In the Wake of Monsters - an Advisor's Quest

[Redhead222]

[X] Dodge the question
could be ether really, its a bit of both.

 

[Exmorri]

Spoiler: Winning votes

[*] No, not thaumaturgy.
Resuming from previous plan:
[*] Write examinations
[*] Oversee hiring and firing
[*] Abuse position to fake contracts between Bridge and Rain
[*] Overwork: Skimp on food and sleep

After a bit of thought and several deep breaths to compose yourself, you say "No, it won't be thaumaturgy."

"I urge you to reconsider." Shenji says, and frowns slightly.

Well, Zara would probably be urging you to reconsider if you'd said otherwise. "No. Metalcraft is a skill in its own right," that's what will get Zara's support, I hope, oh good, she's smiling, "and not all change is transmutation."

"I think you'll find that change of the order required to produce starmetal will be transmutation."

You relax. Shenji is taking it better than you feared. "While that may be true of hitherto recorded processes, I am inventing a new thing."

Shenji glares at you. Eventually ey shrugs and gets a last word in. "Your invention will either fail or require thaumaturgy. I shall draw up the registration forms in hopeful anticipation of the latter. Home." And with that last word of power, ey's gone in a small whirlwind of feathers, paper scraps and ashes.

"Thank you!" says Zara. "Just between you and me, I think the old grumbler had a point, you've been throwing money into a fire and not getting anywhere fast. Let's try to remedy that, shall we?" She puts a warm, muscular hand on your shoulder. There's a moment's red glow, and you feel stronger, taller, healthier. There's also a sensation you find hard to describe, as though you'd just opened your eyes for a second time, becoming aware of some thing that you were not aware of before but is now so obvious and natural you do not even have a word for it. Some of it, you think, is a kind of bond to Zara. If you closed your eyes you could still sense her presence, and not only by the heat and sooty smell she gives off.

[Temporary skill gained: Basic Smithing, +1 Martial]

One of the spectators coughs, reminding you that you are not alone. You quickly look to the side and mutter furtively "How do I address her?"

"Zara Metal-Mother will do." says the god, overhearing you, and she turns to her priest to bless her next. "And you too, since it was thanks to you this whole affair came to my attention." You see the red glow much more clearly this time.

"Zara Metal-Mother, I have another question. Eternal Light, the god of the city of Silverport, has not been seen in quite some time now. About this tall, bald, occasionally iridescent skin with scales, usually appears surrounded by water, -" you give the description as best you remember, realizing with a start it's been nearly two years since you last saw the god. "Might you know anything about this?"

"I did think it was strange that we were not greeted properly on our arrival. Now investigating that is rightly a job for a censor, but as I'm here and they're not, I think I'll take a look." She waves imperiously at all the priests in attendance. "You lot, come with me. Got to make this look good. And you, Marble, was it? You can go."

For a moment you consider insisting on tagging along, but decide not to argue with a second major god today. Instead you go to check on your new forge where this whole affair began, and feel the effects of Zara's blessing at once. The metal ingots are lighter. The heat of the fire is less oppressive. You have an intuitive sense of just how the bellows should be pumped smoothly. You throw yourself into work for hours, standing alongside the smiths you've hired as one of them. It's tempting to stay here late into the night, but you made a promise to Jade and you're going to keep it.

Your dreams that night are full of bells great and small, ringing forever. When you awaken, you feel pleasantly serene and tranquil.

---

While the affair of the starmetal forge will be seared into your memory, it is in principle a side business. Your main duties are at the palace. The old examinations with their memorized answers must be changed. You write new examinations, altering the questions slightly to ask about the ruler of a different princedom or doubling the quantities involved. One day, perhaps, you will write an entirely new sort of examination, but that is beyond you at the moment. Slight alterations to the questions will throw off the memorizers of answer sheets, while still enabling you to easily confirm right or wrong.

[Create examinations: Stewardship, rolled 34+19-2=51, Learning, 43+17-2=58]

It's not as though the existing questions were all that bad. It's just that they've come to define a curriculum in their own right. Hmmm. Maybe you don't need an entirely new sort of examination, maybe a rota would do fine, changing between three sets of related similar questions. Anyone who memorizes all three sets of answers would have to be diligent and memorious enough that they'd be a good candidate on those grounds anyway!

No, wait, that still leaves an opportunity for people to smuggle in three sets of written answers and read off those. Easier to proctor for, perhaps, but that leaves the possibility that the proctor is corrupt.

Which you will handle for the moment by watching all exams personally.

[Proctoring: Stewardship, 35+19-2=52.]

Under your vigilant eye, only qualified new candidates are admitted to the palace staff, replacing the incompetent drudges you've had to put up with for the last year. You bask in the happy sensation as the many reports crossing your desk start to be less repetitive and show more initiative. They're fewer, too, with the new staff not escalating as much whenever a problem requires more than five minutes of thought.

The last of the old staff, who don't look too closely at what they're doing and wouldn't understand if they did, you use to carry out a vile and dastardly scheme: forgery.

It is the work of moments to write the wrong name on a registration or contract. It takes much more time and care to write a plausibly wrong name that will be paid without looking too closely, and remembering to correct the name on the receipt to hide the paper trail so that it looks like the right person paid.

[Finding lines of attack: Stewardship, 29+19-2=46. It's quite effective.]
[Covering your tracks: Intrigue, 40+14-2=52. Only thorough investigation will uncover it.]

It stings a little in your gut to be so underhanded. You tell yourself it's for a good cause. Several prominent members of Clan Bridge and Clan Rain will now be expecting reimbursements from one another. Mutual suspicion, you figure, will keep them focused on blaming each other rather than working together to track down the true cause.

---

"Marble? Are you all right? Marble?"

"Mm. Yes. I'm fine, these cushions are just so soft, I nearly fell asleep." you say, startled out of a daze. It's not really false. The cushions are soft, but you're also tired for other reasons. You've been borrowing hours of the morning that are going to have to be paid back at some point.

[Overwork: 31, minor consequence. Lose an action next turn.]

"Maybe we should move you to a wooden bench, then." Gird jokes. "Can't have you falling asleep before the roast's ready!"

It's early in the evening, and you're at a grand feast being thrown by Avalanche Pillar, head of Clan Avalanche. You and Jade are among the younger part of the audience - grey heads and wrinkles abound in every direction you look. Your sons have been left in the care of nurses and relatives so they don't spoil anything. You get up from the comfy seat so you won't risk falling asleep again, and look around for possible connections. This is where your ability and accomplishments can be parlayed into standing in the family if you play your cards right.

"Marble! Over here! That's him, isn't it? It's him! Marble, get over here so we can toast you right. A toast to Avalanche Marble, Steward of Silverport!"

Or if you just stand around looking respectable, apparently. That's fine too.

"A very bright boy, that one is. He'll go far. Might even be head one day, if he lives long enough!"

"I said the same when I first saw him. He was at my house one day when he was little and I come in the room to find him picking up a box of tiles all strewn across the floor. And he doesn't seem like the messy or careless sort, so I ask him, why did you knock it over? And he says with this outraged voice, he didn't knock anything over, the wind knocked it over and he's putting it back! And he's putting them back in all the right places, too. Good little boy, that one, not like the kids you get these days who do nothing all day but cry and scream for more food and then they don't even like the food."

"Hey, Marble, you should ask Greyclub to tell one of his stories. GREYCLUB! Come over here and tell Marble what it's like up south, on the front with all the spiders."

You put on your best expression of attentiveness and hope you won't fall asleep again while listening to whatever longwinded anecdote Greyclub has to deliver.

Greyclub's War Story

"Some of you have heard this already. But I'll say it again for those who haven't - the first thing you need to know about the spiders war is that the demon spiders come in all shapes and sizes. There's fleshy ones that splatter, and there's hard ones that crack, and there's thin ones that crumple. Sometimes you don't know what sort a spider is going to be until you drive your spear into it, and if you get it wrong you've either got a dented spear or demon juice spraying everywhere. It's hard on the watchmen, too, when anything moving at any size could be a spider."

"Luckily we have a cultivator with our unit. Ascension Crumbling Dust, his name is, old fellow who looks like he's fifty but the men from Ascension tell us he's a hundred and twenty. Not sure I believe that, but anyway. Every morning he's doing the something-something-rite of mountains to make himself super tough. Showed off for a bunch of the soldiers once, had them push pins against his skin until they bent."

"Of course the bad side to having a cultivator attached to your unit is that your unit gets put on the front. And every morning while old man Dust is doing his thing, the rest of us are chopping down the nearby trees a little further out so we get better line of sight."

"This isn't really a war in the regular sense. There was only the one man-sized spider, and Dust put that one down with a lance of fire that cut right through its skin and boiled it from the inside out until it smelled like roast chicken. Now smaller ones, say, the size of rabbits are still creepy as anything, but they're still dumb as rabbits and you can stick'em with spears right fine. Trouble is they just keep coming, and if you don't watch your step you get bitten. Sowe try to find where their eggs are and trample as many eggs and baby spiders as we can each day, and cut down the trees so we have a path to where high command thinks the spiders are coming from, where the spiders can't just drop from branches or spin giant webs in the way."

"Then one day we get to the lake. Scout duty - and everyone hates scout duty here - has said the current patch of forest ends up ahead. And we cut our way through, slow as slow is, because you can't just march through a forest, much less when you have to cut a road as you go, leaving behind enough lumber to make a couple nice ships that's just going to rot out there. We crest a hill and look down on a lake in a tiny valley, surrounded by meadows. Well, soggy grass really, verging on marsh, but it's a meadow by comparison with the forest."

"And the veterans like me, you know what we say? If it looks too easy, it's a trap. And this looks far too easy. But a couple of the younger ones, they say it's just spiders, the only trap spiders make is webs and there aren't any webs in a lake."
"So some idiot gets close and skims a stone on the lake, and suddenly the whole thing starts frothing around the edges. Told you it's a trap."

"Turns out we'd done a good number on the various forest spiders, but this lake has a whole new breed of water spiders, and they're all waiting and ready to go too and they're all concentrated in this one lake of hell. They burst out and at first we think it's the lake itself moving, like the local water elemental is upset, and then we see it's just a wave of millions of spiders coming at us with no space between, running across each other."

"Any man says he stood there that day and didn't want to run, I say he's a liar."

"A couple of idiots do break and run, off into the forest, and I think our unit lost most of them to forest spiders. I'm standing there wondering whether to stab them or crush them or risk climbing a tree, and then the cultivator runs to the front. He shouts 'Breath of the North Wind!', and he breathes on them like he's a living hurricane spraying snowflakes, and the whole wave of spiders freezes in place, covered in ice."

"Then he collapses. That must have been all the qi he had for that day, I guess."

"Someone - it definitely wasn't our commanding officer - shouts for us to hurry in and trample them before they thaw, and I look at the forest behind me with an unknown number of moving spiders, and I look at the lake in front of me with a lot more spiders that aren't moving, and I figure well, I know which one I want to take my chances with."

"Frozen water spiders make incredibly loud noises when you step on them. Every one sounds like a spear snapping or a bone breaking. And it seems not all of them are even frozen. A few of the biggest ones are still moving, but they're cold and sluggish, and we eventually get them too."

"Once the water spiders are all broken shards, we pick up the cultivator and head back to camp quick as we can. And then one of the officers pulls out a map, and he says hmm, this lake is on the map but it's too small to have a name, what do you say we give it a name."

"And you know what name we gave it that day?"

Greyclub takes a deep drink before answering his own question.

"Hell Spider Lake."

A chill goes down your back after hearing that.

You mingle a little more with other prominent figures at the feast, hint that Bridge might not be so supportive of Rain in the future, and ask what prospects look like with the new political situation.

The general consensus is optimistic that Avalanche is a lock for last Great House, the only question is how many concessions the other four are going to demand before they get around to accepting it.

But if that's the case, you ask, why is Bridge spending so much money on an alternative rather than merely stalling?

You feel you don't get any satisfactory answers to that. One old woman merely taps her nose conspiratorially. Another says they're not actually spending money, they're just saying so, but you know better. An old man says Bridge is a holdout, true, but Bridge doesn't have Ascension, Gold, Wisdom, and all their supporters outvoted.

Jade finds the whole roast pig to be delicious, and tells you so, repeatedly, while encouraging you to eat more. You inform her that you are sadly bereft of appetite this evening.

---

The next meeting of the Privvy Council eventually rolls around. Void looks as stressed and tired as ever, but cheers up when you walk in. "Ah, Marble. I've been hearing good things about your work."

Gold Morning bursts in right behind you. "The Stratocracy is mobilizing for war." says the spymaster. "I'm almost certain we're the target."

---

Voting time.

This turn you need to choose which things you're going to tell Wisdom Shining Void and how, there is no simple "just the facts" after divine intervention. The Portlord has heard some odd rumors and will be getting part of the story from Wolf Three, but will be interested in hearing your part too. The usual principles still apply - you can shade the report favorably, for example leave out Shenji entirely if you want, exaggerate or downplay the results of the mundane activities too, and otherwise summarize which bits you decide to exclude or to write in your report on the past turn.

[] [Report] Write in

Following that, 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 of them, but the less you can steer his instructions.

[] [Orders] Plan name goes here
-[] I should resume 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.
-[] The new exams are a stopgap measure, they're going to get memorized too eventually. I need more time to redesign the whole examination system.
-[] 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.
-[] Clan Bridge and their allies need to be destroyed. Peacefully and financially, of course.
-[] So we're fighting demon spiders to the south and Tokarans to the north? Maybe it's time to impose an emergency tax.
-[] Let's invent central banking.
-[] Other suggestions (write in)

Spoiler: Personal finances status

Former wealth: 117g
Income: Earned 50g, embezzled 50g
Expenditures: Family 5g, shrines 5g, clerks 5g, debt downpayment 35g, Inspiration material 75g
Current wealth: 92g

 

[Marlin]

Okay, because we potentially have access to star-metal. I'd like to remind those who love to power game, we can make cash.

I'm seeing two paths forward a 'plan: charity case', and a 'plan: hoodlum'. Both would start the same.

Plan: Charity would be in two parts.

Part A, where we make some daggers out of star-metal, give the daggers names, then quietly sell them.

Part B, where we tell tyhe Portlord we can make starmetal, and just give him the way we do it.

-

Plan Hoodlum, also split into two parts.

Part A, make some daggers of starmetal, quietly sell to highest bidder.

Part B, give the starmetal method to Clan Avalanche to become the sole supplier of star-metal to the city (being the sole supplier may not be viable if the Gods can just hand the method to whoever they want).

The base idea is to sell a few pieces of star-metal for a small fund (potentially small fortune) before we saturate the star-metal market.

How simple is our method? Well we haven't completed it yet, so simple is still up in the air, but we are using rather easily accessible ingredients, for a relatively cheap price.

Our star-metal expenses currently...

[Money lost: -30g materials, -15g personnel, -20g forge, -10g bribes.]

Click to shrink...

We know the rough cost of a dagger with a few strips of star-metal...

But you have connections and ill-gotten wealth of your own, and there is no finer cause for it than this. You get a glimpse of a dagger whose edges are strips of starmetal. Its cost is measured in talents, more than you can hope to afford. But the sight is a strange confirmation of what you had read: it is in fact white and silver and glowing and many-hued all at once.

Click to shrink...

I have no idea how much a talent is, but do note we don't have it.

 

[Exmorri]

The 'fun parts' of the experimental forge are now complete. It is considered to have satisfied your Inspiration for the time being and you will suffer no distraction penalties in the near future.

The forge will consume 38g per turn as long as you keep it running, to pay personnel and keep buying new materials. Down from 45g now that you've secured more consistent supply contracts.
It will roll secretly each turn to make progress towards a possible breakthrough. (Protagonist power still doesn't let you revolutionize metalworking in a few months.) You will be able to take an action to assist to make it roll more dice.

Once the forge is done running, either because it eventually reaches its breakthrough or because you decide not to pour money into it any more, then a timer will start counting down to the next Inspiration.

 

[Marlin]

[X] [Report] Plan - Spirits
-[X] Tell the Portlord just the facts of what you did for the stewardship actions
--[X] In case it needs to be mentioned, do not report how you abused your position to pit Clan Bridge and Clan Rain against each other.
---[X] The extra stuff, also known as the keep Star-metal secret, or not.
----[X] Tell the portlord, you were working on something that caught the interest of the divine beuracracy due to an issue on classification. The classification issue at it's heart was the difference between impossible artwork, and sublime simplicity. The project isn't ready yet, and has the potential to explode in your(the protagonist Marble's) face when it is, but is the reason a divine showed up and looked into our missing god issue. You asked the divine about the location of the missing god, turned out the divine had free time to look.
-----[X] In short, keep the fact you are working on star-metal secret. Try and cover what you're working on as a giant metal mobile statue warrior if anyone asks what your project is, and won't take an indirect/direct no as an answer.
------[X] If needed, play the mobile warrior statue idea, as your 'brilliant' plan you feared no one would approve, to fix the shoddy toll gates, and walls issue.

[X] [Orders] Plan New and Old
-[X] I should resume fixing the palace budget and restoring a healthy cash flow.
-[X] The palace budget is unfixable as it stands, I should sort out the palace's underlying obligations.
-[X] The new exams are a stopgap measure, they're going to get memorized too eventually. I need more time to redesign the whole examination system.
-[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.

Edit: This plan won't be edited anymore.
Edit 2: Okay, now, I think I covered everything. If I didn't, please point out what needs fixing.
Edit 3: *Bang head against desk* - I just had to add another point to play up the giant robot/mecha idea, that's totally not out of character for Marble. Marble keeps bringing up the wall issue each meeting, being vindicated by a gathering army should help establishing 'the paranoid steward was right' appeal.

 

[Navarque]

[X] [Orders] Plan New and Old

nice plan

 

[RookDeSuit]

[X] Plan Report: spirits

[X] [Orders] Alt. Stuff ( I.e no banking just yet)
-[X] I should resume fixing the palace budget and restoring a healthy cash flow
-[X] The new exams are a stopgap measure, they're going to get memorized too eventually. I need more time to redesign the whole examination system.
-[X] The census is a lot more important than I thought, order me to do that properly.
-[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.

I like your plan for the report Marlin, but I don't believe we can pull off the creation of a central bank at this. We have multiple potential invasion forces to deal with, and we're going to lose an action from overworking ourselves.

We keep our actions light, and focus on things we have already started.

Adhoc vote count started by RookDeSuit on Jun 7, 2018 at 4:25 PM, finished with 14 posts and 4 votes.

• ---

  2 people have voted

  [X] Plan Report: spirits
  -[X] [Report] Tell the Portlord just the facts of what you did for the stewardship actions
  --[X] In case it needs to be mentioned, do not report how you abused your position to pit Clan Bridge and Clan Rain against each other.
  ---[X] The extra stuff, also known as the keep Star-metal secret, or not.
  ----[X] Tell the portlord, you were working on something that caught the interest of the divine beuracracy due to an issue on classification. The classification issue at it's heart was the difference between impossible artwork, and sublime simplicity. The project isn't ready yet, and has the potential to explode in your(the protagonist Marble's) face when it is, but is the reason a divine showed up and looked into our missing god issue. You asked the divine about the location of the missing god, turned out the divine had free time to look.
  -----[X] In short, keep the fact you are working on star-metal secret. Try and cover what you're working on as a giant metal mobile statue warrior if anyone asks what your project is, and won't take an indirect/direct no as an answer.
  ------[X] If needed, play the mobile warrior statue idea, as your 'brilliant' plan you feared no one would approve, to fix the shoddy toll gates, and walls issue.

  • Marlin
  • RookDeSuit

  1 people have voted

  [X] [Orders] Plan New and Old
  -[X] I should resume fixing the palace budget and restoring a healthy cash flow.
  -[X] The palace budget is unfixable as it stands, I should sort out the palace's underlying obligations.
  -[X] The new exams are a stopgap measure, they're going to get memorized too eventually. I need more time to redesign the whole examination system.
  -[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.

  • Marlin

  1 people have voted

  [X] [Orders] Plan New and Old

  • Navarque

  1 people have voted

  [X] [Orders] Alt. Stuff ( I.e no banking just yet)
  -[X] I should resume fixing the palace budget and restoring a healthy cash flow.
  -[X] The new exams are a stopgap measure, they're going to get memorized too eventually. I need more time to redesign the whole examination system.
  -[X] The census is a lot more important than I thought, order me to do that properly.
  -[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.

  • RookDeSuit

  1 people have voted

  [X] [Report] Plan Report - Productive
  -[X] Regarding my primary project I have adjusted the examinations for office, thus removing those not up to standard.
  --[X] Replacements have been recruited from the four Great Houses as well as Clan Avalanche.
  -[X] As a personal project I have been investigating the possibility of creating starmetal.
  --[X] Shortly after the first indications of progress I was summoned to the temple. Two gods, Director Shenji of the Celestial Office of Design, God of Transmutative Thaumaturgy, and Zara Metal-Mother, Southern God of Forges, were in dispute over who had jurisdiction over the method I was using. They asked whether I was doing thaumaturgy or not. When I stated that I was not currently using thaumaturgy Zara Metal-Mother approved of the project, granting me a blessing.
  ---[X] I mentioned that Eternal Light has been absent and Zara Metal-Mother stated she would investigate the matter.

  • Angelform

  1 people have voted

  [X] [Orders] Plan Emergency
  -[X] The new exams are a stopgap measure, they're going to get memorized too eventually. I need more time to redesign the whole examination system.
  -[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] Clan Bridge and their allies need to be destroyed. Peacefully and financially, of course.
  -[X] So we're fighting demon spiders to the south and Tokarans to the north? Maybe it's time to impose an emergency tax.

  • Angelform

 

[Zale]

I feel like there was an adviser who advised on repairing the city's walls and was rebuked because obviously no one was going to attack them. Maybe we'll actually be listened to this time by our lord.

 

[Marlin]

nice plan

Click to shrink...

Ehhh, it's seperated into two plans, one is the [] Plan Report: spirits, and the other is [] [Orders] Plan New and Old

[X] Plan Report: spirits

[X] [Orders] Alt. Stuff ( I.e no banking just yet)
-[X] I should resume fixing the palace budget and restoring a healthy cash flow
-[X] The new exams are a stopgap measure, they're going to get memorized too eventually. I need more time to redesign the whole examination system.
-[X] The census is a lot more important than I thought, order me to do that properly.
-[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.

I like your plan for the report Marlin, but I don't believe we can pull off the creation of a central bank at this. We have multiple potential invasion forces to deal with, and we're going to lose an action from overworking ourselves.

We keep our actions light, and focus on things we have already started.

Click to shrink...

The reason I kept the central bank is due to the Portlord chooses what we do. We suggest things, and what we suggest has a chance of being accepted, ignored, or dismissed. That time we strongly suggested to fix the walls, for example was dismissed. I like the suggestion of central banking, to take advantage of the city in a war state, but really only have it suggested to not ruin the feel of a ck2 style player we are aiding as an advisor.

Advisors in ck2 style quests don't usually drop suggestions, then pick them up later.

 

[Angelform]

Turn 3 Results – 770

Click to shrink...

Not a great year but a reasonably good one.

The forge will consume 38g per turn
Once the forge is done running, either because it eventually reaches its breakthrough or because you decide not to pour money into it any more, then a timer will start counting down to the next Inspiration.

Click to shrink...

I call that a bargain.

In short, keep the fact you are working on star-metal secret.

Click to shrink...

I object to this. We want Void to be a friend, not an obstacle. He already trusted us enough to feel us out about potentially conspiring against the establishment and we have been proving our worth since.

Plus, we really don't know the long term consequences. If we give the truth then the Piety advisor can tell Void and us if something needs to be done.

 

[Marlin]

I object to this. We want Void to be a friend, not an obstacle. He already trusted us enough to feel us out about potentially conspiring against the establishment and we have been proving our worth since.

Plus, we really don't know the long term consequences. If we give the truth then the Piety advisor can tell Void and us if something needs to be done.

Click to shrink...

YOU trust Void, the others belong to clans. Sure, blurt out to the great clans the steward is close to mass producing star-metal cheap. Fantastic. Talents player, lots of coin lost!!

I don't trust the piety advisor, and believe that the intrigue advisor is a hack.

The Portlord passes the page to the Sage. "Three. Can you read this any better than he can?"

Wolf Three is already staring wide-eyed at the page, and uncovers her third eye to read it better. "Yes. Yes I can." she stammers.

[Did you notice something wrong? Intrigue, 32+14=46. Yes.]
Her reaction and grabbing the page looked unreasonably eager. You figure there's some very nasty dirt on her somewhere in those pages.

Click to shrink...

If you still protest, then make a plan that has us tell void in private with a lie. Like gaining void's advice about an argument on literature you're having with jade.

 

[RookDeSuit]

Plus, we really don't know the long term consequences. If we give the truth then the Piety advisor can tell Void and us if something needs to be done.

Click to shrink...

--[X] In short, keep the fact you are working on star-metal secret. Try and cover what you're working on as a giant metal mobile statue warrior if anyone asks what your project is, and won't take an indirect/direct no as an answer.

Click to shrink...

So you would rather this section be replaced with something like this:

—[] Be honest and straightforward with your work to create Starmetal, or at least something incredibly.
—-[] this project could still blow up in our face....( Rest of Plan unchanged).....

I think we could do that. SO how about it @Marlin ?

Edit: Just saw your post.

Edit2:

intrigue advisor is a hack

Click to shrink...

Wait, why would you think this? I agree that Wolf 3 is suspicious, but the Intrigue Advisor seems decent enough his job.

 

[Neptune]

I'm sorry, but seriously what's the point in trying to keep the fact we're trying to create Starmetal a secret? We've been working with who knows how many other people, and we were doing some from a negligible knowledge base so unless you think those blacksmiths and alchemists were just working ad hoc (which is incredibly stupid, when our character doesn't have the needed knowledge base) instead of actually being told what we were trying to achieve and accomplish then this is completely futile. This isn't even taking into account all the various different priests at the meeting, the fact that two major gods came personally, or the fact that one of them is as of now looking into what happened to the city god. None of the above is going to be kept quiet by those many many people.

This just reeks of pointless secrecy for pointless secrecies sake long after the fact, and when it's just been given a divine spotlight shone right onto it. For Christ sake the Priests themselves knew what we were trying to achieve, which is why they called it to their gods attention in the first place and the reason they came.

 

[Angelform]

YOU trust Void, the others belong to clans. Sure, blurt out to the great clans the steward is close to mass producing star-metal cheap. Fantastic.

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Not sure we are reading the same update, what indicates that we are 'close' or that the process will be either 'mass-producible' or 'cheap'?

Also I would like you to think about the fact that a pair of major gods had a shouting match in the middle of a public temple. Every priest, and thus every gossip-munger, in the city will have heard that we are trying to make starmetal.

I don't trust the piety advisor, and believe that the intrigue advisor is a hack.
If you still protest, then make a plan that has us tell void in private with a lie. Like gaining void's advice about an argument on literature you're having with jade.

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Void trusts the intrigue advisor as his second in command and as far as we are aware he hasn't screwed up yet. Why do you think him a hack? As to three eyes, I don't judge an ironic mutation as grounds for suspicion.


Anyway, plan:

[X] [Report] Plan Report - Productive
-[X] Regarding my primary project I have adjusted the examinations for office, thus removing those not up to standard.
--[X] Replacements have been recruited from the four Great Houses as well as Clan Avalanche.
-[X] As a personal project I have been investigating the possibility of creating starmetal.
--[X] Shortly after the first indications of progress I was summoned to the temple. Two gods, Director Shenji of the Celestial Office of Design, God of Transmutative Thaumaturgy, and Zara Metal-Mother, Southern God of Forges, were in dispute over who had jurisdiction over the method I was using. They asked whether I was doing thaumaturgy or not. When I stated that I was not currently using thaumaturgy Zara Metal-Mother approved of the project, granting me a blessing.
---[X] I mentioned that Eternal Light has been absent and Zara Metal-Mother stated she would investigate the matter.

[X] [Orders] Plan Emergency
-[X] The new exams are a stopgap measure, they're going to get memorized too eventually. I need more time to redesign the whole examination system.
-[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] Clan Bridge and their allies need to be destroyed. Peacefully and financially, of course.
-[X] So we're fighting demon spiders to the south and Tokarans to the north? Maybe it's time to impose an emergency tax.

 

[Marlin]

Wait, why would you think this? I agree that Wolf 3 is suspicious, but the Intrigue Advisor seems decent enough his job.

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Because of what he said, later.

"Morning, Three, let me hear from you first. I'm very curious to know what sort of things the Abominations would be of a mind to write down." says the Portlord.

"It can't be blackmail." says his spymaster. "Well, not just blackmail. At first I thought the Abominations might just be very, very good at ferreting out vices and secrets, because a lot of the lists of sins seemed just on the edge of the plausible, while there were only a rare few of them I was able to confirm. Then we found a page naming my aunt and it accused her of poisoning me, which I know for a fact she didn't."

"Are you sure she didn't just bungle the attempt?" asks Void sardonically.

"Yes!" says Morning firmly. "She-"

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"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.

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The spymaster could just be corrupt. But what has me scream hack is the spymaster not seeing a speck of truth/value in the papers we saw the piety advisor panic over.

 

[Marlin]

Not sure we are reading the same update, what indicates that we are 'close' or that the process will be either 'mass-producible' or 'cheap'?

Also I would like you to think about the fact that a pair of major gods had a shouting match in the middle of a public temple. Every priest, and thus every gossip-munger, in the city will have heard that we are trying to make starmetal.

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Was just us, the gods, and priests. Starmetal, the word wasn't shouted into the street. Our GM says we can hide Shenji's involment.

This turn you need to choose which things you're going to tell Wisdom Shining Void and how, there is no simple "just the facts" after divine intervention. The Portlord has heard some odd rumors and will be getting part of the story from Wolf Three, but will be interested in hearing your part too. The usual principles still apply - you can shade the report favorably, for example leave out Shenji entirely if you want, exaggerate or downplay the results of the mundane activities too, and otherwise summarize which bits you decide to exclude or to write in your report on the past turn.

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How expensive, and difficult, do you really think star metal is once we have the method? These are the base ingredients...

The iron itself is easily acquired in large quantities. The good charcoal you will need for proper heat is harder, but still passable. For the higher reagents, you are very uncertain what you are doing, but eventually settle on a useful heuristic - if the price is outlandishly high, it is probably an attempt to rip you off. Swindlers charge as much as they possibly can for nonsense, after all, while professional alchemists need to have reasonable prices for actually useful components or no one will buy them.

Oils. Salts. Acids. Limes. Mercury.

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Don't forget our personnel aren't masters of the craft, so we are likely aiming for a mundane trick without magic to make starmetal. Know how a trick is done, anyone can replicate it, eventually.

Starmetal is supposed to be really expensive, and rare in our area. We can saturate the market if we're not careful.

 

[RookDeSuit]

[] Plan Report: spirits

Was just us, the gods, and priests. Starmetal, the word wasn't shouted into the street. Our GM says we can hide Shenji's involment.


How expensive, and difficult, do you really think star metal is once we have the method? These are the base ingredients...

Don't forget our personnel aren't masters of the craft, so we are likely aiming for a mundane trick without magic to make starmetal. Know how a trick is done, anyone can replicate it, eventually.

Starmetal is supposed to be really expensive, and rare in our area. We can saturate the market if we're not careful.

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You bring up valid points. I think the issue was the language you used, " jumped the gun," so to speak.

We have not necessarily determined all the tricks needed for Starmetal, but to say we will mass produce it. Yeah, not happening at this time.

 

[Exmorri]

Our GM says we can hide Shenji's involment.

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I think I should clarify a little: The QM says you can leave Shenji out of your report, as an example of how you might give distorted information to the boss. This does not prevent anyone else submitting contradictory information if they have it. Some particularly dastardly people might submit contradictory information even if you're telling the truth! The other advisors have their own agendas, which you might discover with investigation.

 

[Marlin]

You bring up valid points. I think the issue was the language you used, " jumped the gun," so to speak.

We have not necessarily determined all the tricks needed for Starmetal, but to say we will mass produce it. Yeah, not happening at all.

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Fine, there goes my dream...

Still, we only need to saturate the market with a method to make starmetal. By mass produce, it could be done, depending on the method. Easy, or hard.

Sigh, I'm blind to the possibilty starmetal can't be produced in large quantities eventually.

 

[RookDeSuit]

snip

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Hmm.

One, we could exclude him from the report at this time in order to protect his identity. This way no one can poach him. However, if he gets taken then any help we can get is delayed because we have to take time explaining why he's important.

On the reverse, getting contradicted by our fellow council member would be embarrassing as well bad.

However, are we ready to talk about our project when we don't have a product in hand?

Still, we only need to saturate the market with a method to make starmetal. By mass produce, it could be done, depending on the method. Easy, or hard.

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Undoubtably, we could definitely get some quick cash on the side by selling Starmetal. With the caveat that our military gets first pick on Stearmetal weapons. Afterward, we need to pace our pseudo-blacksmith/ merchant venture by selling to the public.

 

[Marlin]

[X] [Orders] Plan Emergency
-[X] The new exams are a stopgap measure, they're going to get memorized too eventually. I need more time to redesign the whole examination system.
-[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] Clan Bridge and their allies need to be destroyed. Peacefully and financially, of course.
-[X] So we're fighting demon spiders to the south and Tokarans to the north? Maybe it's time to impose an emergency tax.

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Our GM told us taxes are a bad idea. Please give a argument for taxes.

The phrase "Silverport has no King" is perhaps the nearest thing to a national anthem found in the mercantile city-state where our story is set. In their fairy tales and nursery rhymes, the archetypal king is a depicted as a meddling busybody, dictating to everybody where to stand and where to sit, what you must buy and what you may sell, the length of a spear and the weight of a shield, when to get up and when to go to bed. One particularly bad fictional king is known to reserve even colors by class: serfs only get to say "light" and "dark", nonserfs may also say "red" and "green", while "blue" is reserved for the nobility, and all the finer shades are the king's sole property to name and enjoy.

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A secondary complaint often made in Silverport against kings is in the nature of their taxes. Silverport's many fees and rents can easily be just as impoverishing as any royal tax, and as intrusive as any royal decree, but fees in Silverport at least theoretically are supposed have a specific purpose behind each of them: This fee is the fee for docking at my pier, this fee is the fee for setting up your stall on my land. Taxes, by contrast, are viewed as what the monarch just takes out of desire or for unrelated reasons.

There have been some attempts by philosophers at a synthesis view that considers the monarch to be the owner of a country and taxes to be the fee paid for the privilege of living on the monarch's land, thereby making monarchy a form of national social contract. This view has not been popular in Silverport.

Click to shrink...

 

[Derpmind]

So, we've removed the penalty, and if the forge keeps going long enough we really might get benefit from it. Plus, if we spend actions on the forge, e might permanently learn Forging, which whiile a strange skill for our job is still a useful one.

[X] [Report] Plan Report - Productive

[X] [Orders] Plan Fix Stuff
-[X] The new exams are a stopgap measure, they're going to get memorized too eventually. I need more time to redesign the whole examination system.
-[X] The census is a lot more important than I thought, order me to do that properly
-[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.

My choice of actions for the action plan. We really need to improve the walls, but failing that straightening up old projects would be a good benefit too.

 

[RookDeSuit]

[X] [Orders] Plan Fix Stuff
-[X] The new exams are a stopgap measure, they're going to get memorized too eventually. I need more time to redesign the whole examination system.
-[X] The census is a lot more important than I thought, order me to do that properly
-[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.

You know what, we could probably get away with doing less this next turn.

 

[Neptune]

[X] [Report] Plan Report - Productive
-[X] Regarding my primary project I have adjusted the examinations for office, thus removing those not up to standard.
--[X] Replacements have been recruited from the four Great Houses as well as Clan Avalanche.
-[X] As a personal project I have been investigating the possibility of creating starmetal.
--[X] Shortly after the first indications of progress I was summoned to the temple. Two gods, Director Shenji of the Celestial Office of Design, God of Transmutative Thaumaturgy, and Zara Metal-Mother, Southern God of Forges, were in dispute over who had jurisdiction over the method I was using. They asked whether I was doing thaumaturgy or not. When I stated that I was not currently using thaumaturgy Zara Metal-Mother approved of the project, granting me a blessing.
---[X] I mentioned that Eternal Light has been absent and Zara Metal-Mother stated she would investigate the matter.

[X] [Orders] Plan Fix Stuff
-[X] The new exams are a stopgap measure, they're going to get memorized too eventually. I need more time to redesign the whole examination system.
-[X] The census is a lot more important than I thought, order me to do that properly
-[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.

 

[veekie]

[X] [Report] Plan Report - Productive

[X] [Orders] Plan Fix Stuff