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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Alliterate said:
@BoneyM I don't think I missed a reply- what do we know/Mathilde think about this?
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Sorry, I must have missed your post.

The box combined with the relative... 'fullness' of the blades should keep them stable for, oh, two, maybe three decades outside of a Shyish-rich environment. The more magic is in them, the slower they fill, so it's been reduced to an absolute trickle by the amount they've already taken in. But over a long enough period of time, energy will trickle out and be replaced with other winds and the entire blade will be tainted - but that isn't a short-term problem.

Alliterate said:
What are her chances of spotting Dhar forming just by taking a look with Witch sight?
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Not in time to do anything about it - once there's enough Dhar it'll taint the Shyish and then it'll all be Dhar. But as I said above, it's not so much a problem.
 
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Part of this post is motivated by my desire to be contrary.
It brings me joy.

veekie said:
That's because well, the problem of nobles not upholding their part of the social contract demands that the nobles be replaced, which then naturally leads to democracy, whose leading argument after all, is that when you can choose to remove your leaders they won't abuse you.
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There are a bunch of other systems that can remove bad leaders(for some value of 'bad'), democracy has alternative advantages and it's really the frequent changing of leaders that makes democracy able to (relatively)easily remove bad leaders. Other systems that impose a limited term of leadership and some force leaders derive their authority from can do the same thing.
I've always viewed democracy as a variant on choosing the most competent for the job, with 'most competent' in this case meaning 'most able to gather supporters', and it's advantages over other systems being its tendency to make political revolution non-violent and the requirement of leaders having to invest in or support their subject's projects and livelihoods to maintiain their power, thus enriching the society as a whole.
In Warhammer bad leaders could(maybe?) be removed by giving the church or the courts the power to impeach nobles and kick them out of their positions, leaving the position to be inherited by the next relative of legal age.

veekie said:
As such, it depends a lot on the area. In Stirland where theres a permanent bloodsucker threat? Ranald is fine(ish). The nobles are either protecting the people(and thus fulfilling his domain), or they are vampires/vampire minions and thus should be gotten rid of anyway.
In other provinces, not so much.
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Or the nobles are conventionally corrupt, or the nobles are using their position to pursue a vendetta, or the nobles are cruel to their citizens unneccessarily while being surprinsingly effective in a military context, or the nobles are busy being a public non-entity, and thus ignored by the vampires and us unless they're not contributing the minimum amount to whatever the local power says they need to contribute to.
Socio-Political systems are complex, mostly because people make them complex.
 
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While I'm all for debating forms of government in Warhammer, and I've seen nothing objectionable written so far, I'd like to give a caution in advance to please not let it devolve into a discussion of politics in general.
 
Here's something I probably spent way too much time on. Its a comparison between the various plans. Hopefully the format isn't too confusing; people find it useful, and I didn't actually make to many mistakes making it. Please let me know if a plan has changed, or if I made an error (like showing it has the wrong action, confusing it with another plan, something like that.)

Key:
-[] Action 1 - Plan A(N); Plan B(N)(R); Plan C(N)(O); Plan D(N)(O?); Plan E(?)
-[] Action 2
--[] Sub option 1 - Plan A(N); Plan B(N)(R); Plan C(N)(O)
--[] Sub option 2 - Plan A(N); Plan D(N); Plan E(N)(R)

Plan A, B, C, D, and E voted for Option 1.
Plans A, B, C voted for Action 2 sub option 1.
Plans A, D, E voted for Action 2, sub option 2.

(N) = Number of Actions taken so far
-(N,N+1) = The action takes two actions to complete, reflected in the two numbers separated by a comma.
(R) = This Plan calls for Ranald's Blessing for this Action
(O) = This Plan goes over 6 actions, and specifies the overworked action
(O?) = This Plan goes over 6 actions, and does not specify the overworked action(s). Put at action number 7 and 8 where applicable.
(?) = Johncup is confused (For example: The option specified is not valid, goes over 8 actions, etc.).

Free actions do not follow the above, and are put at the end of the list in their own category.

The List:
-[] The documents of the Stirlandian League will allow you to rebuild the north-south trade network with speed and efficiency. - Plan Documents and Training(1,2); Plan Bless The Snake(1,2);

-[] The assets of the Stirlandian League will be a huge boost to Stirland's coffers. -Plan Getting Good and Doing Work(1,2)(R); Plan no fires(1,2); Plan Seize It(1,2)(R)

-[] The leaders of the Stirlandian League need to be rounded up so you can question them regarding their former patron. - Plan Finding Faith(1,2)

-[] Practice, Practice, Practice: Having been thrown into the deep end of imperial politics, it would probably be a good idea to brush up on your skills and internalize the lessons you've learned
--[] Intrigue - Plan Documents and Training(3); Plan Getting Good and Doing Work(3); Plan no fires(3); Plan Bless the Snake(3); Plan Finding Faith(3)
--[] Learning - Plan Documents and Training(4)(O); Plan no fires(4); Plan Bless the Snake(4); Plan Finding Faith(4);

-[] Getting To Know You: Spend time with one of your fellow councillors or your liege, offering your help in their tasks and generally getting a feel for them (choose one).
--[]Wilhelmina Hochschild, Steward of Stirland: Work with them to seize and account league assets. - Plan Seize It(3)
--[]Gustav von Jungfreud, Marshal of Stirland: Work with them to seize and account league assets. - Plan Seize It(4)

-[] Combat Training: You're virtually surrounded by armed warriors of various sorts. See if you can convince one to teach you (choose who).
--[] Gustav is well-known for his ability with cavalry, and as it happens you're very good with the Shadowsteed spell. See if he can teach you a few things about mounted combat to give you experience and training that matches your magical skills. - Plan Documents and Training(5)

-[] Getting To Know You Whether You Like It Or Not: Schultz - Plan Getting Good and Doing Work(4)

-[] Personally construct the Mirrorcatch Box. Though being around that many mirrors for that long makes you antsy, there's nobody else you can trust with the task. (expense paid for by Van Hal) - Plan Documents and Training(6)(R); Plan Getting Good and Doing Work(5); Plan no fires(5)(R); Plan Seize it(5); Plan Bless the Snake(5)(R); Plan Finding Faith(5)

-[] As a Journeywoman, the path to Magister is marked by mastering more than the two shadow spells you already know. Send to the Grey Order for the basics and work on figuring out one of the others.
--[] Take No Heed - Plan Documents and Training(7)
 Note: Plan Changed to Petty Magic Training. Left here for past reference.

-[] You've got a handle on most of the Petty and Minor magics, but some still elude you. Dispel in particular could have come in very handy recently. Time to round up the rest of them. - Plan Getting Good and Doing Work(6); Plan Bless the Snake(6); Plan Finding Faith(6); Plan Seize It(6); Plan Documents and Training(7)

-[] Enchantment: So far you've failed to find suitable equipment (damn Wizard Chic) but you could always try again with local goods. - Plan no fires(6); Plan Seize It(7)(O?)

-[] A Crisis of Faith: Van Hal's ongoing alienation with the Sigmarite faith is worrying. Maybe there's something you can do? (write in)
--[] Ask Anton to invite head of local faiths to meet with Van Hal individually. Then meet with Van to talk to him about your god, Ranald. - Plan Seize It(8)(O?)
--[] Use our connections to seek out a local holy man of Sigmar that fits Van Hal's personality, and set up a meeting between the two. Someone who has also seen his share of horrors of the Night and could do no more than feel impotent rage at the crumbling Sigmarite influence under the previous Elector Count, but whose faith and principles are still strong as steel. - Plan Finding Faith(7)(O?)

-[] There's a vacuum where a dozen trade guilds should be. Found one of your own, and let information and profits flow through you, and see what the Stirlandian League does about it. - Plan Getting Good and Doing Work(7)(O?)

Free Actions:
-[] Free Time: Now well-established in Wurtbad, you can spend some time in your scant off hours getting to know someone better. Pick one character. (no action required)
--[] Julia - Plan Documents and Training; Plan Getting Good and Doing Work; Plan Seize It; Plan Bless the Snake
--[] Wilhelma - Plan no fires

-[] Change embezzlement
--[] Change to no embezzlement. - Plan Documents and Training; Plan Getting Good and Doing Work; Plan no fires

Edit: Fixed Comparison With Updated Plan Seize it. Hopefully I didn't mess everything up in the process.
Edit2: Updated Plan Documents and Training
 
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[X] Plan Seize It
-[X] The assets of the Stirlandian League will be a huge boost to Stirland's coffers.
--[x] Ranald's Blessing
-[X] Getting To Know You: Spend time with one of your fellow councillors or your liege, offering your help in their tasks and generally getting a feel for them (choose one).
--[X]Wilhelmina Hochschild, Steward of Stirland: Work with them to seize and account league assets.
-[X] Getting To Know You: Spend time with one of your fellow councillors or your liege, offering your help in their tasks and generally getting a feel for them (choose one).
--[X]Gustav von Jungfreud, Marshal of Stirland: Work with them to seize and account league assets.
-[X] [ADDITIONAL] A Crisis of Faith: Van Hal's ongoing alienation with the Sigmarite faith is worrying. Maybe there's something you can do? (write in)
--[X] Ask Anton to invite head of local faiths to meet with Van Hal individually. Then meet with Van to talk to him about your god, Ranald.
-[X] You've got a handle on most of the Petty and Minor magics, but some still elude you. Dispel in particular could have come in very handy recently. Time to round up the rest of them. (NEW)
-[X] Personally construct the Mirrorcatch Box. Though being around that many mirrors for that long makes you antsy, there's nobody else you can trust with the task. (expense paid for by Van Hal) (NEW)
-[X] Enchantment: So far you've failed to find suitable equipment (damn Wizard Chic) but you could always try again with local goods. (-personal gold, action required to set up and learn to use equipment)
[X] Free Time: Now well-established in Wurtbad, you can spend some time in your scant off hours getting to know someone better. Pick one character. (no action required) (NEW)
--[X] Julia

Focusing on getting largest amount of money and property for the Count. As well as making sure the Steward and Marshal are involved.
@Lord Hater FYI
 
So, for a somewhat less comprehensive but possibly more directly usable comparison than the fine one provided by @Johncup, the two leading plans- "Documents and Training" and "Bless the Snake"- are very close to identical. The differences are as follows:

Bless the Snake
-Learns petty/lesser magics
-Has six actions, no overwork
-Continues embezzling

Documents and Training
-Learns a new Shadow Magic spell, Take No Heed
-Has seven actions, with combat training with Gustav allowed by making the Learning training action an overwork
-Ceases embezzlement


To the people voting for one of these:

What differences do you feel most strongly about? Do you really want to (not) embezzle? Are you concerned about the dangers of overwork? Is the potential social link with Gustav irresistible/distasteful? Do you really, really want those petty magics/feel like we're hardly a shadowmancer at all until we learn more actual shadow magic spells?

I imagine that both @veekie and myself are willing to tweak things to serve the will of the thread as a whole here, but it's not clear to me which of these relatively minor differences have drawn people to one or the other. Certainly I feel pretty strongly about including the Gustav action but would be willing to move around the overwork marker, and while I'm convinced that ceasing embezzlement is the right move (see here for why) I'm willing to argue about it. I'd rather have shadow magics over petty but that's a mild preference at best, so if people really want that I can change it no problem.

Ideally we'd talk this over and get everyone voting for one of these two into the same unified plan which we can mostly agree upon.
 
DarkLight140 said:
So, for a somewhat less comprehensive but possibly more directly usable comparison than the fine one provided by @Johncup, the two leading plans- "Documents and Training" and "Bless the Snake"- are very close to identical. The differences are as follows:

Bless the Snake
-Learns petty/lesser magics
-Has six actions, no overwork
-Continues embezzling

Documents and Training
-Learns a new Shadow Magic spell, Take No Heed
-Has seven actions, with combat training with Gustav allowed by making the Learning training action an overwork
-Ceases embezzlement


To the people voting for one of these:

What differences do you feel most strongly about? Do you really want to (not) embezzle? Are you concerned about the dangers of overwork? Is the potential social link with Gustav irresistible/distasteful? Do you really, really want those petty magics/feel like we're hardly a shadowmancer at all until we learn more actual shadow magic spells?

I imagine that both @veekie and myself are willing to tweak things to serve the will of the thread as a whole here, but it's not clear to me which of these relatively minor differences have drawn people to one or the other. Certainly I feel pretty strongly about including the Gustav action but would be willing to move around the overwork marker, and while I'm convinced that ceasing embezzlement is the right move (see here for why) I'm willing to argue about it. I'd rather have shadow magics over petty but that's a mild preference at best, so if people really want that I can change it no problem.

Ideally we'd talk this over and get everyone voting for one of these two into the same unified plan which we can mostly agree upon.
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Overwork... maybe should be saved for crises? I don't like the 'barely avoiding a very serious consequence' from last time. I have no objections to training with Gustav as such, but it doesn't seem a priority- as in it will be of very situational benefit to fight better from horseback. A social link could be useful, but his reaction to a super-shadow-horse-Wizard showing him up in her centaur-saddle is not guaranteed to be positive. So I'm not inclined to overwork just to get this in a plan.

Both Magic's are useful. I'm possibly slightly more inclined to Take No Heed, but either is fine.

Agree we should probably stop embezzling for now... we can't really afford to expand the network any more on our current discretionary income.

I've not made my mind up between the plans yet, but do strongly lean towards Bless cos of the overwork thing.
 
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[X] Documents and Training

Not a fan of overwork, but I struggle to think of what a catastrophic learning failure might be, besides making us look like even more of a dummy.
 
VoidZero said:
[X] Plan Seize It
-[X] The assets of the Stirlandian League will be a huge boost to Stirland's coffers.
--[x] Ranald's Blessing
-[X] Getting To Know You: Spend time with one of your fellow councillors or your liege, offering your help in their tasks and generally getting a feel for them (choose one).
--[X]Wilhelmina Hochschild, Steward of Stirland: Work with them to seize and account league assets.
-[X] Getting To Know You: Spend time with one of your fellow councillors or your liege, offering your help in their tasks and generally getting a feel for them (choose one).
--[X]Gustav von Jungfreud, Marshal of Stirland: Work with them to seize and account league assets.
-[X] [ADDITIONAL] A Crisis of Faith: Van Hal's ongoing alienation with the Sigmarite faith is worrying. Maybe there's something you can do? (write in)
--[X] Ask Anton to invite head of local faiths to meet with Van Hal individually. Then meet with Van to talk to him about your god, Ranald.
-[X] You've got a handle on most of the Petty and Minor magics, but some still elude you. Dispel in particular could have come in very handy recently. Time to round up the rest of them. (NEW)
-[X] Personally construct the Mirrorcatch Box. Though being around that many mirrors for that long makes you antsy, there's nobody else you can trust with the task. (expense paid for by Van Hal) (NEW)
-[X] Enchantment: So far you've failed to find suitable equipment (damn Wizard Chic) but you could always try again with local goods. (-personal gold, action required to set up and learn to use equipment)
[X] Free Time: Now well-established in Wurtbad, you can spend some time in your scant off hours getting to know someone better. Pick one character. (no action required) (NEW)
--[X] Julia

Focusing on getting largest amount of money and property for the Count. As well as making sure the Steward and Marshal are involved.
@Lord Hater FYI
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Damn cats making me do things! Your not my master cat!

:V

Okay i'm down. All I wnat is to sieze the assets to help keep the money in the system.
 
Night_stalker said:
So no going on a buying spree of trashy romance novels RESEARCH MATERIALS FOR WORK?
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Stabreim Knochenbeinern, famous author of beloved series The Witch and her Hunter, is in talks with his publisher on writing a followup series!

Set in brooding Stirland, Magda and Albrecht have to team up to survive when they are attacked by a dread Necromancer! Could he be in service to the mysterious Van Karlsteins of Sylvania? What tempestuous circumstances have thrown them together once more? Will noble Albrechts iron self control and Magda's spirit and cunning see these two souls through the trials ahead?

Find out in...

[The flyer cuts off here. A slender, grey glad figure curses the cat that tore the bottom off for a litter box]
 
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DarkLight140 said:
To the people voting for one of these:

What differences do you feel most strongly about? Do you really want to (not) embezzle? Are you concerned about the dangers of overwork? Is the potential social link with Gustav irresistible/distasteful? Do you really, really want those petty magics/feel like we're hardly a shadowmancer at all until we learn more actual shadow magic spells?
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I'm actually mostly rooting for the priority the snake plans puts on income over funds. Overwork not occurring is mostly a nice benefit. Continuing embezzlement is something I generally don't care about- especially with an income boost incoming to overshadow it.
 
thatguy said:
Part of this post is motivated by my desire to be contrary.
It brings me joy.


There are a bunch of other systems that can remove bad leaders(for some value of 'bad'), democracy has alternative advantages and it's really the frequent changing of leaders that makes democracy able to (relatively)easily remove bad leaders. Other systems that impose a limited term of leadership and some force leaders derive their authority from can do the same thing.
I've always viewed democracy as a variant on choosing the most competent for the job, with 'most competent' in this case meaning 'most able to gather supporters', and it's advantages over other systems being its tendency to make political revolution non-violent and the requirement of leaders having to invest in or support their subject's projects and livelihoods to maintiain their power, thus enriching the society as a whole.
In Warhammer bad leaders could(maybe?) be removed by giving the church or the courts the power to impeach nobles and kick them out of their positions, leaving the position to be inherited by the next relative of legal age.


Or the nobles are conventionally corrupt, or the nobles are using their position to pursue a vendetta, or the nobles are cruel to their citizens unneccessarily while being surprinsingly effective in a military context, or the nobles are busy being a public non-entity, and thus ignored by the vampires and us unless they're not contributing the minimum amount to whatever the local power says they need to contribute to.
Socio-Political systems are complex, mostly because people make them complex.
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Any system which allows existing leaders to be replaced easily is also vulnerable to having existing leaders be replaced by corrupted ones.

The current force for changing bad leadership is...us.
So what matters here is the top leadership's motivations and laws. We've after all, kidnapped and assassinated a sitting leader for refusing taxes and loyalties to vampires on THEIR nominal leader's say so.

Ranald on average cares m

DarkLight140 said:
So, for a somewhat less comprehensive but possibly more directly usable comparison than the fine one provided by @Johncup, the two leading plans- "Documents and Training" and "Bless the Snake"- are very close to identical. The differences are as follows:

Bless the Snake
-Learns petty/lesser magics
-Has six actions, no overwork
-Continues embezzling

Documents and Training
-Learns a new Shadow Magic spell, Take No Heed
-Has seven actions, with combat training with Gustav allowed by making the Learning training action an overwork
-Ceases embezzlement


To the people voting for one of these:

What differences do you feel most strongly about? Do you really want to (not) embezzle? Are you concerned about the dangers of overwork? Is the potential social link with Gustav irresistible/distasteful? Do you really, really want those petty magics/feel like we're hardly a shadowmancer at all until we learn more actual shadow magic spells?

I imagine that both @veekie and myself are willing to tweak things to serve the will of the thread as a whole here, but it's not clear to me which of these relatively minor differences have drawn people to one or the other. Certainly I feel pretty strongly about including the Gustav action but would be willing to move around the overwork marker, and while I'm convinced that ceasing embezzlement is the right move (see here for why) I'm willing to argue about it. I'd rather have shadow magics over petty but that's a mild preference at best, so if people really want that I can change it no problem.

Ideally we'd talk this over and get everyone voting for one of these two into the same unified plan which we can mostly agree upon.
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Willing to change, though the whole thing on embezzlement for self enrichment is missing the point. We're not breaking our Grey Vows of poverty.

Developing magic is expensive. We need to set up a lab, we need to clean out our dungeon base, we've seen that for instance, building even just the one mirror cage costs a substantial amount of money(like, you can buy a goddamned house for that much), we've been trying to buy magic reagents and tools but we can't outbid Wizard Chic in terms of how much money they can throw at it.

Thus we need to keep some personal funds, and to be aware. I see no reason to change the embezzlement amount until we paid off our fees fully, and have everything set up. Self improvement is expensive.
Once our fees and debts are fully paid off, we need to buy books and other materials to get to Magister, by then we can shift the embezzlement down a notch, but we shouldn't go to 0 in any case. Van Hal would expand the budget once his income improves. Just mention that our networks are reaching the limits of funding in the report

As for overwork, it should be reserved for when shit is actually on fire and we have to scramble for everything. Habitual overwork can leave us exhausted when we need the extra actions. Leave it for turns where we actually need to commit 4 actions to just staying on top of things.

Petty magic meanwhile is actually important: We don't even know how to dispel. If we had those spells last turn? We'd have been able to turn one of the enemy's agents by dispelling the Dhar and have a better lead for unraveling THEIR network.
 
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The documents are certainly useful, but to prioritize them is a mistake. They will save time and effort but at a cost of letting the ringleaders get away with their ill-gotten gains to regroup. It is far better I believe to focus on seizing their assets, that way we can both weaken the League's position and strengthen our own. Using the seized assets to invest in other income-generating areas while the trade route is set up again.

I would also like to advocate taking the following option:

[ ] There's a vacuum where a dozen trade guilds should be. Found one of your own, and let information and profits flow through you, and see what the Stirlandian League does about it. (warning: expensive, will need Van Hal or Wilhelmina to sign off on it)

With the newly seized assets, it should be easy enough to cover the cost and would provide an excellent source of information and revenue for ourselves and the Count.
 
veekie said:
We have the ledgers, we have Wilhelmina double teaming.
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While I might actually like your plan better than my own, but would you mind clarifying this? Bit confused on how she is double teaming this if we don't organize with her?

Also, I still firmly believe that not going for the trade guild now, before others have a chance to build up in the vacuum would lose us an opportunity for both new revenue and information. Is there any way I could convince you or @DarkLight140 to change learning for either that or the option below?
Siual said:
-[X] A Crisis of Faith: Van Hal's ongoing alienation with the Sigmarite faith is worrying. Maybe there's something you can do? (write in)
--[X] Use our connections to seek out a local holy man of Sigmar that fits Van Hal's personality, and set up a meeting between the two. Someone who has also seen his share of horrors of the Night and could do no more than feel impotent rage at the crumbling Sigmarite influence under the previous Elector Count, but whose faith and principles are still strong as steel.
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Really like this write-in and hope we can squeeze it in next turn.

As much as we've kind of written ourselves off as unable to help, the fact remains that it is a massive problem, and we should probably be doing this rather than trying to improve our learning. We have the Count's ear, and can help if we invest time into it. If we don't, well...he has another ally that just so happens to hate sigmirites, and I'd rather he not start leaning that way.
 
Kairos123 said:
While I might actually like your plan better than my own, but would you mind clarifying this? Bit confused on how she is double teaming this if we don't organize with her?

Also, I still firmly believe that not going for the trade guild now, before others have a chance to build up in the vacuum would lose us an opportunity for both new revenue and information. Is there any way I could convince you or @DarkLight140 to change learning for either that or the option below?.
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IMO, Wilhelmina, if anyone, should be building any Elector-Count controlled trade guilds. Not us.

You could suggest it to her as a write-in, though.
 
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veekie said:
Magic Expenses and other things
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Note that Val Hal did approve the use of discretionary funds for an Enchanters Workshop. No idea if that extends to all other magical needs and things, but its a start, and could mean we could get by with less embezzlement, due to using said discretionary funds and not our personal funds for magic expenses.
 
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