If we took all of the piety actions, would it soften the blow of calling in The Compact? Like, if we had our own power block set up, we could use that to establish a bit of a formalised format to the thing and have some momentum to this being a meeting rather than a fight by the time that the big names arrived. If we contacted the Divine Bureaucracy we could get a diplomatic delegation from them. If we summon Oskaria then she could host the thing as a formal meeting taking place in her building, and might not even need Ophelia for it.

... So could we have a bunch of "Grand Convention of the Spirits" actions to organise delegations and/or prevent party-crashers and to stop it from just being a big free-for-all? Could we get a stewardship action to try to arrange a spiritual conference that isn't a complete disaster?

It could work, but the problem here is that we lack the actions to spare. Focusing on the spiritual side of affairs isn't something we can't afford to do because we have greater concerns in the mortal side of things by the dint of there being more concerns. All of our free actions have to go to wangling the various factions in the city and even, we still don't have enough actions. If we can get the diplo side of things stable, we could try a big play on the piety side, but until then, we need to keep the diplo affairs from going up in flames.
 
If the Celestial Bureaucracy begins to move in to replace the local spirits, I don't think getting more information on the Shi Anh spirits or getting the local spirits on our side is going to be significantly helpful if the situation gets that bad. I'm not disagreeing about the local spirits being too weak to stop the Shi Ank spirits moving in if the latter decides they really want to do that. If that comes to pass, my plan is to use our Divine Compact panic button. Piety 23+3 (Free Action)+3 (Major Boon)+2 (Incense Candles) will guarantee calling in the Divine Compact to deal with the foreigner spirits moving in on their turf and that is about the best we can do with the other two piety options being insignificant in the face of that. Worst comes to the worst, we pull out Ophelia-Oskaria and hope that Ophelia comes out of it okay.

Getting the local spirits on our side isn't about them stopping the Celestial Bureaucracy if the Shi Anh spirits try to start replacing them. It is about ensuring that we don't get blindsided or opposed by the actions of the spiritual entity. Given how that has turned out in the past (Order turning on the noble army in The Origin of the Specie or the local spirits get angry in Grainy Resolution), I am very eager to avoid being on the receiving end of that given how influential even weak spirits can be on the affairs of mortals.
It's not explicitly about the Celestial Bureaucracy replacing the local spirits. It's about them doing whatever it is that they're doing. We know they're doing something, and we don't know what, so we can't influence it and we can't take advantage of it, and we're not in a position to thwart it if we need to.

The Shi Anh are a massive opportunity, at a time when our kingdom is desperately in need to massive opportunities. It just has dangers attached. Calling in the Compact has a very good chance of throwing away both those dangers and that opportunity... when we could instead position ourselves to be able to just convince them to do things in a somewhat different way. The Shi Anh and their spirits only somewhat understand us. We only somewhat understand them. They could very easily do us terrible damage by mistake... or, alternately, if we get enough insight and enough influence, we could shape the interaction to be something that would be very, very good.

Like, yeah. If all you're seeing is the danger, then battening down the hatches as hard as we can and fingering our spiritual panic buttons might be the right answer, but Oskaria is in a precarious position in multiple ways, and this whole Shi Ahn thing is potentially a way out of at least one of them. Just making the situation go away is a loss, not a win. To make it a win, we need to get grips on it, and for that, we need more info on the local Celestial Bureaucracy.

Seriously, there's a nontrivial chance that we'd want them to supplant the local spirits, if we could make it happen in the right way, but we don't even know what the options for "right way" are yet.
 
It's not explicitly about the Celestial Bureaucracy replacing the local spirits. It's about them doing whatever it is that they're doing. We know they're doing something, and we don't know what, so we can't influence it and we can't take advantage of it, and we're not in a position to thwart it if we need to.

The Shi Anh are a massive opportunity, at a time when our kingdom is desperately in need to massive opportunities. It just has dangers attached. Calling in the Compact has a very good chance of throwing away both those dangers and that opportunity... when we could instead position ourselves to be able to just convince them to do things in a somewhat different way. The Shi Anh and their spirits only somewhat understand us. We only somewhat understand them. They could very easily do us terrible damage by mistake... or, alternately, if we get enough insight and enough influence, we could shape the interaction to be something that would be very, very good.

Like, yeah. If all you're seeing is the danger, then battening down the hatches as hard as we can and fingering our spiritual panic buttons might be the right answer, but Oskaria is in a precarious position in multiple ways, and this whole Shi Ahn thing is potentially a way out of at least one of them. Just making the situation go away is a loss, not a win. To make it a win, we need to get grips on it, and for that, we need more info on the local Celestial Bureaucracy.

Seriously, there's a nontrivial chance that we'd want them to supplant the local spirits, if we could make it happen in the right way, but we don't even know what the options for "right way" are yet.

Well in that case, we will just have to disagree on the matter. I consider making sure we don't get blindsided by the local spirits more important than being blindsided by the foreign ones whilst you consider it to be the other way around.
 
THE WEB OF TREASON MONTH 15 ROLL CALL
Plan Shi Anh Prep Work wins 7-3-1.

Roll me 15d100s.

Martial
Running at Sufficient Velocity

DC: 15. Roll: 17 + 2 + 4.6.

Cost: 4 Budget.

Diplomacy
The Westerlies

DC: 29. Roll: 20 + 3 + 1 + 1.

Cost: 4 Budget.

Diplomacy
The Merchant Houses

DC: 25. Roll: 20 + 2.

Cost: 4 Budget.

Diplomacy
The Academy

DC: 23. Roll: 20 + 2.

Cost: 2 Budget.

Intrigue
The Mob

DC: 25. Roll: 22 + 2.

Cost: 4 Budget.

Learning
Cataloging Shi Anh Treasures

DC: Scaling. Roll: 23.

Cost: 4 Budget.

Stewardship
Expense Accounts

DC: 27. Roll: 24 + 4.3 + 1.7.

Cost: 0 Budget.

Piety
The Spirits aboard the Ship

DC: 28. Roll: 23 + 2 + 2.

Cost: 4 Budget.

Event Chain 2A "The Siege of Castle Liyovyi"
Event Chain 2B "The Allied Advance"
Event Chain 2C "The Last Gasps of the Baron"
Event Chain 2D "The Pincer Force"

Event Chain 5A "The Agenda of the Shi Anh"
Event Chain 5B "???"

Random Event Roll
 
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Roll out with the Tax Spooder!

Edit: lol, looks like I'm still paying for my earlier crits. Sorry guys.

Damn, think I made us fail one of our most important ones too.
Blonddude42 threw 1 100-faced dice. Reason: Roll Total: 8
8 8
 
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So mostly positive for the event rolls, besides the soldiers coming home, the allies flailing about hopelessly even more, and the mystery event. Hopefully it is not enough to set everything on fire again.
 
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