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Relics of the Third Age: A Lord of the Rings Quest

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[X] Don't Dress Up
[X] Assertive Approach

Not that we know any of this, but let's see how true Faramir is to his word that he would rather Minas Tirith not even be the "kind mistress of willing slaves." Having kept his word to refuse the One Ring, this should be a comparatively simple matter, surely?
 
Zimmerwald1915 said:
Not that we know any of this, but let's see how true Faramir is to his word that he would rather Minas Tirith not even be the "kind mistress of willing slaves." Having kept his word to refuse the One Ring, this should be a comparatively simple matter, surely?
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I mean, Faramir is my second favourite character in the books and I trust him to be true to that. However we have to take it into account that despite the wisdom and nobility of both him and Aragorn, neither of them are the whole kingdom, and there will be plenty of interest and considerations in action.
 
Arphazêl seemed to be just too pure for Sauron's dark jutsu.

[X] Diplomatic Approach.

Hey, it can't go that bad the second time, right?

[X] A Nice Dress.

No good reason, just thought it would be funny.
 
[X] Diplomatic Approach
[X] A Nice Dress

We are more than a hotheaded brawler, we are of old and proud stock. Also we really only have goodwill and a reasonably vague promise to leverage into them giving aid, making bold demands might be the quickest way to get us sidelined with a token force.
 
Siual said:
making bold demands might be the quickest way to get us sidelined with a token force.
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Do we want more than a token force? More than once our inner monologue has balked at the idea of there being enough Gondorians in Nurn to constitute an occupying army.

If on the other hand we demonstrate that the Gondorians cannot be relied upon, we bolster the case for a sovereign kingdom of Nurn.
 
Zimmerwald1915 said:
Do we want more than a token force? More than once our inner monologue has balked at the idea of there being enough Gondorians in Nurn to constitute an occupying army.

If on the other hand we demonstrate that the Gondorians cannot be relied upon, we bolster the case for a sovereign kingdom of Nurn.
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a token force won't really help with the orcs. even if we want to create a sovereign kingdom, doing it when defending against orcs is trouble

and our mission was to get Gondor's help. sabotaging that to further our agenda is really dishonest
 
Zimmerwald1915 said:
Do we want more than a token force? More than once our inner monologue has balked at the idea of there being enough Gondorians in Nurn to constitute an occupying army.

If on the other hand we demonstrate that the Gondorians cannot be relied upon, we bolster the case for a sovereign kingdom of Nurn.
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It's a good point of course, but just because our protagonist dreams of a Kingdom of Nurn doesn't mean that we can declare it tomorrow and place a crown on our someone's head and be done with it. The infrastructure, agricultural surplus (to allow for an unproductive class of administrators and professional soldiers) and population surplus (to provide the bodies for these occupations) is likely simply not there. Not losing people, barns or livestock to orc raids will likely get us there faster, though of course there will be a (diplomatic) price to be paid.
 
[X ] A Fine Gambeson
[X ] Diplomatic Approach

We have no cards to play other than some decade old commitments, so best be diplomatic. And we are coming as a soldier of Nurn, so better wear the Gambeson
 
[X] Don't Dress Up
[X] Diplomatic Approach
Min-maxing crouching moron, go. "Oh, we are but poor folk, noble sire, nothing nice to wear at all between all the orcses and the mud farming!"
 
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    • Scheduled vote count started by Chengar Qordath on Jun 16, 2024 at 1:04 AM, finished with 26 posts and 18 votes.
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    Pathway to the Relic 4
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    • A Diplomatic Dinner​

    Diplomacy (0) + Willpower (2) + Noble Daughter (1): 3d6: (6, 1, 6)
    Bonus Dice: 2d6: (3, 4)
    2 Successes vs Target Number 2

    "Prince Faramir, Princess Eowyn, thank you for receiving me as a guest in your home." I didn't enjoy forcing out the diplomatic words, but everyone back in Nurn was counting on me to get this right. I could grit my teeth and be nice to the Gondorians for however long as it took to secure aid for my people. Well, as long as Faramir didn't do anything too unbearable.

    "It's our honor to have you as a guest," Faramir answered, just as diplomatically. He set a hand on the back of a young boy. "Our son, Elboron, will be joining us for dinner. I hope you don't mind?"

    "Of course not." Even if I had to privately wonder why he wanted his child here. Was it some kind of ploy to force me to be more diplomatic? His soldiers almost certainly would've told him about the incident in Minas Morgul. Though that might be reading too much into it, having his heir at dinner might just be a way to give him a little early exposure to politics and diplomacy. Or even more mundanely, perhaps the two of them were just doting parents who wanted to spend time with their child.

    As we took our seats Eowyn opened the obligatory small talk any meeting of nobles must begin with. "Lady Arphazêl, that's quite a fetching gambeson. I might have to ask about having something similar made for myself. Is it common for Numenorean women to train and dress for battle?"

    "It isn't unheard of in Numenorean history," I answered her. "And with how things stand in Nurn at the moment, we simply cannot afford to be picky about what roles men and women take."

    "Very sensible of you," Eowyn sent an approving smile my way. "I suppose I should say it's nice to know that more people have accepted that women can have a place on the battlefield, but I would honestly prefer if neither women nor men needed to go to war in the first place."

    "We all would," Faramir agreed. "Long have I dreamed that after Sauron's downfall, we could finally beat our swords into plowshares and enjoy an age of peace. I still hold onto hope that there will come a day when that finally happens, but now I fear it will not be for many days hence. Gondor is no longer at war, but I cannot say we are truly at peace either. In some ways, facing the unified armies of Sauron across clear lines of battle was easier than hunting a thousand small bands of Orcs hiding in every cave and ruin."

    Faramir cleared his throat. "Which brings us to the reason for your visit, Lady Arphazêl. I am saddened to hear that Orcs have continued plaguing the people of Nurn, who have already suffered so cruelly at their hands. Even moreso because that news does not come as a surprise to me, Orcs remain a plague all across the lands of Ithilien and Reclaimed Arnor. I give you my word that I will do everything in my power to put an end to this threat and protect the freedom of Nurn's people."

    Before I could let myself feel any satisfaction at his words, the Gondorian continued. "However, it pains me to confess that there are limits to what I can accomplish. There are times when I fear Gondor's rangers will not fully cleanse Ithilien within my lifetime. Sometimes it feels as if for every Orc lair we destroy, two more are built in its place. I know things are not truly so grim as that, but this long twilight struggle to truly win peace is a war without clear battlefields or decisive victories."

    Faramir let out a heavy sigh. "The people of Gondor are even more weary of this conflict. King Elessar has done great things since reclaiming the throne, but reclaiming the lands of Ithilien and rebuilding the realm of Arnor is no small task. The emergency taxes my father imposed during the War of the Ring still remain in place, and we still ask far too many of Gondor's children to take up the sword to defend our much-expanded borders.

    "I confess I am torn on the matter. For all that I love King Elessar's dreams of spreading freedom and prosperity, I cannot ignore their present cost. I had hoped that with Sauron's defeat I could send my soldiers home, but instead I find myself training and recruiting a new generation of rangers to fight in Ithilien. Some of them are even the children of men who fought at my side in the war with Sauron. I always hoped that our victory would mean those children would never need to take up the sword."

    I could already see where he was heading with this, and I didn't want to hear any more words trying to justify it. "So as much as you regret it, you can't do anything to help us?"

    Faramir blinked in surprise and shook his head. "Nothing of the sort. Gondor will aid the people of Nurn. I will not abandon free people to Orcish depredations simply because it may strain the budget or tax our people. However, I cannot ignore those factors either. Mustering an army of thousands of soldiers to march into Mordor simply isn't practical." He grimaced. "Nor do I think it would truly be effective if it were. Most of the Orcs would simply hide in their holes and wait until we had to return home."

    There was an obvious flaw in his argument that I had to point out. "Wouldn't your rangers be better suited to hunting down Orcs than the regular army?"

    "They would," Faramir agreed. "But I already have fewer of them than I would like. The Rangers of Ithilien are all volunteers; even if I wanted to conscript men into their ranks, the nature of their duty makes it impractical. Giving an unwilling man enough supplies and equipment to survive on his own before sending him off into the wilderness is a good way to ensure he deserts. Rangers have a hard life, with months away from the comforts of home and family." He smiled at Eowyn and his son while taking his wife's hand. "I know I would find it hard to go out into the field and be parted from them. While I would do my duty no matter how much it would pain my heart, how could I think less of other men for not volunteering to do something that I hesitate to because I know it would cause me such pain?"

    "You could always take me with you," Eowyn pointed out with a wry grin. "Or at least, that is what I might have said before we had our son. Now..." She sighed and shook her head. "I know the pain you speak of. As sorely wounded as my heart would be, we could not leave our child with both parents absent. Though I would say that as Prince of Ithilien, it should be you staying here as a responsible administrator while I go out into the field and put Orcs to the sword."

    After sharing a loving smile with his wife for almost too long, Faramir cleared his throat and returned his attention to me. "But yes, as I was saying, I fear that it would be difficult to send enough ranger patrols into Mordor. Every soldier I send there must be taken from another front, and there are additional challenges to operating within Mordor. You passed through the Morgul Vale, you know we can't use it as a forward operating base or even a supply station. The Gorgoroth Plateau is open terrain, and barren. Even my rangers would struggle to sustain themselves in the field, and the supply line back to Gondor would be long and perilous. Not to mention that the Gorgoroth Plateau is so large and open that we would need many bases to secure it properly."

    I could already guess where he was driving towards with this line of conversation. "The most practical way to secure Nurn from Orcish attacks wouldn't be to patrol Gorgoroth at all. It would be to station Gondorian soldiers directly in Nurn itself. Defending the villages is much simpler than trying to secure the wilderness around them, and your soldiers could feed themselves off the fruit of our fields." It was a struggle to hide my distaste at the suggestion, even though I knew it made sense.

    "From a military perspective, it is the most practical solution," Faramir agreed. "But there are more factors at play than purely military matters. I see no point in hiding from the uncomfortable truth of the situation: Gondor's soldiers would not be brief visitors to Nurn. I have been fighting a decade-long campaign to clear Orcs from Ithilien, and they are far less established here than they are in Mordor."

    "So you would demand Nurn's annexation as the price of your aid?" I clenched one of my fists underneath the table. I'd suspected that would happen, that's just how the Gondorians were, but to hear the demand spoken aloud still infuriated me.

    Faramir held up one of his hands. "I demand nothing. The aid I offer to Nurn is freely given with no expectation of any repayment. However, I think we both know that any words I offer or oaths I swear are an imperfect guarantee. No words will change the fact that when a large kingdom's soldiers occupy the lands of a smaller realm, that realm's freedom is compromised. The people of Nurn's ruling council would always be aware of the presence of Gondorian soldiers, and their every decision would be colored by that."

    As he continued, a pained grimace tugged at his lips. "Our garrison would already call upon the people of Nurn to help feed them, and the longer they stayed in place the more we would ask of them. When many in Gondor think our taxes are too high, how long would it be before someone proposed that the people of Nurn help contribute to the cost of their defenders? I cannot even say such a request would be entirely unfair. However, if our soldiers occupy your lands and we collect taxes from you, then Nurn will have already been effectively annexed into Gondor. I do not like the idea of forcing a kingdom of freed slaves to bend the knee to Gondor, however kindly we do it. No matter how gently we treat the people of Nurn, the existence of the Orcish threat makes our very presence coercive."

    I very reluctantly gave the Gondorian prince credit for saying everything I'd been thinking. Gondor did not need to threaten Nurn when they could use the Orcs as a proxy. No matter how gently their requests were worded, they would always be backed by the unspoken threat that Gondor could withdraw their forces and leave us to the tender mercies of the Orcs if we refused. Even if Gondor made no demands, the Council would always have to consider whether Gondor would approve of our decisions. Not to mention that if the monarchists in Nurn won the day, we would have no choice but to offer the crown to a Gondorian noble. If Faramir ever had a second child, they would almost certainly be the monarch of Nurn.

    "What would you do, then?" I had to ask. "You say you want to help us, but operating out of Gondorian-held territory isn't feasible, and moving troops into Nurn means taking over." I wracked my brain to try and come up with an alternative. The Gondorians held Morannon, but it was too far to the north to be a good base of operations to move into Nurn. Barad Dur was in a better position, but I didn't think anyone would like the suggestion of establishing a Gondorian base there. Plus Sauron's capital might have the same problem as the Morgul Vale when it came to long-term habitation. It certainly wouldn't shock me if there was some kind of curse on Barad Dur's ruins that would make life unpleasant for his enemies.

    "The best option I can see for now is to help build Nurn to a state where it can defend itself," Faramir answered. "Which I'm aware is much easier said than done. In all honesty, I am not sure how viable it is within a reasonable timeframe. Much as I loathe the idea of an arrangement that compromises Nurn's independence, I also hate the thought of good people dying to Orcs when my soldiers could save them.

    "So, I have a proposal: I will dispatch a force of rangers to return to Nurn, and place themselves temporarily under the command of Nurn's ruling council. Large enough to be of aid, but not so large that they could subjugate Nurn. They will do everything they can to help your people build their strength while also assessing the full scale of the Orc threat. If that is enough to help you, then we can all rest easy. If our scouts reveal a truly existential threat to Nurn and its people, we can make further decisions as needed."

    I thought it over. At least on the surface, it wasn't an unreasonable compromise. Send enough troops to help but not enough to conquer us, and put them all formally under our command. Of course, that latter condition would just be a polite fiction. They were soldiers of Gondor, and we both knew which side they would take if conflict broke out between our nations. No doubt whatever report the scouts sent back would be skewed to match Gondor's agenda too. They could easily exaggerate the Orc threat to persuade Nurn to invite more Gondorian soldiers. Once we'd let in the first Gondorians and kept our freedom, allowing a few more wouldn't seem like such a terrible thing. Not until we realized there were enough to put us all in chains.

    I couldn't be certain Faramir's proposal was in bad faith. Much as I didn't want to trust him, I could find no sign of deceit in his words. He'd seemed earnest enough in his offers of aid, and keenly aware of why Nurn might hesitate to accept them even if the face of the Orcish threat. Either he was an extremely skilled liar, or he was being honest.

    His honesty only went so far. He was not the absolute ruler of Gondor, and even if King Elessar agreed with him some forces could make a king's will bend.

    I sighed and gave him my answer.




    [ ] Accept Faramir's Proposal
    I've still got a few doubts about letting any Gondorian soldiers set foot in Nurn, no matter how many assurances he gives that it won't be a large enough force to conquer us and that they'll be under our command, but we need Gondor's help and this is a pretty reasonable offer all things considered. We're going to have to trust them a little bit if we want any help at all.

    [ ] Reject Faramir's Proposal
    Gondorians setting up a base in Nurn is unacceptable. No matter how many promises Faramir makes, once they have their foot in the door there's no guarantee we'll be able to keep the Gondorians out. The Gondorians can still give us some help from their bases in Ithilien and Morannon, even if it's far short of what we would like.

    [ ] Alternative Proposal (write-in)
     
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    • [X] Accept Faramir's Proposal.

    It's not perfect, but I don't think we have any better options. If the Rangers help train regular units to defend Nurn, we'll have a lot more options, and Rangers don't require as much upkeep as many other professional soldiers. Of course, it will increase Gondor's influence on Nurn, but that's within expectations.
     
    [X] Alternative Proposal (write-in): ask for a Rohirric garrison instead, on the same terms offered for the Gondorian garrison. It is not in Prince Faramir's power to give, but perhaps Lady Eowyn can convince King Eomer?

    The thought here is that a Rohirric garrison will be farther from home than a Gondorian one, so more dependent on local goodwill and less able to call for support. And also that Nurn does not border Rohan the way it does Ithilien, making annexation as an exclave a less exciting prospect -- Eomer is more likely to just bring his boys home if the expense becomes too great than he is to move in.

    For the Gondorians, this proposal takes the expense of the garrison off of their balance sheet.

    The disadvantages are, as stated, Rohan would actually have to agree to this. Faramir can't bind them. Relatedly, it will take time to convince them -- for a message to reach Edoras, for Eomer to consider the merits, and for a message from Edoras to reach Emyn Arnen. To say nothing of having to repeat that process as many times as are necessary. So we either won't be leaving Emyn Arnen any time soon, or if we do, won't be accompanied by help. There are ways around this (for instance, getting a garrison of Ithilien rangers now and letting Rohan rotate its garrison in over time), but that's a bit granular to put in the text of the option itself. So are any sweeteners Gondor might offer Rohan (for instance, offering to bear part of the expense -- it's still a net gain for Gondor if they don't have to pay everything).

    This proposal is in no way influenced by my partiality towards HORS. How dare you even think such a thing?
     
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    Zimmerwald1915 said:
    The thought here is that a Rohirric garrison will be farther from home than a Gondorian one, so more dependent on local goodwill and less able to call for support. And also that Nurn does not border Rohan the way it does Ithilien, making annexation as an exclave a less exciting prospect.
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    This sounds like an interesting option, although I foresee it will run into several problems:

    1) Rohan is far away, meaning help from there will be much later, and we are not sure how long the orcs will avoid serious attacks if we do not receive help.
    2) Rohan has not promised us support, meaning we will have to negotiate for it... very likely it will not be free.
    3) Their soldiers are mainly cavalry, much less versatile than rangers, and require more upkeep. They are probably stronger in open combat, but orcs tend to avoid open combat with strong opponents. Rangers will have a much easier time hiding among the locals and setting up an ambush, and even if rangers cannot be everywhere, orcs will likely be wary of raiding settlements.
     
    [X] Alternative Proposal (write-in): Accept Faramir's proposal, and offer a personal invitation for Eowyn to come along as well. She can see first-hand the challenges Nurn faces, and relay them much better than a sterile military report ever could. If this allows you to privately learn more about her homeland of Rohan as a possible alternative to Gondorian soldiers, all the better.

    Inspired by @Zimmerwald1915 write-in. There can never be too many horse-loving badass warrior princesses in Nurn.
     
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