[ ] Spend time assisting or ingratiating yourself with someone else
we should start trying to do this with some of the clans next turn: figure out who would be the best/most practical to work with.
Looking at the table I made, Fanpatar and Ellemakil will probably be the easiest to bring on board, but we really want one of the houses that are linked to the temple of Hoeth, except that both Thyriolan and Ecthelion sound difficult to work with. Based on the information we have so far, Thyriolan might be the better choice. There's also Tindomiel, which would be a radical choice—Hekarti is the goddess of Dark Magic and Conjuration—but they seem to be well disposed towards humans, and having mages/priests who understand dark magic could be useful. Also I love a good Hecate reference.
For political reasons, we probably want to pull in Malforric as well, but that could be very challenging. They are the strongest house, with both a house vote and a triumvirate vote, and are connected to the temple of the most important elven god, but they are also really against us being here.
I think my top three to investigate would be:
Fanpatar (also gives us a connection with the Ward of Rain)
Thyriolan
Tindomiel OR Malforric, depending on what type of gamble we want. Dark magic or political power?
It really depends on the power dynamics, really. Do people respect Malforric or despise them? Are Thyriolan and Ecthelion allies or rivals? Is Tindomiel actually safe to include? Does the Vicarius of Rain vote with his house or does he vote on his own agenda? Which temple were Ellemakil linked to before Ulric, and what repercussions has their conversion had on elven society? Are they respected or mocked for adopting a human god? Actually, rereading, and it seems they are in the pocket of the Queen at the moment. Hmm, I'll add that to the table.
And I haven't even touched upon the four Wards yet. We've met the leaders of Rain and Frost (not sure what the plural of Vicarius is), and like them both, (even if Cadaeth is sus) and Storm sounds... interesting, but we have very little information on the Sun ward, which is where the Capital is, except that their Vicarius is both on the triumvirate and a member of Malforric, and apparently voted against us.
Edit: actually, looking at the wards, two of them are controlled by the forestborn, so maybe it is a good idea to do the cultural immersion action with them.
I've been saying for a while that we should get Prince Galenstra on our side. He's given humans a chance because Boris Todbringer proved himself to him, so we should capitalise on that so his impression further solidifies. Make it look so that we are a worthy ally and continuing relations with humans (or at least the reasonable ones) is for the best for the Eonir. Demonstrating the many guns of the Empire and what they can do is certainly one of the better ways to do this, and I see that a part of the Great Northern road is attached to Elven roads according to Boney's map. Such things have to be slowly floated as a possibility at first so he could consider it.
We should tell him about the Sylvania campaign and how we used cannon to destroy a vampire keep. Gods, could you imagine elves deploying dwarf made cannon in battle? We should look into the possibility of expanding the EIC in this direction—if we can set up an outpost in K8P, I don't see why we cant get one here.
