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I'm a High Fantasy Tax Collector, So What? A CKII Tax Collector Quest

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Choose 3.

[] Emir Valois
You have one of his favors, and you need to negotiate a place for your colony to go to. Perhaps the Valois land might be willing to take a colony? Diplomacy: 25
[x] Countess Natalia
It's been a year, and you were quite impressed with her work the last time you visited her province - you'd like to know how she's doing now, as well as whether or not she might be able to accommodate a few colonies. Diplomacy: 15
[x] Lilliane Cecille - Intrigue
Quite aside from your professional loathing of this woman, she made quite a few attempts to distance herself from the King. On your own spare time, you've been looking into her habits - and you may have found where she keeps her secrets. Intrigue: 25.
[] Lilliane Cecille - Reporting
Well, you have your information, and she is getting steadily harder to evade. You are technically supposed to report the matter to her - if you hadn't already reported the information to Antonin and Vivien too, now. You wonder whether it's worth bringing her in at all.
[] Ophelia - Oskaria
You do have another gamble in mind. It's a little bit gauche to attempt upstaging the main event, but if you can bring Ophelia - Oskaria to the grand hall, you can make a point - anybody in Oskaria can become a warrior, given only the blessing of Oskaria. Perhaps that will dissuade the jackals. Piety: 26.
[x] The Spirits
You know there are spirits here, some of them quite powerful - perhaps this is an opportunity to secure a tentative agreement? Piety: 28.
[] Besim Rosenberg
You spot one Besim Rosenberg at this assembly, and worse, you think he's spotted you too. Ugh. Best to deal with this interaction as efficiently as possible. Diplomacy: 35.
 
Sentient Tree said:
So Emir was taken from his people. To be an agent of the crown? As a slave to a noble?
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Sentient Tree said:
Here we offer support as someone in a similar situation. A member of a hated race who must work hard to keep in the good graces of the crown, or risk losing everything.
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I think, speaking as a Quester and not as a beta who know a tad bit more on Emir's circumstances, the flower discussion was obliquely referring to the fact that he has none in the way of... fellow "Us". He is a sole "Them" in Oskaria, if the interlude name is any indication.

Agueda here countered on the fact that the "Them" on his part can be expanded. Agueda knows this because his bands of misfits are a bunch of people who do not fit with the traditional conventions of society. In the sense, what stops Emir from finding his own bunch of misfits? Or accepting them, considering that he was part of the 4-People Adventurer Band that is now the King's Pillars.
Sentient Tree said:
I don't understand what he means by history choosing its favorites.
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My read, again as a Quester, is that he believes heavily on certain narrative or historical inevitability. The other of his potential interlude name is "The Inevitability of History", after all. At the maximum, he drinks deep on the well of predestination.
Hydroplatypus said:
Don't think Ophelia - Oskaria is a good idea. One powerful warrior won't dissuade the other nations, who can presumably call on their own spirits when needed. And as a resource she's more useful if people don't know that she's coming.
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I will add my voice in saying that for all that it is almost certainly a success, supplanting Emir's Adoption and revealing the existence of Oskarian Spirit Medium is... a dangerous one. It draws fire from those would want to maximize the chance of success on the Partition Event.

No, best go and get the support bases up and running rather than a dissuading.

[X] Emir Valois
[X] Countess Natalia
[X] Lilliane Cecille - Intrigue
[X] Lilliane Cecille - Reporting
[X] The Spirits
 
[X] Emir Valois
[X] Countess Natalia
[X] The Spirits

I agree with Vocal's assessment on Ophelia - Oskaria.
 
[X] Countess Natalia
[X] Lilliane Cecille - Intrigue
[X] Lilliane Cecille - Reporting

So, can someone please remind me what exactly Respect does? Because I'm not entirely sure whether or not that part was ever properly explained, beyond that having more of it is good somehow (Probably:???:).
 
Kingofbooks said:
So, can someone please remind me what exactly Respect does? Because I'm not entirely sure whether or not that part was ever properly explained, beyond that having more of it is good somehow (Probably:???:).
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Here:
huhYeahGoodPoint said:
Respect as a stat is one of the three previously hidden relationship statistics. It is exactly what it sounds like: how much people respect you. In their own turn they may Love or Hate you, but so long as your Respect is high your word, your honor, and your intentions carry weight. Just the opposite, should you prove to be unworthy of Respect people may also still love and hate you in their own turns, but there is always an acknowledgement: you may have power but it is one wielded by a fickle and disreputable power.

To have 1 Respect is to be notable. To have 10 shapes the nation. To have 20 shapes the world for hundreds of years to come.
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Good to see some analysis and discussion pop up. I wonder, though - have you caught on to all the pieces in play? Or are there more issues and surprises, lurking just under the surface reading?

Because if you think you've caught them all, every rumble in the ground, well...

Heh.
 
I don't think anyone has talked about why Tara Valois was an orphan. It seems sort of obvious to me, but maybe I am reading too much into that interlude? It is a touch on-the-nose for Emir to adopt her, but her former culture has very different family dynamics, so I'mma not judgin'.
 
Aunty Shi Ping said:
I don't think anyone has talked about why Tara Valois was an orphan. It seems sort of obvious to me, but maybe I am reading too much into that interlude? It is a touch on-the-nose for Emir to adopt her, but her former culture has very different family dynamics, so I'mma not judgin'.
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Interesting. Which interlude are you talking about? Because I'm fairly certain Tara has not received her own interlude yet.
 
huhYeahGoodPoint said:
Neighbors: Temporarily Placated
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I'm fairly certain this from the start of the quest is relevant to the plot to divide and conquer Oskaria. Also @huhYeahGoodPoint could we get some sort of map or at least some info on how Oskaria is relative to its neighbours or those neighbours? It seems like the sort of thing that Agueda should know and it should be useful to properly understanding the current situation and what is going on.
 
Oshha said:
I'm fairly certain this from the start of the quest is relevant to the plot to divide and conquer Oskaria. Also @huhYeahGoodPoint could we get some sort of map or at least some info on how Oskaria is relative to its neighbours or those neighbours? It seems like the sort of thing that Agueda should know and it should be useful to properly understanding the current situation and what is going on.
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If I have time, I might be able to get something out, maybe.
 
huhYeahGoodPoint said:
"It is an Ice Rose Chrysanthemum, in a full, perfect bloom. To be in full bloom, it would have had to be nurtured through seven more blooms, twenty years apart each time, and demand perfection for every bloom. The slightest mistake or lean day will show up as a blemish in the buds, and the flaws never disappear either – so can you imagine, then, what it would take for this flower in my hand to be flawless?"
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Emir picked a very interesting flower to compare himself to. It sounds like there's a lot more that went into making him the greatest adventurer on the continent than just normal training and lucky genetics.

Sounds like his people may have been giving him special training since birth, and possibly using magic or artificial selection on his family to create a particularly talented soldier. Or perhaps he's referencing drow living longer than humans, and those who trained him did so for a lot longer than any human could be trained?

The natural question then, is why would they put so much effort into training a single swordsman? Did the king ask them to? Were they planning to use him as a leader to rebel?
 
[X] Lilliane Cecille - Intrigue
[X] Countess Natalia
[X] Ophelia - Oskaria

I'd go for the Spirits, except that if we were going to do that, the time to do it would be the first night. It's far too late now. I'd rather not burn Emir's favor on asking him to do something that will rub salt into his wounds, so the other "where can my family go" option is the Countess. Ophelia - Oskaria is... basically a way to make the conspirators uncertain. The word *is* going to get around, and I don't see that keeping it secret helps all that much. On the flip side, having Oskaria Herself show up... well, it gives the king a nice little legitimacy boost (since he's the one who's trying to pray that goddess into being) and it perhaps helps nudge a number of nobles into being a bit more patriotic (not a bad thing) and "they have an unknown but powerful asset that we hadn't considered" is the sort of thing to make conspirators be more... cautious. Having them not so sure of themselves would be to the good, I think. Intrigue on Lilliane, on the other hand, seems important. If the Minister of the Interior is not loyal, then that's something that we need to know. If she is loyal, then we have things she needs to know.

Sentient Tree said:
Emir picked a very interesting flower to compare himself to. It sounds like there's a lot more that went into making him the greatest adventurer on the continent than just normal training and lucky genetics.

Sounds like his people may have been giving him special training since birth, and possibly using magic or artificial selection on his family to create a particularly talented soldier. Or perhaps he's referencing drow living longer than humans, and those who trained him did so for a lot longer than any human could be trained?

The natural question then, is why would they put so much effort into training a single swordsman? Did the king ask them to? Were they planning to use him as a leader to rebel?
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He's clearly nonhuman. Perhaps an elf?
 
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