obvious, and since Ulyssian is not a moron we can trust he won't throw her a ticker-tape parade down the avenue in front of the Satrapal Palace.

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Okay, but if the Lily is just sitting there guarding the Mountain, we are hardly utilizing her in the way people seem to want to. And if she's just going to stay there offering aid to passers-by and discouraging entry into the Mountain, she's hardly of much use to us; less use than 175k experience to spend on future Workings, a full tank of Willpower, a discharged Limit Break, possible knowledge of what it means to Limit Break, and an incredibly valuable Artifact to bestow on an ally of our choosing, I would argue.

And the Mountain is another area of ridiculous fear-mongering. "We won't get the financial resources of Jade Mountain!" Because it's clearly some mad whim of the Lily leaving her blocking it out, and not a shitload of narrative clues that there is something very dangerous there. An artificial mountain from the First Age; the only question is whether there's a Heckatonkhyre, Third Circle Demon, Automated defense system, or ridiculously power Hungry Ghost down there. And Rihaku already suggested raising the possibility of clearing the Mountain with her, which I already incorporated in the write-in.

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I've never claimed there wasn't something down there; all the evidence suggests that there is. I am, however, also a fan of not needing to poke the metaphorical balrog because our other sources of revenue remain intact.

And yeah I'm not a big fan of people acting like ideological robots. Ideology is always an incomplete and distorted way of viewing the world. Sacrificing consistency for not being a monster is always the right call. And if the Lily can help us not be a monster, if she can provide a coherent argument and actual alternatives to Ulyssian, then she's well worth having around. If we only wanted to be surrounded by a stable of lackies unable or unwilling to call him out on his bullshit then we should be playing Desus.

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Part of the wonder of Creation is that, unlike the Earth we live in, we can afford to have that beautiful purity of ideology. I reject the notion that Ulyssian is wrong to believe he does, and that distraction and compromise will somehow create a better future than the willingness to actually knuckle down and find a way to said future.

"When the world and an ideal exist in disharmony, it is not the ideal that is wrong. It is not the ideal that has to change. It is the world."

A somewhat overused quote, but applicable in this situation.

 

[LordOfMurder]

If we wanted Celestials to work openly we should have picked the seat of the Empire. Instead we picked the option that gave is the most influence in the realm.

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This is wrong Polis gave us the most influence in the realm because it was the option where we raised armies of DB's. Metropolis is the option that gave us the most influence in Luseng because it focuses on improving the lives of the mortals under our rule.

 

[Diller]

"Help me deal with Ragmar" and similar uses are not something that need be obvious to any Realm observer as long as she isn't parading with Ulyssian at the head of his legion, anyway. She isn't an assassin who can sneak back into the Realm and kill Mnemon (for example), but Ulyssian doesn't need an assassin.

NB: "Dealing with Ragmar" might just mean negotiating a secret nonaggression pact or it might mean murdering him. There are always multiple ways to skin a Lunar.

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Hence why I advocated doing exactly this while we figured out a way to communicate with Lily that wouldn't make the fact we were allied with her super obvious.

Ulyssain still doesn't know that Anys has gone nuclear so it stands to reason he isn't about to give up the game just yet.

 

[Ghost]

[X] Spend Moderate Amounts of Willpower to Only Accept a Minor Intimacy of[Friendship towards The Lily]

[X] Continued Dialogue

The cool thing about 3e's social mechanics is that Defining and Major Intimacies are your major defense, even with Integrity charms you don't have much more than your excellency to add to your dice pool or static values. This and Lily's lackluster guile should guard Ully against unreasonable intimacy creation, but the obstinancy title package should probably be picked up pretty soon, Righteous Lion Defense is pretty useful.

 

[Orm Embar]

You're adovcating for the Lathe of Heaven aren't you? In order to remake creation we'd have to destroy it first so all those people will die anyway.

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I was arguing from the hypothetical perspective of someone who actually cares about the lives of the masses, which most people in this thread seem to.

I doubt it's going to be as useful in the hands of anyone else than in it would be in the lily's simply because she's stronger than any of our other allies. We can use wake the sleeper on it regardless of who has it except that the Lily also makes wake the sleeper more effective as well.

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The rapier and gauntlet could also serve as a powerful bargaining chip, and I don't know if we want to empower potential rivals to Ulyssian's reign, honestly.

There are opportunity costs to every action. Besides it's not as if war with realm is inevitable if we ally with the Lily. However it's likely that a civil war will happen at some point regardless.

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Do you really want to give them an Anathema-ruled Satrapy to unite against? Someone (a clever and hateful Sidereal, for example) might decide that the best way to forge the Realm into one cohesive unit to fight against threats to Creation, would be to point them at us. It's possible that Syn could avoid the Civil War, but you know what? That's a bad thing, if it's replaced with the war on Giga-Satan.

It's a check on our power to go mad and kill our friends. How is that not a good thing? Are you for freedom to the extent that you want the freedom to limit break and kill moon?

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No, I am categorically against killing Moon, as you well know, but there's only one option here which has that as a significant risk, and you damned well know that too. This line of argumentation is disingenuous to the point of hilarity; I would happily embrace the Lily as a comrade if it meant guaranteeing Moon's saftety. Moon's well-being is, like, half the reason I'm fighting against this option. Discharging the immediate threat of Limit Break and recognizing the risks inherent to having a non-Abyssal Celestial Exaltation are very important for that.

The backing of House Nellens was because we were giving mortals a better standard of living not because we're an economic powerhouse. Given they're secretly ruled by mortals in defiance to the immaculate order I think we could talk them into supporting us regardless. Also the option specifically mentioned we'd pretty much have to ally with someone to survive and the Lily was one of those suggested allies. Unless you think we'd have more luck allying with the Fae.

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Nellens' position is highly precarious, precisely because they're ruled by mortals. People know this; Talomar spoke openly of the people in charge, joked that one of them might possibly be a Lunar. Given how powerful the Immaculate Order is and how they would dearly love to eradicate Nellens for being an affront to the Immaculate Hierarchy, there's no way they would be willing to risk openly supporting us.

What valuable resources does allying with the Lily cost us exactly?

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Nellens' support, prevent economic sanctions from being levied against us, doesn't give Syn a justification to throw Realm legions at us, preserves the purity of Ulyssian's convictions, doesn't let us throw around an Artifact 5(?) weapon as an incentive in negotiations, and it hurts our standing with the people of Luseng at a time when we can't afford discord (our friends are arriving).

Or we could get essence 5 now rather than relying on an option that might not show up before Anys Syn comes to crash the party.

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We have 10 days at the minimum; this can't have taken more than two. If we want to take the time to do it, we have the time.

The only insight we have into her personality is that she runs on virtue based ethics which doesn't really rule out disguise charms. Why would she not learn them when they'd be incredibly useful?

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We have been told, repeatedly, by Rihaku, that she is terrible at deception. She has Manipulation 1, and if she has a single dot of Larceny I will literally eat my hat.

It's a damned big hat, too.

 

[Rihaku]

There is one very important thing to consider: What exactly would you have Lily do, and how would you convince her to do it? If you take in her refugees as you plan, do you just intend to tell her to keep guarding the Emerald Mountain? Will she venture around the now nearly-empty territory whose entire population is concentrated in your city? Or will she be placed where she can do the most good, within Luseng itself, where she can buff you and your allies and serve as a defensive bulwark against any invasion?

If the latter, that is sort of awkward to explain. On the other hand, if you won't take in her refugees, why would she ally with you? What benefits does it confer?

I mean, it's very possible that she could simply decide that, having convinced you to take in her refugees, her work in Luseng Province is done and it's time for the knight-errant to errant away, someplace where she's more needed. That's an issue you may have to contend with anyway.

That said, the level of vitriol in these arguments is getting a bit high, so please tone it down. There is hyperbolic information on both sides, and we wouldn't want voters to actually be convinced that such hyperbole will be reflected in the story itself. As I've said multiple times in the past - keep an open mind, so that you don't sabotage your own enjoyment of the game by making an option out to be something it's not.

@Rihaku when pursuing dialog with Lily we will be using Master Plan Meditation to boost our resolve right?

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You don't have Master Plan Meditation. It doesn't matter though, social attacks are rare enough that you can just manually raise with Integrity. The real issue is that her dice tricks (Listener-Swaying Argument and the like) make even a maxed Resolve score unreliable. But that's a sword that can cut both ways in Social Combat.

I'll admit to being tempted to kill her, but ultimately she's too useful. We're going to need to work on her subtlety, though.

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I don't know how possible that will be.

 

[Orm Embar]

The cool thing about 3e's social mechanics is that Defining and Major Intimacies are your major defense, even with Integrity charms you don't have much more than your excellency to add to your dice pool or static values. This and Lily's lackluster guile should guard Ully against unreasonable intimacy creation

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Right, because it's not like we have to spend Willpower to avoid having a Major Intimacy to her after meeting her for the first time. No, surely there's no risk of her gaining an undue amount of influence over us!

but the obstinancy title package should probably be picked up pretty soon, Righteous Lion Defense is pretty useful.

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I doubt we can afford to purchase these Charms people are so intent on with our current experience total; there's also the opportunity costs of having to spend Charms on social defense, which is utterly useless against Anys Syn.

 

[Cavalier]

We can take in her refugees and she can help us clear the Mountain once we bring in some mercenaries and allies, and she can help us deal with Ragmar. Either by aiding us in negotiating a secret treaty, or dealing with him the other way if he proves unreasonable. Destroying the Raksha would also be doing Creation a great deal of good. If she wants to Knight-Errant after Luseng has been made safe for mortals, well, at least she'll be a contact for future chapters of the story.

And of course, she can buff Wake the Sleeper and be around if a certain Sidereal Akuma makes a surprise visit...

If she wants her refugees taken in that's all and well, and she can either stay hidden in the capital or find some other congenial place to stay. While she isn't good at Deception, unless someone is actively looking for her she and Ulyssian should be able to work something out there.

 

[Anasurimbor]

Did we ever get any write-ins for letters to our friends back at the academy? How long do we have on those?

 

[Orm Embar]

Did we ever get any write-ins for letters to our friends back at the academy? How long do we have on those?

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Emerald Oracle put something together, I think.

Oh, and here's something that hasn't been brought up: turning the Lily is not guaranteed to succeed. We have won the fight, yes, but that was always the easy part (relatively speaking), given Ulyssian's martial prowess. So if we swing and miss with Ulyssian's terrible social stats, then guess what? No ally and no Limit Break.

 

[Cerillian]

I mean, it's very possible that she could simply decide that, having convinced you to take in her refugees, her work in Luseng Province is done and it's time for the knight-errant to errant away, someplace where she's more needed. That's an issue you may have to contend with anyway

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I'd actually be fairly ok with that. If we can 'drive her off,' thats nearly as good as killing her, so long as she is no longer in the region and not working for her deathlord.

If we knew about it, I'd be all for her heading off to help fight HMK, for instance. I'd even be pleasantly surprised if she survived that.

 

[Windlass]

I dunno, do gut feelings and base emotional reasons for not liking Lily count as arguments?

She's just irksome, honestly. Pure and innocent and idealistic and perfectly moral and also a fighter on the same level that we are despite that? It's just... bah, she's so sickeningly nice that she's totally uninteresting as a character to me.

 

[Alectai]

Emerald Oracle put something together, I think.

Oh, and here's something that hasn't been brought up: turning the Lily is not guaranteed to succeed. We have won the fight, yes, but that was always the easy part (relatively speaking), given Ulyssian's martial prowess. So if we swing and miss with Ulyssian's terrible social stats, then guess what? No ally and no Limit Break.

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Point of order? Our chances of flipping her were "Decent", we've taken bigger risks for less gain than this.

 

[Diller]

Emerald Oracle put something together, I think.

Oh, and here's something that hasn't been brought up: turning the Lily is not guaranteed to succeed. We have won the fight, yes, but that was always the easy part (relatively speaking), given Ulyssian's martial prowess. So if we swing and miss with Ulyssian's terrible social stats, then guess what? No ally and no Limit Break.

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No E5 either. Oh and there's nothing preventing Lily from potentially telling her deathlord and Neverborn Masters that she lost her armor to some guy named Odyissial.

 

[Emerald Oracle]

What exactly would you have Lily do, and how would you convince her to do it? If you take in her refugees as you plan, do you just intend to tell her to keep guarding the Emerald Mountain? Will she venture around the now nearly-empty territory whose entire population is concentrated in your city? Or will she be placed where she can do the most good, within Luseng itself, where she can buff you and your allies and serve as a defensive bulwark against any invasion?

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My personal preference for stationing the Lily would be as follows: Ulyssian takes and guards her friends from harm within Luseng, allowing them to live happy and productive lives. This frees her up to do stuff in both the newly depopulated zone AND around the Emerald Mountain. For the nonce, she will continue to guard said Mountain and prevent the Lunar from doing whatever the hell he wants to do with it. However, using the shiny E5 Ulyssian would get from convincing her to join him AND the extant experience pool, he'd get himself to Solar Circle Sorcery. Then, soon thereafter he could perfrom a working of some sort like a somebody else's problem field.

The Lily gets said Field and the inhabitants of Luseng don't recognize her AS the Lily or don't care or she is otherwise made non-objectionable by way of MAGIC. Either immediately before or after that Ulyssian gathers whatever forces he can for the task and makes the Emerald Mountain safe so she doesn't feel compelled to guard it. This may or may not include wiping out Ragnar depending on circumstances.

Then, without further extant guard duties, the merry Circle shall return to Luseng and Do Science help the City.

 

[Orm Embar]

Point of order? Our chances of flipping her were "Decent", we've taken bigger risks for less gain than this.

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Well, since I've spent literally like seven hours arguing that the gains for this option are not even remotely great, I think it's obvious that I disagree. Even if the Lily were willing to accept our orders (hint: she's not), the opportunity costs of not killing her now with our Limit Break are enormous.

Are you willing to put our friends at risk for a 'decent' chance at making a new ally, who is incapable of subtlety and will not stay around to aid us? I'm not. My priorities are Moon and power, in that order. This endangers Moon and could cost us the conviction from which our power springs, so my choice is crystal clear.