Hmm . . . Could we social Elspeth to find out what was under Drakenhof or is that too plot-relevant?
It's not the sort of thing a Magister Matriarch spills over a cup of tea to a relative stranger.
@Boney can I ask what the nature of the questions are? Starke questions so Mathilde can have a cover to sweep it under the rug? Or eyebrow-raising questions on the exact nature of Heidi and Mathilde's relationship?
Questions like 'why is the Empress running around Talabheim'.
I take it this didn't pan out? I didn't notice Regimand sharing results of any of his investigations, just checking our own work.
It didn't, but that Regimand couldn't dig up that information reinforced the impression that Alric wouldn't have been able to.
Wait... if the current estate isn't the focus of the ritual because it's too recent, has anyone looked at the grounds of the family's previous estate?
That would be the Imperial Palaces in Altdorf and Nuln, and prior to that, Eagle Castle in Wurtbad.
I'll admit I hadn't considered that picking right could completely invalidate the other option but I assume in that case Boney would let us repick the second option as if there is nothing to gain from it Mathilde wouldn't just blindly do so anyway simply because she had penciled it into her calendar.
@Boney can you confirm that if the surveil option Mathilde decides to do second becomes redundant after the first surveil she will skip that action and let us pick to do something else?
No, whether the ritual is centred only on a specific individual or subset of the family or the entirety of the family itself would still be useful information.
The Elector Count of Talabecland: if it works, could get all hands on deck, but this would be completely airing out the empresses dirty's (if not the big secret) to a political player in the game of 'who is next on the throne?'
The City Militia: lots of manpower for turning city upside down, but not going to be quiet.
the Taalbaston Guard (the elite fighting force that might even get the nobles to cooperate, but will totally boast about how and why they took on an evil plot.
the Cult of Taal and Rhya: cults are generally pretty good at keeping hush hush about chaos shit, but it still won't be that quiet with so many people if varying rank involved, might try to lean on the empress for helping keep her name clean.
the City Watch: should be well practised at keeping such stuff (if not as big and dramatic) quiet. but will be very limited in how hard they can search compared to the above unless they go loud... but looking for people is part of their job
The longshacks: very good at keeping it secret if they can, and will be the most ruthless in finding them, but smallest group and its a big city.
@Boney would mathy have any different views on this. (as long as its not a spoiler. then just ignore me)
That all fits what Mathilde would predict.
[ ] Approach the hunting lodge Unfahigers
They've been left to dry by Alric and the head of the family. If you offer help, they're all but certain to take it.
[ ] Surveil the hunting lodge Unfahigers
If the ritual is centred on them, enough observation will tell you what sort of ritual it is.
I note that the approach-them-in-disguise option is gone - is that still acceptable as a write-in?
It was always a write-in, and yes, it's still acceptable as one.
Also, it seems like Approaching them would allow us to get the same awareness of the ritual's presence as surveiling them would - is that correct?
Yes.
@Boney Would it be fair to say that Mira would feel more appreciative that Mathilde sabotaged Alric without directly renegotiating the terms of their deal? So even without renegotiating, doing so would still help make her more amenable to future cooperation.
In theory, but gratitude is ephemeral and has a tendency to evaporate quickly, and you can get more out of her today in a tit for tat exchange than you could get out of her tomorrow when the deed is already done and the only leverage you have is a sense of gratitude.
A question: do we know how the next murder is supposed to go? If so, can we extrapolate which of the two locations is most likely to allow said murder to occur?
Not really, the attempt to copy the guy that died midstep shows that there's at least some wriggle room in how it's done. Mathilde does know it, it just hasn't come up in the text yet, and it will during the next update or two.
If we rescue the Unfahigers from their ritual deaths, would that be a counter-ritual like with the Shamans of Only Gork? What would such a counter-ritual do?
No, counter-ritual requires going a fair bit further than mere prevention of the ritual. One way to do it here would be to do it to prevent the ritual murders while instead performing the murder on members of the caster's family, which isn't really an option in this case.
Because I was semi-randomly re-reading this post: I think that should be *Reichthard.
As the poor fellow tries to explain to people, his name is spelled differently to that of Screaming Lord Reichthard.
That's a good question. Why isn't it? I can think of a few reasons, but not sure which would be main ones.
Basically this. Mathilde would find it hard to wrap her mind around just how ignorant the average person is of magic, and how extremely likely they would be to fumble even the simplest of rituals.
Would Mathilde know the relative difference between Regimand's main investigation result and her own? Since after the race neither of the two would have a reason to hide what they were doing.
Not really. Regimand and Mathilde have different skillsets, so Mathilde wouldn't know if Regimand missed something that he would have got on a high roll, or vice versa.
