In the Wake of Monsters - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Exmorri
- Start date
- Fantasy
Turn 2 results - 796.5
- Location
- Norway
Winning votes: There were half-overlapping plans and shared plan headers, so I used my judgement and synthesized as best I could. The "Chart a new course" part was unanimous though.
You gravely consider the Portlord's words, as a great deal surely hangs on this moment. He is certainly a well read and wise man, but you have heard how ambition can blind even the wisest. Perhaps it would be safest to object, as he has offered you a ready-made excuse, whereas if you cooperate and his venture fails you may find yourself executed alongside him. But then you think of the the disorganized state of the city, the murky business of the palace, and of course the reconstruction you are assisting with. Silverport cannot not change. One man with a clear goal is perhaps preferable to lead the change rather than the uncoordinated bickering, division and infighting that seems to reign far too often. And the rewards might be great.
"It seems to me the old course is known to be poor, but the new waters are shrouded in mist. Chart the new course with great care, lest you strike a hidden reef." you say with due weight. "The world is changed and Silverport must change too."
"I will move with care, but I must move with speed too. I am only elected for ten years, after all." he says. "Or until I die."
"Who else supports this course?" you ask. "Other than Ebuskun, naturally."
"Much of Clan Wisdom. Not all the elders agree on the magnitude of the change necessary, but I was put forward as Portlord in part because there was a consensus that a younger and more vigorous man would be needed for the tasks to come. I am reaching out to Clan Ascension as well, and they seem favorably inclined. If you will speak for me I expect you can win over Clan Avalanche, and I have a few hidden reserves that I do not wish to reveal yet lest the enemy prepare for them. Clan Gold is neutral as yet, but I know Gold Morning is personally supportive and loyal."
"I see. Thank you for your time."
"Thank you for your support." says the Portlord. "Give my regards to your wife and children." He turns and leaves.
You let out a sigh of relief. You have the Portlord's approval for your work, and he has your approval for his ambitions. The present is certainly positive, even if the future may be stressful.
Time to get back to that good work he praised so much.
---
Faced with the task of having to inspect the roads and haphazard gates of Silverport some more, you visit a store on the east side of the city and buy their finest map of the region to assist you. Then you visit a second store and buy a second high quality map.
[-1 gold]
As you expect, they differ, and the differences provide a good starting point for where to focus your attention.
[Roads and gates: Stewardship, 25+19-4=40.]
Your inspecting presence helps convince a few people they should sell off their gates and rights. With several patches consolidated and the new owners reminded to send their fees in, you turn to the roads. Banditry has fortunately dwindled over the past few months as life returns to normal, and with Ebuskun lending you a company of the palace guard, you stamp out even much of that.
Many of the walls are still in stupid places, but you can't fix everything. Afterwards you drop by the map stores and show them your annotations for use in a next edition.
Upon returning the borrowed soldiers, you seek out the strange new princess to thank her, both for the loan and the high quality of service. The palace guards are several cuts above the palace servants for competence.
"Not my fault the guard was good when I came." she says. "I am happy with them too. Some problems, yes, but still the best in the city."
"And why is that?" you ask, curious about the large skill differential.
"Probably because they train the most." She gives a discourse on military units where the specifics are a bit hard to follow, but the basic principle is simple enough. The palace guard is a professional unit of soldiers paid to soldier full time, while almost everyone else either raises semi-militia or hires mercenary bands.
[Making friends with Ebuskun: Diplomacy, 44+15-4=55. Going very well. Relation 7/10, character entry updated.]
The conversation stretches into the evening, and then a promise to see each other again the next day because it's so fascinating. Ebuskun relates the palace guard's role in Silverport's military doctrine: an elite neutral core for the less skilled but larger support forces to rally around. You listen as attentively as you can, then commiserate over the disorganized state of the walls. The princess laments that the palace guard has no respect for her archery.
Being on such good newfound terms, you seize the opportunity to work together with Ebuskun in cleaning out the roster of payments and retirements. It's been handled by the palace staff, which means probably corruption and fraud abounds.
[Checking the army payroll: Stewardship, 30+19-4=45.]
You are pleasantly surprised for once. Apparently the professionalism of the palace guard carries over to their payments. A few pretenders are weeded out and punished, a few prostitutes are made to stop collecting payments on behalf of nonexistent husbands, you improve the record-keeping practices so that even drudges should be able to maintain it, but for the most part the palace guard is simply understrength and expensive rather than corrupt.
Judging the Portlord's business to be doing well enough for a while, you turn to your own business: pursuing further knowledge of how starmetal might be wrought other than by searching for fallen stars.
[Search libraries: Learning, 41+17+2+5=65.]
You wish there were some better way of sorting and indexing books. A thousand irrelevancies pass you by until eventually you find something - apparently greater demons, if brought into the Middle World, may still carry with them the natural laws of the Demon World. If a greater demon destructively interrupts a cosmically important series of events, it may cause several stars to fall at once as their corresponding signifieds come to an abrupt end. This causes no end of distress to astrologers trying to read the course of events.
Academically fascinating, marginally more practical than simply hoping for one star to fall in the vicinity, and still completely useless for your purposes. But afterwards, there is at last a hint of what you seek, and a confirmation that smithing starmetal should at least be possible - even though the given instructions have increasingly impractical requirements, starting by working only at night and making sure no sunlight falls on the worksite, and ramping up to demanding fresh molten lava from a volcano for heat.
It seems you will have to design your own forge. But at least you have a scrap to build on.
Next come the audits, mortal and divine.
[Threats of audits: Stewardship, 19+19-4-5=30.]
You write several letters issuing somewhat more detailed threats, hoping to not have to dive into half-missing paperwork to track people down. Some of them do indeed clean up their act and submit proper paperwork, while some of the missing ones just seem to have closed up shop entirely and have been replaced. There is progress, and there is procrastination.
Then you look over the roster of tithes, donatives, sacrifices, shrine maintenance, and other god- and spirit-related expenditures of the office of the Palace of the Portlords.
[Tithes and offerings: Stewardship 36+19-4=51, Learning 33+17-4=46.]
You are very cautious about offending any spirits of significant power, so you take the time to visit each shrine listed and politely ask how they're doing. A few of the shrines listed don't seem to exist at all, and you contentedly trim payments to those first. A few more were clear favorites of some past Portlord directing large amounts of money to a family-run temple, and those you trim back to only slightly above average so they'll have no grounds for complaint. One's listed twice under two different names; its former god was promoted and replaced and the temple has been receiving offerings for both. Strike that too.
It's nerve-wracking, and you're glad to relax with various family occasions. Your mother takes you to the theater to see a comedy. Your infant son celebrates his first birthday, and there is much rejoicing. Several important elders of Clan Avalanche drop hints that you should contribute to the maneuvering for Great House status, and you tell them that you are in fact on very good terms with the Portlord who will no doubt look favorably on this and that they should build ties with Clan Wisdom.
The time approaches for the next council meeting, and you look at what you've done. Even with the increased expenditures the other councillors are racking up, you've exceeded Void's target to cut the overall palace losses by half. The natural revitalization of the city has helped, too. Nonpayers have eventually vanished and been replaced, and even the half-sinecured palace staff can manage decent registration of new arrivals. But this also means that your further efforts in this direction will probably have less effect than your great success so far, now that there's less deadwood to trim.
---
Voting time.
You can write in a report on the past turn with a focus on the subject of your choice, which could be used to praise the importance of one of your fellow councillors, or attempt to direct the Portlord's attention towards a particular matter. Writing in a report is optional - the default is simply being judged on the merits of what you've done.
[X] [Report] Just the facts.
[] [Report] Write In
Suggest courses of action for the next turn (six months); the Portlord is likely to choose one of them. You can use this to your advantage. One possibility is to suggest things that align with your personal goals, another is to suggest things you can do easily and have plenty of time left over to spend elsewhere. However, if there's a pressing concern the boss has that is not covered by what you put forward, he may 'write in' your orders, and cause a relationship hit due to losing respect for your abilities. Votes for this will be in plan format - the more options you give the Portlord, the greater chance he'll pick one, but the less you can steer his instructions.
[] I should continue fixing the palace budget and restoring a healthy cash flow.
[] The palace budget is unfixable as it stands, I should sort out the palace's underlying obligations.
[] There's too many sinecured morons and political appointments working at the palace, empower me to start replacing them.
[] The census is a lot more important than I thought, order me to do that properly.
[] Have you seen what passes for a toll gate in this city? It's both an economic and a military disaster! Our walls need fixing, fast.
[] I request your official approval to work on creating starmetal. (Will not be an order if included in plan, just approval... or potentially disapproval.)
[] Creating starmetal should be my main project, it would be of immense value.
[] Clan Bridge and their allies like Plum need to be destroyed. Peacefully and financially, of course.
[] Let's invent central banking.
[] Other (write in)
QM notes:
-You had good luck this turn.
Wisdom Shining Void said:
You gravely consider the Portlord's words, as a great deal surely hangs on this moment. He is certainly a well read and wise man, but you have heard how ambition can blind even the wisest. Perhaps it would be safest to object, as he has offered you a ready-made excuse, whereas if you cooperate and his venture fails you may find yourself executed alongside him. But then you think of the the disorganized state of the city, the murky business of the palace, and of course the reconstruction you are assisting with. Silverport cannot not change. One man with a clear goal is perhaps preferable to lead the change rather than the uncoordinated bickering, division and infighting that seems to reign far too often. And the rewards might be great.
"It seems to me the old course is known to be poor, but the new waters are shrouded in mist. Chart the new course with great care, lest you strike a hidden reef." you say with due weight. "The world is changed and Silverport must change too."
"I will move with care, but I must move with speed too. I am only elected for ten years, after all." he says. "Or until I die."
"Who else supports this course?" you ask. "Other than Ebuskun, naturally."
"Much of Clan Wisdom. Not all the elders agree on the magnitude of the change necessary, but I was put forward as Portlord in part because there was a consensus that a younger and more vigorous man would be needed for the tasks to come. I am reaching out to Clan Ascension as well, and they seem favorably inclined. If you will speak for me I expect you can win over Clan Avalanche, and I have a few hidden reserves that I do not wish to reveal yet lest the enemy prepare for them. Clan Gold is neutral as yet, but I know Gold Morning is personally supportive and loyal."
"I see. Thank you for your time."
"Thank you for your support." says the Portlord. "Give my regards to your wife and children." He turns and leaves.
You let out a sigh of relief. You have the Portlord's approval for your work, and he has your approval for his ambitions. The present is certainly positive, even if the future may be stressful.
Time to get back to that good work he praised so much.
---
Faced with the task of having to inspect the roads and haphazard gates of Silverport some more, you visit a store on the east side of the city and buy their finest map of the region to assist you. Then you visit a second store and buy a second high quality map.
[-1 gold]
As you expect, they differ, and the differences provide a good starting point for where to focus your attention.
[Roads and gates: Stewardship, 25+19-4=40.]
Your inspecting presence helps convince a few people they should sell off their gates and rights. With several patches consolidated and the new owners reminded to send their fees in, you turn to the roads. Banditry has fortunately dwindled over the past few months as life returns to normal, and with Ebuskun lending you a company of the palace guard, you stamp out even much of that.
Many of the walls are still in stupid places, but you can't fix everything. Afterwards you drop by the map stores and show them your annotations for use in a next edition.
Upon returning the borrowed soldiers, you seek out the strange new princess to thank her, both for the loan and the high quality of service. The palace guards are several cuts above the palace servants for competence.
"Not my fault the guard was good when I came." she says. "I am happy with them too. Some problems, yes, but still the best in the city."
"And why is that?" you ask, curious about the large skill differential.
"Probably because they train the most." She gives a discourse on military units where the specifics are a bit hard to follow, but the basic principle is simple enough. The palace guard is a professional unit of soldiers paid to soldier full time, while almost everyone else either raises semi-militia or hires mercenary bands.
[Making friends with Ebuskun: Diplomacy, 44+15-4=55. Going very well. Relation 7/10, character entry updated.]
The conversation stretches into the evening, and then a promise to see each other again the next day because it's so fascinating. Ebuskun relates the palace guard's role in Silverport's military doctrine: an elite neutral core for the less skilled but larger support forces to rally around. You listen as attentively as you can, then commiserate over the disorganized state of the walls. The princess laments that the palace guard has no respect for her archery.
Being on such good newfound terms, you seize the opportunity to work together with Ebuskun in cleaning out the roster of payments and retirements. It's been handled by the palace staff, which means probably corruption and fraud abounds.
[Checking the army payroll: Stewardship, 30+19-4=45.]
You are pleasantly surprised for once. Apparently the professionalism of the palace guard carries over to their payments. A few pretenders are weeded out and punished, a few prostitutes are made to stop collecting payments on behalf of nonexistent husbands, you improve the record-keeping practices so that even drudges should be able to maintain it, but for the most part the palace guard is simply understrength and expensive rather than corrupt.
Judging the Portlord's business to be doing well enough for a while, you turn to your own business: pursuing further knowledge of how starmetal might be wrought other than by searching for fallen stars.
[Search libraries: Learning, 41+17+2+5=65.]
You wish there were some better way of sorting and indexing books. A thousand irrelevancies pass you by until eventually you find something - apparently greater demons, if brought into the Middle World, may still carry with them the natural laws of the Demon World. If a greater demon destructively interrupts a cosmically important series of events, it may cause several stars to fall at once as their corresponding signifieds come to an abrupt end. This causes no end of distress to astrologers trying to read the course of events.
Academically fascinating, marginally more practical than simply hoping for one star to fall in the vicinity, and still completely useless for your purposes. But afterwards, there is at last a hint of what you seek, and a confirmation that smithing starmetal should at least be possible - even though the given instructions have increasingly impractical requirements, starting by working only at night and making sure no sunlight falls on the worksite, and ramping up to demanding fresh molten lava from a volcano for heat.
It seems you will have to design your own forge. But at least you have a scrap to build on.
Next come the audits, mortal and divine.
[Threats of audits: Stewardship, 19+19-4-5=30.]
You write several letters issuing somewhat more detailed threats, hoping to not have to dive into half-missing paperwork to track people down. Some of them do indeed clean up their act and submit proper paperwork, while some of the missing ones just seem to have closed up shop entirely and have been replaced. There is progress, and there is procrastination.
Then you look over the roster of tithes, donatives, sacrifices, shrine maintenance, and other god- and spirit-related expenditures of the office of the Palace of the Portlords.
[Tithes and offerings: Stewardship 36+19-4=51, Learning 33+17-4=46.]
You are very cautious about offending any spirits of significant power, so you take the time to visit each shrine listed and politely ask how they're doing. A few of the shrines listed don't seem to exist at all, and you contentedly trim payments to those first. A few more were clear favorites of some past Portlord directing large amounts of money to a family-run temple, and those you trim back to only slightly above average so they'll have no grounds for complaint. One's listed twice under two different names; its former god was promoted and replaced and the temple has been receiving offerings for both. Strike that too.
It's nerve-wracking, and you're glad to relax with various family occasions. Your mother takes you to the theater to see a comedy. Your infant son celebrates his first birthday, and there is much rejoicing. Several important elders of Clan Avalanche drop hints that you should contribute to the maneuvering for Great House status, and you tell them that you are in fact on very good terms with the Portlord who will no doubt look favorably on this and that they should build ties with Clan Wisdom.
The time approaches for the next council meeting, and you look at what you've done. Even with the increased expenditures the other councillors are racking up, you've exceeded Void's target to cut the overall palace losses by half. The natural revitalization of the city has helped, too. Nonpayers have eventually vanished and been replaced, and even the half-sinecured palace staff can manage decent registration of new arrivals. But this also means that your further efforts in this direction will probably have less effect than your great success so far, now that there's less deadwood to trim.
---
Voting time.
You can write in a report on the past turn with a focus on the subject of your choice, which could be used to praise the importance of one of your fellow councillors, or attempt to direct the Portlord's attention towards a particular matter. Writing in a report is optional - the default is simply being judged on the merits of what you've done.
[X] [Report] Just the facts.
[] [Report] Write In
Suggest courses of action for the next turn (six months); the Portlord is likely to choose one of them. You can use this to your advantage. One possibility is to suggest things that align with your personal goals, another is to suggest things you can do easily and have plenty of time left over to spend elsewhere. However, if there's a pressing concern the boss has that is not covered by what you put forward, he may 'write in' your orders, and cause a relationship hit due to losing respect for your abilities. Votes for this will be in plan format - the more options you give the Portlord, the greater chance he'll pick one, but the less you can steer his instructions.
[] I should continue fixing the palace budget and restoring a healthy cash flow.
[] The palace budget is unfixable as it stands, I should sort out the palace's underlying obligations.
[] There's too many sinecured morons and political appointments working at the palace, empower me to start replacing them.
[] The census is a lot more important than I thought, order me to do that properly.
[] Have you seen what passes for a toll gate in this city? It's both an economic and a military disaster! Our walls need fixing, fast.
[] I request your official approval to work on creating starmetal. (Will not be an order if included in plan, just approval... or potentially disapproval.)
[] Creating starmetal should be my main project, it would be of immense value.
[] Clan Bridge and their allies like Plum need to be destroyed. Peacefully and financially, of course.
[] Let's invent central banking.
[] Other (write in)
Former wealth: 68g
Income: Earned 50g, embezzled 50g
Expenditures: Family 5g, shrines 5g, clerks 5g, debt downpayment 35g, maps 1g
Current wealth: 117g
Income: Earned 50g, embezzled 50g
Expenditures: Family 5g, shrines 5g, clerks 5g, debt downpayment 35g, maps 1g
Current wealth: 117g
QM notes:
-You had good luck this turn.
Last edited:
- Location
- USA
Walls still suck, corruption still exists, but we've met the goal and then some.
There's not as much deadwood though, so we won't have as fast of results as we have if we try to do more. Didn't really touch the census either, but we don't need to mention it quite yet if he doesn't bring it up.
Now we have to deal with the damn worthless project though. That won't be fun.
There's not as much deadwood though, so we won't have as fast of results as we have if we try to do more. Didn't really touch the census either, but we don't need to mention it quite yet if he doesn't bring it up.
Now we have to deal with the damn worthless project though. That won't be fun.
Promising. We are steadingly digging our way out of the crater.
[X] Plan looking forwards
-[X] [Report] Just the facts.
--[X] Thank Ebuskun for her help and support
-[X] I should continue fixing the palace budget and restoring a healthy cash flow.
-[X] There's too many sinecured morons and political appointments working at the palace, empower me to start replacing them.
-[X] Have you seen what passes for a toll gate in this city? It's both an economic and a military disaster! Our walls need fixing, fast.
-[X] Let's invent central banking.
Central banking is a potential leaver for getting around the limits on the Portlord's power.
On Starmetal we need at least something concrete to ask for permission. That said we need it soon or that ramping debuff is going to kill us.
- Location
- Orlando, Florida
[X] Plan looking forwards
-[X] [Report] Just the facts.
--[X] Thank Ebuskun for her help and support
-[X] I should continue fixing the palace budget and restoring a healthy cash flow.
-[X] There's too many sinecured morons and political appointments working at the palace, empower me to start replacing them.
-[X] Have you seen what passes for a toll gate in this city? It's both an economic and a military disaster! Our walls need fixing, fast.
-[X] Let's invent central banking.
-[X] [Report] Just the facts.
--[X] Thank Ebuskun for her help and support
-[X] I should continue fixing the palace budget and restoring a healthy cash flow.
-[X] There's too many sinecured morons and political appointments working at the palace, empower me to start replacing them.
-[X] Have you seen what passes for a toll gate in this city? It's both an economic and a military disaster! Our walls need fixing, fast.
-[X] Let's invent central banking.
Got to be careful if we're railing against political appointments in the same turn.
Also we preferably want to have a functional project proposal rather than "I want to".
[X] Plan looking forwards
- Location
- nz
[X] Plan looking forwards
[X] Plan looking forwards
- Location
- Somewhere
What reverses the debuff from star-metal?
I doubt a cash fund would help, if we never made progress.
To deal with Star-metal debuff we will likely need to focus on Star-metal actions while shirking our job. At least if we tell the port lord "we will occasionally do a piss job to stop doing a snail's job", he can look the other way to not lose our competence.
I doubt a cash fund would help, if we never made progress.
To deal with Star-metal debuff we will likely need to focus on Star-metal actions while shirking our job. At least if we tell the port lord "we will occasionally do a piss job to stop doing a snail's job", he can look the other way to not lose our competence.
- Location
- Norway
Spending a lot of time on your Inspiration reduces the debuff. Completing the project (whether in success or failure) removes it entirely. Some time later you will be inspired to a new project.
From the description it sounds like we can get rid of the debuff by just ignoring the 'inspiration' entirely, as it only causes a malus when we are actually working on it. As if taking up 1/6 of our actions wasn't crippling enough.
- Location
- Norway
My take is that if you don't tinker with your passion, daydreaming about wanting to tinker with it is still going to make you neglect other things.
So we get the steadily more crippling malus regardless. Better to not wast an action each turn and just take a 'holiday' turn every couple of years then.
Seems Weber was ridiculously lucky in her division of loyalty.
- Location
- Somewhere
Doubtful, taking one action a turn on star-metal gives us progress. Won't stop the debuff increase, but it does slow a rapid rise in the debuff. Plus we can actually make progress to decrease our focus needed on star-metal. Piece-by-piece with an occasional bulk order for star-metal actions is my recommendation.
edit: Who is Weber?
Last edited:
- Location
- Norway
Mathilde Weber was the protagonist of the original advisor quest linked in the OP. She was the Intrigue (Spymaster) advisor with a Sleeper Agent motivation where an unknown person would occasionally issue her strange tasks on pain of pain.
PsyFarrow
Verified Necrodancer
- Location
- Space
The PC from the original Advisor Quest.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest - Fantasy
Edit: Too slow
- Location
- Abu Dhabi or Manila depending on the time of year
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan looking forwards
Pathetic King
"I Speak To The Audient Void."
- Location
- Colorado
[X] Plan looking forwards
Turn 3 Council - 770
- Location
- Norway
[X] Plan looking forwards
-[X] [Report] Just the facts.
--[X] Thank Ebuskun for her help and support
-[X] I should continue fixing the palace budget and restoring a healthy cash flow.
-[X] There's too many sinecured morons and political appointments working at the palace, empower me to start replacing them.
-[X] Have you seen what passes for a toll gate in this city? It's both an economic and a military disaster! Our walls need fixing, fast.
-[X] Let's invent central banking.
-[X] [Report] Just the facts.
--[X] Thank Ebuskun for her help and support
-[X] I should continue fixing the palace budget and restoring a healthy cash flow.
-[X] There's too many sinecured morons and political appointments working at the palace, empower me to start replacing them.
-[X] Have you seen what passes for a toll gate in this city? It's both an economic and a military disaster! Our walls need fixing, fast.
-[X] Let's invent central banking.
Wisdom Shining Void has bags under his eyes when next you join the Privvy Council in the meeting hall. "Blade. Morning." he says. "Please tell me you have a better idea of what in the world Clan Bridge is up to. They've turned strangely polite and friendly recently and I don't trust their supposed rapprochement. It makes no sense."
"Part of it is just that they were being frozen out and they saw that you were gathering the larger support bloc by far." says Blade. "The rumors going around that Bridge supported the Abominations willingly probably won't die down for several years at least, and during that time they have no hope of leading a significant opposition bloc."
"And the bad news?" Void asks in a grumpy tone.
"Clan Rain very much does have that hope."
"Rain? They're tiny, there's no way they could actually lead anything - they're patsies, aren't they?"
"Not quite. They've got some kind of secret trick up their sleeve, but nobody I've spoken to has been willing to reveal what it is. My best guess is that one of their number is a cultivator with a new and useful technique - Morning, do you have anything more?" Blade looks expectantly towards the spymaster.
Gold Morning shakes his head. "They're keeping it very tightly under wraps. I've got the same scraps as you - some valuable secret, seems to be a person rather than a thing."
Ebuskun throws in her contribution. "Clan Bridge has excused themselves from the usual joint exercises with the palace guard recently. They say they have interests in Caligia they need to defend, and too many of their warriors are absent or occupied."
"Interesting. But I wasn't done." says Blade. "Clan Bridge is pouring money into Clan Rain, and Rain is using their small size as an advantage in that they haven't yet offended anyone significantly, to build a wide base of support for what is basically all of Bridge's former allies in a new guise and then some. Rain might have a shot at becoming our last Great House, at which point there would be complaints that there are two major dynasties you've excluded from the Privvy Council. This Rain-led bloc is even peeling away Clan Gold, which couldn't have happened otherwise."
Void glares at his spymaster, who shrinks away. "That's exaggerated." says Morning, though he doesn't meet Void's gaze.
The Portlord taps his fingers on the table, the sound echoing through the tense silence of the room. He furrows his brow in concentration, looking so distressed you wonder for a moment if he's becoming ill. Eventually he relaxes a little. "If they're keeping whatever it is so secret, it's probably a temporary or fragile advantage. Morning, try to figure out what it is and whether we can destroy, demand or expose it. Blade, try to get the Golds back on our side, and start drumming up support for Clan Avalanche as the fifth of the Great Houses before Rain gets too much momentum. Ebuskun, any news?"
She looks thoughtful for a moment. "I am ready for the campaign as you ordered. Other than that, nothing big. Recruitment continues. Training continues. I have contacts."
"Well then. Three?"
"Very bad news. You know how sometimes the Bloody Hills boil over with barbarians on the warpath, and their barbarians displace the next set of barbarians over, until the trouble lands on us? It's gotten like that in the southern forests - a massive incursion of spider demons has stirred up the wood spirits and other creatures, in particular the native spiders."
The Portlord curses and snorts angrily. "Another little gift the Abominations left us? Oh, wait, this must be why my desk keeps getting covered in requests to subsidise more sages and exorcists 'for the good of the city'. Demon spiders. I didn't even know the Demon World had spiders. Twelve tortures, I had hoped to get the soldiers accustomed to victory and mundane campaigning in the Bloody Hills, but if there's an incursion of spider demons, I can't very well ignore it and go haring off elsewhere." He takes a deep breath to calm himself, then freezes with a worried expression on his face. "Wolf Three," he says very slowly, "please tell me this doesn't mean there's something like a celestial gate to the Demon World somewhere in the southern forests."
The sage shakes her head very rapidly. "Oh no. No no no. Definitely not. There's no particular Spider Demon Realm in the Demon World, so there would be all sorts of demons coming out instead of just spiders if that were the case."
Void's mouth drops open and he stares in horror. "You mean opening a gate to the Demon World is actually possible? Where all the demons could just walk through?"
Three only nods, not trusting herself to say anything.
---
After all that, your report is practically relaxing. You've been surveying, auditing and prospering, and things are in much better shape ahead of schedule. The Marshal and the Portlord are both pleased to hear your praise for the palace guard. When you offer suggestions for what to do next, the Portlord's decision is immediate - bring the rest of the palace staff up to the competence of the palace guard, if you can. Then he takes Ebuskun and Blade aside to a long planning session about getting the city mustered for a crusade against demons, leaving you to go about your own business in peace and safety.
[Ebuskun relation +1, is now 8/10.]
---
Voting time. You have SIX (6) actions over the next six months (one turn). One action may represent a month of solid work, or one day a week over the course of the turn - please don't poke the abstraction too hard. Overwork choices give you an extra action rather than consuming one, so you can go up to nine actions if you're an absolute workaholic. You may spend two actions on one choice to focus extra time and effort on it. Voting is by plan.
Do Your Job: The palace staff is riddled with time-servers, box-tickers, sinecures, political appointees, scribes who can barely do more than copy a text verbatim, spineless puddings who escalate every decision until it lands on the Portlord's desk, people who take after pigs in that their office looks like a sty, and other incompetents. (Maybe you're being a little unfair and these people are merely average while you're a genius by comparison.) The Portlord has asked you to get some competence in place. Decide how you're going to reform the system.
[] There are nominal examinations for office. They're so old and standard a lot of applicants come in with memorized answers. Write and issue new examinations that require more skill to pass.
[] Make employees of the palace subject to re-evaluation of fitness for their job every decade. Since everyone is long overdue, this means everyone will be re-evaluated now.
[] Devote your personal attention to watching all hirings and firings so the process doesn't get corrupted.
[] Require a letter of recommendation testifying to the competence of anyone who is to work at the Palace of the Portlords.
[] Go out and personally recruit:
-[] From Clan Avalanche
-[] From the Great Houses
-[] From other minor clans
-[] From temples, academies, and other houses of wisdom
-[] From the general population of the city
-[] From some other group you think might provide good candidates. (Write-in)
-[] From absolutely everyone.
[] Get astrologers to cast horoscopes and thus determine who is fit to to work in the palace or not.
[] Write-in another approach
Choose Severity: Pick one from this category. It will not take an action, only modifies resolution of your choice(s) from the above category.
[] Only fill the gaps. Put competent people into empty positions and new positions you might create, and then hand them power over the rest, so you won't have to displace anyone.
[] Fire the very worst. It'll be politically safe, and you may even win praise if a few of the worst offenders can be demonstrated thoroughly unfit for their jobs.
[] Fire the dullards too. At another time this might get you backlash. But your political savvy says this is a great time when everyone will be distracted by demon war shortly.
[] Fire the merely average or below. This will probably get you political backlash from people who don't like seeing their own relatives fired.
[] Fire everyone who doesn't live up to your own demanding standards. This will face heavy opposition and significant backlash, and make it hard to find new recruits, but the the Portlord will become a far more effective ruler and your own workload will be lightened significantly.
Follow Your Passion: You are still plotting a great work of metallurgy to transmute iron into starmetal.
[] Look for materials. You'll need to buy a great deal of iron, of course, fuel, reagents, and a forge custom-built to your specifications.
[] Look for personnel. You'll need smiths, alchemists, probably a priest of the god of forges, maybe a thaumaturge or geomancer too.
[] Look for a starmetal sample among rich collectors and odd dealers. You could use it as a reference to check the forge is on the right path.
[] Consult with priests. Maybe you'll find a god willing to give or at least show you some starmetal.
About that census: Perhaps the Portlord has dropped the matter, or perhaps he's just preoccupied. But your old estimate still gnaws at you from time to time - so few.
[] Asking clan heads to count their clan members would give you a second opinion.
[] Ask tariff collectors to count how many different people pass through the gates and ports every week.
[] Pick an ordinary district to count the population of, then divide Silverport's size by the district's size for an estimate.
[] Write-in new approach
Abuse your office:
[] Clan Bridge is moving to oppose the Portlord. Undermine and sabotage them. Subtly, of course - it should look like Fate objects to people who oppose the Portlord.
[] Some of the less scrupulous members of your own clan have suggested you should be quietly sabotaging Clan Plum instead, their main rival for becoming the fifth Great House.
[] New developments indicate it's Clan Rain that needs to be taken down a peg. See about fouling up their paperwork.
[] Why choose? Falsify a few contracts to make two of the above clans both think the other owes them something. (name which ones)
[] See if you can shuffle your personal obligations onto the palace finances.
Self-improvement: Attempts to raise one of your attributes. Difficulty increases as the base attribute rises.
[] Practice. Take some time away from what you're doing to look at how you're doing it and whether there's a better approach.
[] Tutoring. Ask one of your fellow councillors for advice in their field of expertise.
[] Paid Tutoring. Hire a professional teacher, like the ones your clan used to pay for when you were younger.
Social actions: One of these can be taken for free each turn in your spare time. Further selections from this section will still cost an action. You do not need to socialize with your own clan - that happens automatically unless you choose to skimp on family obligations.
[] Get to know one of your fellow councillors. (choose which)
[] Spy on one of your fellow councillors. (choose which)
[] Socialize and build connections with one of the great clans of Silverport. (choose which)
[] Spend time with someone else. (choose whom)
Special actions:
[] Slow and Steady. Take your time to think and plan properly before you act. Other planned actions this turn get a bonus die to their rolls. This action cannot be used if overworking.
[] Overwork: skimp on family obligations. You get an extra action this turn. May damage your social standing.
[] Overwork: skimp on religious obligations. You get an extra action this turn. May damage your social standing.
[] Overwork: skimp on food and sleep. You get an extra action this turn. May result in poor health.
[] Write in something else to do
Earning: 100g/turn (50g salary, 50g embezzlement)
Spending: 50g/turn (5g family, 5g shrines, 5g clerks, 35g debt payment)
Current wealth: 117g
Optional plan elements you can add:
[] Stop embezzling.
[] Reduce embezzlement to 10g/turn. (Removes risk of discovery)
[] Reduce embezzlement to 25g/turn. (Reduces risk of discovery)
[] Increase embezzlement to 100g/turn. (Increases risk of discovery)
[] Change debt payment to 15g/turn.
[] Change debt payment to 25g/turn.
[] Change some other value.
Spending: 50g/turn (5g family, 5g shrines, 5g clerks, 35g debt payment)
Current wealth: 117g
Optional plan elements you can add:
[] Stop embezzling.
[] Reduce embezzlement to 10g/turn. (Removes risk of discovery)
[] Reduce embezzlement to 25g/turn. (Reduces risk of discovery)
[] Increase embezzlement to 100g/turn. (Increases risk of discovery)
[] Change debt payment to 15g/turn.
[] Change debt payment to 25g/turn.
[] Change some other value.
QM notes:
-Now is a great opportunity to work on the forge project and spend less of your time on the main order for the turn. You can always come back and reform the staff some more later.
-"Go out and personally recruit" is a single action even if you select multiple sub-options. Number of sub-options only determines your recruitment pool.
-I advise against combining maximum recruitment pool with maximum firings, you'd be pissing off a lot of powerful people for the approval of commoners and foreigners.
-Blade and Morning both rolled badly when I was resolving their investigations of today's matter. Meanwhile Ebuskun rolled great and had everything ready for a small, fast, victorious military campaign against some backwards barbarians. Nope!
-If you had been in some of the other advisor roles, there would be shorter inter-turns at this point. But the Steward doesn't need to worry as much about the progress of a campaign that isn't besieging the city.
Last edited:
Well, unless we're the one introducing the corruption.
I wonder if we could help Blade out by seeking to recruit from Gold.
EDIT:
Try to set Plum and Rain against each other?
Last edited: