[X] Plan Flip The Table
-[X] [Oil] Yes (1 Cash Flow immediately)
-[X] [Martial] Who's Who
-[X] [Diplomacy + Free] An Invitation
-[X] [Free] The Church
-[X] [Intrigue] Networking Opportunities
-[X] [Free] Some Long Delayed Questions
-[X] [Learning] Potions For Sale
-[X] [Stewardship] Appraisals
--[X] Use Potion of Clarity on Appraisals
-[X] [Piety] The Spirits Aboard the Ship
--[X] Use Incense Candles on Spirits Aboard the Ship
Okay, let's face the truth, we've been losing ever since we came to this city. Why? Because we had the Shi Anh show up and didn't have enough actions to deal with both them and the traitors, resulting in us getting behind in diplomacy actions. There are too many factions and not enough actions so we are behind the eight ball.
It's time to flip the table, because if we keep playing this hand we are going to lose.
So we take the Invitation action, and we spend a Major boon on it. That puts us at 28. which will pass the DC of 28. (20 Base, +2 Vestments +3 Major Boon, +3 Free Action).
That will get the Shi Ahn to the Capital instead of here where we have advantages (The Street) and formal authority, plus it allows us to delay another turn on the Mandates issue, which otherwise will probably be decided without our input.
Okay, so then we take other actions based around this. First we learn who the new nobles are (this is important set piece information because they are going to follow us to the capital), we take an action to try and get the local church onside so that when the church delegation gets here they hear favorable things and so when they turn around to head back to the capital they are already willing to work with us. We also take an action to set up a spy network in Cilli so that we have some eyes on the ship while entertaining the Shi Anh deligation in the capital, just in case they plan anything sneaky. Plus it will help if we manage to get back to the original goal of finding traitors. Meanwhile we also ask questions of all the nobles here, hopefully get some leads on where to head next after dealing with the Shi Anh, (but it's not essential to pass, so no spending boons on it).
We do Potions for Sale and Appraisals to get money, and keep the merchant houses happy and thus giving the other nobles a bone to compensate for the Mandate issue being taken away to the capital to be decided there.
And we also redo the Spirits Aboard the Ship to gain the actual knowledge we need - notice that with the Incense candles it should auto pass.
This gets us away from the situation where the nobles are going to shove us out of the delegation (which will happen even if we do Appraisals, there is nothing in that action which says we will still be part of the delegation, that's wishful thinking), and allows us to move the debate to the capital where we know the actors and don't have to spend as much effort on Diplomacy (as in we only need to spend three actions a turn on it instead of the six actions we've needed when in Cilli).
People need to pay attention to what the actions actually say and then read between the lines. It's pretty obvious the GM is throwing us a lifeline in this Invitation action, we ought to take it.
