Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- Fantasy Users' Choice!
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- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
We do have gold stashed, so that's not a problem. Unless you think we should hand over the equivalent of half a year's budget for the spymaster to someone as a bribe?
Well, no, neither of those things are true. Of course it is still embezzling; it doesn't stop being a crime just because you were going to do something useful with the proceeds. And we obviously can do our job while repaying our debt, because that's what we've been doing this whole time (and 'slaving away' is wrong too because how hard we work doesn't affect the rate at which we pay our loans).
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VoidZero
Passing Flan 布丁魔王
- Location
- Anywhere but RL
I thought embezzlement was part of the benefits package? How else would a wizard afford all their studies and living expense? Nepotism was done by the stewardship and more or less expected, so taking some gold is about as acceptable. Amount we took was tiny if we take into account derp's effectiveness.
- Location
- Brazil
So, did I miss where we tell Van Helsing that the person behind those sleepy agents is none other the the vampire mistress at Drakenhoff?
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
I don't think so. It looks like that part of the vote just never quite happened.
VoidZero
Passing Flan 布丁魔王
- Location
- Anywhere but RL
Hooray for lack of human rights and civil forfeiture act. \($_$)/
Do we need to decide how much stuff we keep?
It's also a good idea for our assistant of civil action to receive some "appreciation". It's the norm i think.
LoganBert34
Apprentice Clerk
- Location
- Australia
No offense, but better with you than us
He does have a tendency to do that to people yes.
Heretek
Techpriest of Tzeentch
That's kind of his thing.
- Location
- Aotearoa
Snake-in-a-Box?
chocolote12
A Penguin Flailing Against The Keyboard Of Life.
Derpwizard intensifies?
- Location
- Brazil
So, it's like 1:30 AM here, should we expect an update soon?
I'm eagerly waiting. Want to know if I should try to sleep anyway
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I'd suggest going to sleep so you can wake up and start your day off with the update, otherwise you stay up and get so exhausted you wont be able to fully enjoy the shenanigans that are bound to be happening in this one.So, it's like 1:30 AM here, should we expect an update soon?
I'm eagerly waiting. Want to know if I should try to sleep anyway
Turn 7 Results - 2473
Winning plan:
---
Your first thought when planning your offensive against the Stirlandian League was that you needed to move against the entirety of the League at once, to prevent the next town over from being tipped off and scattering to the winds. But it occurs to you as you are staring thoughtfully at a map of Western Stirland, you don't actually need to move everywhere at once. You just need to move faster than a conventional rider.
Wurtbad to Tarshof, fifty miles. A desperate enough rider could make that in eight hours. You could make it in two without breaking a sweat. Thirty from Tarshof to Potting, thirty more to Worden, sixty more to Vigaun. You could personally see to the raids in every single town and village, spread over a couple of days, and still move faster than news could travel.
Several companies of troops are borrowed from the First Division and sent southwards over several days, ostensibly to end up in Central Stirland to do patrols into Hundsheimer Wald, the only hint to their true purpose being a word that Van Hal had personally with the Captain of each. They were reminded that, should they just so happen to linger for a time in a certain town or village, and should the Spymaster just so happen to meet them there, they were to remember that she spoke with his authority and they were to obey her orders. And while troops were on the march in the open, information was flowing in the dark.
The Wurtbadian Watch knew the Stirlandian League well, as they tipped them generously to keep the streets outside their properties clear of unsavoury elements. The tips had been accepted - very few in Stirland were so well off that they would say no to extra money just for doing their jobs - but to the proud veterans of the Watch, this engendered resentment, not gratitude, and you soon had a detailed list of every League property in Wurtbad. Their counterparts in the criminal underworld came through as well, and the list was supplemented by off-the-books properties containing smuggled goods and mistresses. And from out of town, the Headman of Tarshof was happy to pass on which building in the village acted as the warehouse and waystation for the Stirlandian League. When added to Wilhelmina's exhaustive records, you were confident you knew of every single possession of the Stirlandian League in Wurtbad and Tarshof.
It was upsetting that you had no information flowing from the bureaucratic snarl of Worden, but you hoped that Wilhelmina's records and supplementing documents you might find in your raids would do the job.
[Tapping the Innkeeper: Roll, 21.]
[Tapping the Watch: Roll, 77.]
[Tapping the Thieves Guild: Roll, 57.]
[Tapping the Headman of Tarshof: Roll, 41.]
[Wilhelmina's contributions: Roll, her Stewardship, 68+16=84.]
So after a solid month of planning, on a clear, moonlit night when the Wurtbadian Watch was out in force and a substantial amount of the Greatswords slipped out of the castle and took up positions in the city, you set off a rumble of illusory thunder in a cloudless sky as a symbol to begin, before personally kicking down the door of the administrative headquarters of the Stirlandian League and leading a charge of Greatswords into the building.
For a tense moment, it seemed as though the inhabitants - suspiciously scarred and muscled clerks with clubs close at hand - were going to put up a fight, and you almost regret that they don't. Some of the Greatswords clap them in chains and lead them away while the rest load up documents into a cart to be taken to Eagle Castle, while you quickly skim what you can find. You gravitate right to a bookshelf kept right next to a roaring fire and are glad you did - a record of investors, debtors, assets and agreements fills tome after tome, and though you can't easily get an up-to-the-minute record of their current assets from the chronological list of entries, it does give you a number of addresses to investigate in the southern towns of the Old Dwarf Road. The most recent of the tomes is now to join you on your journey south.
[Shock and Awe: Req 50, Martial, 27+10+20(Greatswords)=57.]
[Searching the place: Breakpoints 30/50/80, Intrigue, 59+14=73.]
[Skimming the documents: Roll, Stewardship, 54+10=64.]
Elsewhere in the city, doors were kicked down as Greatswords raid what turns out to be, in an amazing stroke of luck, the Stirlandian League's annual board meeting and shareholder gathering. Everyone with an inch of power in the League is clapped in irons and led out under the horrified eyes of the League's shareholders. Things are sewn up so quickly they join the Watch in raiding the lodgings of every known worker of the League, and soon Eagle Castle's dungeons are full to overflowing.
Though the Wurtbad Thieves Guild is currently unworthy of the title, Wolf and Heideck put the word around to their flocks and you found plenty of takers for the flip side of the high-profile arrests. Almost every known warehouse and one affiliated bank has their guards either bopped firmly over the head or 'encouraged' to take the night off, and when morning rolls around and the now-exhausted Watch make their way to follow up on arrests with a wave of confiscations, they find almost every entry on their list completely unguarded and only mildly looted.
[Greatsword raids: 99+20=119. Overflow goes to gathering up rank-and-file members.]
[Wurtbadian Watch raids: 44+10=54.]
[Thieves Guild raids: 86+6=92.]
You, however, don't hear about how well the morning asset seizures go until much later, because you're already in Tarshof, overseeing a dawn raid on the League's local headquarters. The swordsmen aren't nearly as suited to the work as the Watchmen or the Greatswords you oversaw in Wurtbad but they still do sterling work, rounding up every single person, every bit of paper, every crate of cargo, and a flock of bewildered sheep. You even nab an exhausted rider who rode in just before you were about to launch the raid yelling a warning that the Wurtbad offices had been raided. The look on his face as you personally shackle him will keep you smiling for months to come. You're even able to convince him to tell you who he was going to tip off in the next town over. Then with all the cargo and prisoners on the road back to Wurtbad, it's time to head on to Potting.
Potting is almost a disaster. You're not sure how word beat you down the road until you see the pigeon coop on the roof of the building, but being able to go right to the building in question means you're able to salvage things somewhat. A good many people fled into the evening, some with carts, and there's paper ashes in all the fireplaces, but you still seize papers, people, goods, and still more sheep. Mindful of how close you came to getting nothing, as soon as everything's rounded up and on the road to Wurtbad, you're on your way to the largest target after Wurtbad: Worden.
Worden, amazingly, had no warning. You can only conclude that a hawk or a bow-armed peasant had messenger pigeon for tea, because when you raid the Worden Weaver's Guild, the local face of the Stirlandian League, the local leadership stares at you in sleepy shock over their breakfast until they're chained up and forced out of the building. The weaving equipment is too delicate and bulky to seize, so you leave the soldiers to stand guard until given further orders and make your way to your final stop on your journey, Vigaun.
Vigaun goes poorly entirely because when you launched your raid, most of the membership were out of the building because some sheep escaped from their pen. You round up a few of the members and the sheep, but at the end of the day you're still missing some of the tiny amount of assets to be found in Vigaun. You can't really find it in yourself to be too concerned. There's limited amount of skulduggery that can be done with a few off-the-books sheep.
When you get back to Wurtbad, you sleep for a day straight.
[Tarshof raids: 94+10(Headman cooperation)+20(Wurtbad paperwork)=124. 24 overflows to next roll.]
[Potting raids: 6+20(Wurtbad paperwork)+24(overflow)=50.]
[Worden raids: 96+20(Wurtbad paperwork)=116. 16 overflows to next roll.]
[Vigaun raids: 23+20(Wurtbad paperwork)+16(overflow)=59.]
Final haul from shutdown of the Stirlandian League:
100% of records pertaining to assets, investors, creditors and debtors.
100% of records pertaining to trade agreements, suppliers, and buyers.
100% of League leadership in Stirland.
73% of rank-and-file members of the League.
60% of the Stirlandian League's assets seized, 30% 'missing'.
100% of Tarshof branch.
50% of Potting branch.
100% of Worden branch.
60% of Vigaun branch.
League's remaining assets:
26% of the rank-and-file membership.
10% of their material wealth.
50% of Potting assets.
40% of Vigaun assets.
The final tally is mind-blowing. All that remains of the Stirlandian League is low-level members, a tenth of their former wealth, less than half of the two smallest nodes of their trade network, and anyone that was out of Stirland at the time. The Stirlandian League is done. The only problem left is what to do with all these sheep.
---
With so much of the League in custody, you've got plenty of chance to practice the arts of intrigue. You perform dozens of interrogations, then Mindhole the participants and interrogate them again. You turn them against each other, against the League, against their backers; you pull every scrap of information out of their head over and over and over. You engineer a phoney escape attempt, pretending to be in the previous Spymaster's employ. Then you engineer another, pretending to be in your own employ, and it's amazing how many of them would agree to become a mole in the League if offered their freedom - if it wasn't utterly dismantled, it'd be trivial to destroy it. You see their faces fill with desperate hope as they slip out of their cells and down the corridor, and see their expression fall as they run into a wall of Greatswords waiting for them.
After you've convinced three of them in a row that you're their long-lost and long-forgotten sister by using the details of their youth they told you before you Mindholed them, you realize you've reached the limits of what can be learned with a captive audience like this. But you've learned so much about what makes people tick, and what would make them break down.
Unfortunately, you're not able to learn much about your predecessor, simply because they don't know anything. He's been leveraging the blackmail material he collected as spymaster to force the Stirlandian League to keep paying him the same level of bribes they used to, but he hasn't actually done anything they know of in years. If he's still in Stirland, he's keeping his head very far down.
[Intrigue Increase Roll: 66. +1 Intrigue. Base intrigue was <14, additional +1 Intrigue.]
[Information acquired: 25+16=41. No location for predecessor.]
---
You share what you learned, if not how you learned it, with Julia over a series of lunches, and she listens eagerly each time. To have joined the intelligence apparatus of Stirland as it dealt a mighty blow to revitalize free trade delights her, and she speaks with passion and enthusiasm of her vision of Stirland as a trading hub of the Southern Empire. You raise an eyebrow at this, prompting her to go on; you always primarily saw Stirland as the front line in the war against the Undead, but she's got a geopolitical point - with land borders to five other states of the Empire, six if you count the Moot, Stirland does have that potential.
"If his Grace's plan works," she says animatedly, "or even if it's just partially successful, because Southern Stirland is irrelevant to this, then all we need is safe roads - and the new Marshal is tailor made for it - and the Praager Road to Ostermark is locked down. Look," she sketches a map on a notepad, "Anton Senior is a huge believer in trade with Wissenland, and honestly to hell with whoever's calling themselves the 'Count' of Flensburg, so that's Reikland and Wissenland trade nailed down. You've just swept up the biggest obstruction to North-South trade, which opens up trade with the Moot as well. Bam, Stirland's a trade nexus. If you want to get really crazy, if Southern Stirland is secure we can work on the roads to Black Water, and from there we unlock trade with Zhufbar and Karaz-a-Karak, without having to go through the nest of vipers in the Border Princes!"
You stare at her, and at the map. What she lacks in people skills, she definitely makes up for in ambition, and in contagious enthusiasm.
---
After the excitement of the start of the year, the next few months pass quietly in peaceful study, brushing up on long-forgotten spells and adding a couple of new ones to your repertoire. Drop and Sleep could both be amazingly useful in certain situations, and it's trivial to brush up on what you remember of it. The newer spells are trickier, but still fairly straightforward; the small books sent to you from Altdorf contain the basics and soon you're able to unravel magic when you concentrate. Silence is trickier, until you spend a handful of copper coins on a chicken, and after some long days spent trying to visualize freezing the movement of the air, you finally force the clucks to freeze in it's throat.
Then you move on to the other books your Master sent you, describing magic itself rather than any way of using it. They're a collection of ways of describing magic, through the lens of a dozen different metaphors favoured by master wizards. Though known as 'Winds', many don't actually see the substance of magic as such - some see them as threads, some as light, some as waves of liquid overlapping our reality. Some don't even see them - there's a section by a Gold Wizard that describes magic as sounds, and how each wind corresponds to a specific type of instrument.
The book starts an itch at the back of your head, and one day you head to the castle and borrow your copy of Light and Its Properties back from Van Hal, and read through it cover to cover in the courtyard, ignoring everything around you. It's a fantastic reference for light itself, of course, but if read as a metaphor, or rather as a lens for understanding... you stare into space as the evening rolls in, and see the Ulgu growing in prominence, and then fade as dusk gives way to night. You draw magic into you, and watch it flow into your frame. You relax, and watch as it disperses.
Everything still looks the same, now. But it looks the same like a page of text would look the same to an illiterate as it would to a scholar. Where once you saw shapes, now you see meaning.
[Spell study: Roll, Learning, 68+13=81. All Petty and 2 Lesser spells learned.]
[Learning study: Roll, Learning, 95+13=118. +2 Learning, trait acquired: Windreading.]
---
Finally, as midsummer approaches, it's time to see to your long-absent but not forgotten pursuer: Wisdom's Asp. With Van Hal's financial backing, you were able to cut through Wizard Chic and find someone to commission the innumerable small and oddly-shaped mirrors, and several months later it was time to start work putting them together. You ensure your sword is close at hand, wrap yourself in precautionary magical armour just in case, and sit down to begin work-
-mrroOOOOOOOOOOOWRL-
-and jump back up as the cat on your seat protests being sat on. How do they keep getting in here?! There's a skittering of its claws clicking against the tiles as it flees somewhere into the depths of the Hidden Palace, and you sigh as you look down at the fragments of the broken piece of mirror. You're going to have to get that commissioned all over again...
Then you look closer, and see the tiny, pointy fragments of shimmering colour among the broken shards. The thorns of a shimmering snake, severed.
You sigh again, and begrudgingly thank Ranald.
Weeks pass in a haze of slotting tiny mirrors into mind-boggling patterns, forming some sort of concentric cube design of refracted light. Your mind melts into a haze of angles and patterns, and time fades into meaninglessness. Once the final mirror is slotted into place, you stare blankly at what you've created as you try to remember something other than light and angles. Then you remember, and smile.
You hold your candle (you haven't actually lit the candle in ages, but it's a convenient target to cast Light upon) to the open lid of the box, and the light seems to be drawn into the box, and the visible mirrors glow brighter and brighter. You snap the lid shut, release the spell on the candle, and pause for a moment in darkness, before opening the lid again. For a brilliant second the room is illuminated white, and then fades once more.
Then, as you Light the candle once more, you feel rather than hear a nightmarish skittering reverberate through the room - the sound that's haunted your dreams for many years. The sound of that damned snake manifesting in your reflection. Without a moment's hesitation, you snap the lid of the box shut.
The Mirrorcatch box shivers on the desk, then jerks so violently it flips onto it's side. For half a second beautiful, malignant light coruscates out of the lid of the box where it's opened less than a crack. Then it lies still.
A few seconds later, a multi-hued liquid starts to ooze out of the crack.
You lay a finger against the box cautiously. You can feel the hostile energy of the snake contained within the box, and the movements of the box as it writhes in agony. You flip the box right way up again and clean the spilled fluid up with a rag, smearing a shimmering rainbow stain across the top of your desk. You place a weight on top of the box to keep it in place.
A few days later, the box begins to overflow with the rainbow liquid. You stare in horrified fascination.
By the end of the month, you've collected a pint of the liquid in the glass bottle you placed underneath it. It writhes with softly glowing magic, every colour intermingled but uncurdled. It evaporates slowly into raw magic when exposed to air, but when contained within a bottle it remains stable, untainted. You spend hours staring in suspicion for any sign of Dhar and find none. The leak never slows or speeds up, dripping steadily and unceasingly out.
What have you created.
[Thorned One made its roll for the first time ever but Ranald's Blessing prevented manifestation.]
[Constructing the box: Breakpoints 60/80, Learning, 99+13=112.]
[Thorned One roll after box construction: 9. It manifests again, but at the worst possible time for it.]
[I thought to myself, 'more than fifty, the snake is killed. Less than fifty, it is trapped alive.': 50. Schrodinger's Snake achieved.]
---
WORKED WELL TOGETHER: +1 to relationship with Wilhelmina. Stewardship stat revealed.
STAT INCREASE: +2 Intrigue
RELATION INCRASE: +1 with Julia, learned more of her beliefs, traits revealed
STAT INCREASE: +2 Learning
TRAIT GAINED: Windreading
SPELLS LEARNED: Drop, Sleep, Dispel, Silence
ALL PETTY SPELLS KNOWN!: +1 Magic
ITEM ACQUIRED: Schrodinger's Demon Snake.
INCOME ACQUIRED: One gallon of raw something every turn.
TRAIT REMOVED: Snakehunted
Discretionary Income: +150g
Embezzlement: -35g
Veteran informants: -40g
Julia: -30g
Replacement mirror and emergency glass bottle: -5g
Townhouse for Julia's base of operations: -150g
---
Net: -110g
Personal Income: +50g
Embezzlement: +35g
Tithe: -5g
Student Loans: -35g
---
Net: +45g
---
The Councillor's Table is much livelier this time around, with you and Wilhelmina animatedly chatting about your shared success against the Stirlandian League and even Gustav getting in on things, since his soldiers helped. To one side, Anton and Schultz are chattering happily away about the small uptick in Wissenland-Talabecland trade through Stirland that has already begun. Only Kasmir is left out of the chatter, his expression determined and the papers in his hands creased from his grip.
Van Hal spoke with you and Wilhelmina earlier, and told you that your success with the League has earned you both a boon and to consider what you will ask for; you've been turning that over and over in your mind since then, exploring the possibilities.
---
Public Report: Write in (optional; can write in word for word, or just outline what is focused on)
Public Report: Select boon.
[] Increase in personal pay
[] Increase in discretionary income
[] A holiday (no assignment next turn)
[] Knighthood (???)
[] Sheep! (substantial confiscated grazelands, many sheep, and related woolworking infrastructure in Wodern)
[] Trading company (found a new trading company in the vacuum using the League's confiscated resources, with the official backing of Stirland)
[] Your own military force (write in type)
[] Serving Stirland is reward enough
[] Other (write in; keep it sensible)
Private Report: Write in (optional; the private meeting is traditional at this point and will take place, simply say whether there's anything specific you want to bring up here)
Potential Orders:
Investigation:
[] There's definitely evil afoot in Drakenhof. Perhaps there's a way to survive investigating this.
[] The disappearance of your predecessor is very concerning, but according to the Stirlandian League he's pulled out of the game with all his ill-gotten gains. If you're not willing to let that go, maybe you could track him down anyway.
[] You built something you don't really understand and trapped something you very much don't understand and now something you really don't understand is leaking out. Um?
[] The spell used by the informants is like nothing you've heard of before. You want to see if you can detect or replicate it.
[] Something your new Lieutenant said gave you an idea. Investigate the shores of the Black Water, see if it can truly be tamed.
[] If we've got vampire troubles, maybe you should spend some time investigating how to counter vampiric infiltration.
Infrastructure:
[] Your intelligence infrastructure is becoming worthy of the title; perhaps you could dedicate some time to expanding it.
[] The Wurtbadian Watch has proven it's usefulness; despite their reluctance, perhaps it should be made part of your bailiwick and expanded to cover more of Stirland.
[] You've got the town of Biderhof eating out of your hand. If you could think of a reason to justify it, maybe all the taxes from it's lumber sales could flow into your pocket instead.
[] The Wurtbad Thieves Guild, despite barely being a loose gossip network, really came through during the take-down of the Stirlandian League. Maybe you should cultivate this useful tool.
[] Other/s (write in)
---
Your first thought when planning your offensive against the Stirlandian League was that you needed to move against the entirety of the League at once, to prevent the next town over from being tipped off and scattering to the winds. But it occurs to you as you are staring thoughtfully at a map of Western Stirland, you don't actually need to move everywhere at once. You just need to move faster than a conventional rider.
Wurtbad to Tarshof, fifty miles. A desperate enough rider could make that in eight hours. You could make it in two without breaking a sweat. Thirty from Tarshof to Potting, thirty more to Worden, sixty more to Vigaun. You could personally see to the raids in every single town and village, spread over a couple of days, and still move faster than news could travel.
Several companies of troops are borrowed from the First Division and sent southwards over several days, ostensibly to end up in Central Stirland to do patrols into Hundsheimer Wald, the only hint to their true purpose being a word that Van Hal had personally with the Captain of each. They were reminded that, should they just so happen to linger for a time in a certain town or village, and should the Spymaster just so happen to meet them there, they were to remember that she spoke with his authority and they were to obey her orders. And while troops were on the march in the open, information was flowing in the dark.
The Wurtbadian Watch knew the Stirlandian League well, as they tipped them generously to keep the streets outside their properties clear of unsavoury elements. The tips had been accepted - very few in Stirland were so well off that they would say no to extra money just for doing their jobs - but to the proud veterans of the Watch, this engendered resentment, not gratitude, and you soon had a detailed list of every League property in Wurtbad. Their counterparts in the criminal underworld came through as well, and the list was supplemented by off-the-books properties containing smuggled goods and mistresses. And from out of town, the Headman of Tarshof was happy to pass on which building in the village acted as the warehouse and waystation for the Stirlandian League. When added to Wilhelmina's exhaustive records, you were confident you knew of every single possession of the Stirlandian League in Wurtbad and Tarshof.
It was upsetting that you had no information flowing from the bureaucratic snarl of Worden, but you hoped that Wilhelmina's records and supplementing documents you might find in your raids would do the job.
[Tapping the Innkeeper: Roll, 21.]
[Tapping the Watch: Roll, 77.]
[Tapping the Thieves Guild: Roll, 57.]
[Tapping the Headman of Tarshof: Roll, 41.]
[Wilhelmina's contributions: Roll, her Stewardship, 68+16=84.]
So after a solid month of planning, on a clear, moonlit night when the Wurtbadian Watch was out in force and a substantial amount of the Greatswords slipped out of the castle and took up positions in the city, you set off a rumble of illusory thunder in a cloudless sky as a symbol to begin, before personally kicking down the door of the administrative headquarters of the Stirlandian League and leading a charge of Greatswords into the building.
For a tense moment, it seemed as though the inhabitants - suspiciously scarred and muscled clerks with clubs close at hand - were going to put up a fight, and you almost regret that they don't. Some of the Greatswords clap them in chains and lead them away while the rest load up documents into a cart to be taken to Eagle Castle, while you quickly skim what you can find. You gravitate right to a bookshelf kept right next to a roaring fire and are glad you did - a record of investors, debtors, assets and agreements fills tome after tome, and though you can't easily get an up-to-the-minute record of their current assets from the chronological list of entries, it does give you a number of addresses to investigate in the southern towns of the Old Dwarf Road. The most recent of the tomes is now to join you on your journey south.
[Shock and Awe: Req 50, Martial, 27+10+20(Greatswords)=57.]
[Searching the place: Breakpoints 30/50/80, Intrigue, 59+14=73.]
[Skimming the documents: Roll, Stewardship, 54+10=64.]
Elsewhere in the city, doors were kicked down as Greatswords raid what turns out to be, in an amazing stroke of luck, the Stirlandian League's annual board meeting and shareholder gathering. Everyone with an inch of power in the League is clapped in irons and led out under the horrified eyes of the League's shareholders. Things are sewn up so quickly they join the Watch in raiding the lodgings of every known worker of the League, and soon Eagle Castle's dungeons are full to overflowing.
Though the Wurtbad Thieves Guild is currently unworthy of the title, Wolf and Heideck put the word around to their flocks and you found plenty of takers for the flip side of the high-profile arrests. Almost every known warehouse and one affiliated bank has their guards either bopped firmly over the head or 'encouraged' to take the night off, and when morning rolls around and the now-exhausted Watch make their way to follow up on arrests with a wave of confiscations, they find almost every entry on their list completely unguarded and only mildly looted.
[Greatsword raids: 99+20=119. Overflow goes to gathering up rank-and-file members.]
[Wurtbadian Watch raids: 44+10=54.]
[Thieves Guild raids: 86+6=92.]
You, however, don't hear about how well the morning asset seizures go until much later, because you're already in Tarshof, overseeing a dawn raid on the League's local headquarters. The swordsmen aren't nearly as suited to the work as the Watchmen or the Greatswords you oversaw in Wurtbad but they still do sterling work, rounding up every single person, every bit of paper, every crate of cargo, and a flock of bewildered sheep. You even nab an exhausted rider who rode in just before you were about to launch the raid yelling a warning that the Wurtbad offices had been raided. The look on his face as you personally shackle him will keep you smiling for months to come. You're even able to convince him to tell you who he was going to tip off in the next town over. Then with all the cargo and prisoners on the road back to Wurtbad, it's time to head on to Potting.
Potting is almost a disaster. You're not sure how word beat you down the road until you see the pigeon coop on the roof of the building, but being able to go right to the building in question means you're able to salvage things somewhat. A good many people fled into the evening, some with carts, and there's paper ashes in all the fireplaces, but you still seize papers, people, goods, and still more sheep. Mindful of how close you came to getting nothing, as soon as everything's rounded up and on the road to Wurtbad, you're on your way to the largest target after Wurtbad: Worden.
Worden, amazingly, had no warning. You can only conclude that a hawk or a bow-armed peasant had messenger pigeon for tea, because when you raid the Worden Weaver's Guild, the local face of the Stirlandian League, the local leadership stares at you in sleepy shock over their breakfast until they're chained up and forced out of the building. The weaving equipment is too delicate and bulky to seize, so you leave the soldiers to stand guard until given further orders and make your way to your final stop on your journey, Vigaun.
Vigaun goes poorly entirely because when you launched your raid, most of the membership were out of the building because some sheep escaped from their pen. You round up a few of the members and the sheep, but at the end of the day you're still missing some of the tiny amount of assets to be found in Vigaun. You can't really find it in yourself to be too concerned. There's limited amount of skulduggery that can be done with a few off-the-books sheep.
When you get back to Wurtbad, you sleep for a day straight.
[Tarshof raids: 94+10(Headman cooperation)+20(Wurtbad paperwork)=124. 24 overflows to next roll.]
[Potting raids: 6+20(Wurtbad paperwork)+24(overflow)=50.]
[Worden raids: 96+20(Wurtbad paperwork)=116. 16 overflows to next roll.]
[Vigaun raids: 23+20(Wurtbad paperwork)+16(overflow)=59.]
Final haul from shutdown of the Stirlandian League:
100% of records pertaining to assets, investors, creditors and debtors.
100% of records pertaining to trade agreements, suppliers, and buyers.
100% of League leadership in Stirland.
73% of rank-and-file members of the League.
60% of the Stirlandian League's assets seized, 30% 'missing'.
100% of Tarshof branch.
50% of Potting branch.
100% of Worden branch.
60% of Vigaun branch.
League's remaining assets:
26% of the rank-and-file membership.
10% of their material wealth.
50% of Potting assets.
40% of Vigaun assets.
The final tally is mind-blowing. All that remains of the Stirlandian League is low-level members, a tenth of their former wealth, less than half of the two smallest nodes of their trade network, and anyone that was out of Stirland at the time. The Stirlandian League is done. The only problem left is what to do with all these sheep.
---
With so much of the League in custody, you've got plenty of chance to practice the arts of intrigue. You perform dozens of interrogations, then Mindhole the participants and interrogate them again. You turn them against each other, against the League, against their backers; you pull every scrap of information out of their head over and over and over. You engineer a phoney escape attempt, pretending to be in the previous Spymaster's employ. Then you engineer another, pretending to be in your own employ, and it's amazing how many of them would agree to become a mole in the League if offered their freedom - if it wasn't utterly dismantled, it'd be trivial to destroy it. You see their faces fill with desperate hope as they slip out of their cells and down the corridor, and see their expression fall as they run into a wall of Greatswords waiting for them.
After you've convinced three of them in a row that you're their long-lost and long-forgotten sister by using the details of their youth they told you before you Mindholed them, you realize you've reached the limits of what can be learned with a captive audience like this. But you've learned so much about what makes people tick, and what would make them break down.
Unfortunately, you're not able to learn much about your predecessor, simply because they don't know anything. He's been leveraging the blackmail material he collected as spymaster to force the Stirlandian League to keep paying him the same level of bribes they used to, but he hasn't actually done anything they know of in years. If he's still in Stirland, he's keeping his head very far down.
[Intrigue Increase Roll: 66. +1 Intrigue. Base intrigue was <14, additional +1 Intrigue.]
[Information acquired: 25+16=41. No location for predecessor.]
---
You share what you learned, if not how you learned it, with Julia over a series of lunches, and she listens eagerly each time. To have joined the intelligence apparatus of Stirland as it dealt a mighty blow to revitalize free trade delights her, and she speaks with passion and enthusiasm of her vision of Stirland as a trading hub of the Southern Empire. You raise an eyebrow at this, prompting her to go on; you always primarily saw Stirland as the front line in the war against the Undead, but she's got a geopolitical point - with land borders to five other states of the Empire, six if you count the Moot, Stirland does have that potential.
"If his Grace's plan works," she says animatedly, "or even if it's just partially successful, because Southern Stirland is irrelevant to this, then all we need is safe roads - and the new Marshal is tailor made for it - and the Praager Road to Ostermark is locked down. Look," she sketches a map on a notepad, "Anton Senior is a huge believer in trade with Wissenland, and honestly to hell with whoever's calling themselves the 'Count' of Flensburg, so that's Reikland and Wissenland trade nailed down. You've just swept up the biggest obstruction to North-South trade, which opens up trade with the Moot as well. Bam, Stirland's a trade nexus. If you want to get really crazy, if Southern Stirland is secure we can work on the roads to Black Water, and from there we unlock trade with Zhufbar and Karaz-a-Karak, without having to go through the nest of vipers in the Border Princes!"
You stare at her, and at the map. What she lacks in people skills, she definitely makes up for in ambition, and in contagious enthusiasm.
---
After the excitement of the start of the year, the next few months pass quietly in peaceful study, brushing up on long-forgotten spells and adding a couple of new ones to your repertoire. Drop and Sleep could both be amazingly useful in certain situations, and it's trivial to brush up on what you remember of it. The newer spells are trickier, but still fairly straightforward; the small books sent to you from Altdorf contain the basics and soon you're able to unravel magic when you concentrate. Silence is trickier, until you spend a handful of copper coins on a chicken, and after some long days spent trying to visualize freezing the movement of the air, you finally force the clucks to freeze in it's throat.
Then you move on to the other books your Master sent you, describing magic itself rather than any way of using it. They're a collection of ways of describing magic, through the lens of a dozen different metaphors favoured by master wizards. Though known as 'Winds', many don't actually see the substance of magic as such - some see them as threads, some as light, some as waves of liquid overlapping our reality. Some don't even see them - there's a section by a Gold Wizard that describes magic as sounds, and how each wind corresponds to a specific type of instrument.
The book starts an itch at the back of your head, and one day you head to the castle and borrow your copy of Light and Its Properties back from Van Hal, and read through it cover to cover in the courtyard, ignoring everything around you. It's a fantastic reference for light itself, of course, but if read as a metaphor, or rather as a lens for understanding... you stare into space as the evening rolls in, and see the Ulgu growing in prominence, and then fade as dusk gives way to night. You draw magic into you, and watch it flow into your frame. You relax, and watch as it disperses.
Everything still looks the same, now. But it looks the same like a page of text would look the same to an illiterate as it would to a scholar. Where once you saw shapes, now you see meaning.
[Spell study: Roll, Learning, 68+13=81. All Petty and 2 Lesser spells learned.]
[Learning study: Roll, Learning, 95+13=118. +2 Learning, trait acquired: Windreading.]
---
Finally, as midsummer approaches, it's time to see to your long-absent but not forgotten pursuer: Wisdom's Asp. With Van Hal's financial backing, you were able to cut through Wizard Chic and find someone to commission the innumerable small and oddly-shaped mirrors, and several months later it was time to start work putting them together. You ensure your sword is close at hand, wrap yourself in precautionary magical armour just in case, and sit down to begin work-
-mrroOOOOOOOOOOOWRL-
-and jump back up as the cat on your seat protests being sat on. How do they keep getting in here?! There's a skittering of its claws clicking against the tiles as it flees somewhere into the depths of the Hidden Palace, and you sigh as you look down at the fragments of the broken piece of mirror. You're going to have to get that commissioned all over again...
Then you look closer, and see the tiny, pointy fragments of shimmering colour among the broken shards. The thorns of a shimmering snake, severed.
You sigh again, and begrudgingly thank Ranald.
Weeks pass in a haze of slotting tiny mirrors into mind-boggling patterns, forming some sort of concentric cube design of refracted light. Your mind melts into a haze of angles and patterns, and time fades into meaninglessness. Once the final mirror is slotted into place, you stare blankly at what you've created as you try to remember something other than light and angles. Then you remember, and smile.
You hold your candle (you haven't actually lit the candle in ages, but it's a convenient target to cast Light upon) to the open lid of the box, and the light seems to be drawn into the box, and the visible mirrors glow brighter and brighter. You snap the lid shut, release the spell on the candle, and pause for a moment in darkness, before opening the lid again. For a brilliant second the room is illuminated white, and then fades once more.
Then, as you Light the candle once more, you feel rather than hear a nightmarish skittering reverberate through the room - the sound that's haunted your dreams for many years. The sound of that damned snake manifesting in your reflection. Without a moment's hesitation, you snap the lid of the box shut.
The Mirrorcatch box shivers on the desk, then jerks so violently it flips onto it's side. For half a second beautiful, malignant light coruscates out of the lid of the box where it's opened less than a crack. Then it lies still.
A few seconds later, a multi-hued liquid starts to ooze out of the crack.
You lay a finger against the box cautiously. You can feel the hostile energy of the snake contained within the box, and the movements of the box as it writhes in agony. You flip the box right way up again and clean the spilled fluid up with a rag, smearing a shimmering rainbow stain across the top of your desk. You place a weight on top of the box to keep it in place.
A few days later, the box begins to overflow with the rainbow liquid. You stare in horrified fascination.
By the end of the month, you've collected a pint of the liquid in the glass bottle you placed underneath it. It writhes with softly glowing magic, every colour intermingled but uncurdled. It evaporates slowly into raw magic when exposed to air, but when contained within a bottle it remains stable, untainted. You spend hours staring in suspicion for any sign of Dhar and find none. The leak never slows or speeds up, dripping steadily and unceasingly out.
What have you created.
[Thorned One made its roll for the first time ever but Ranald's Blessing prevented manifestation.]
[Constructing the box: Breakpoints 60/80, Learning, 99+13=112.]
[Thorned One roll after box construction: 9. It manifests again, but at the worst possible time for it.]
[I thought to myself, 'more than fifty, the snake is killed. Less than fifty, it is trapped alive.': 50. Schrodinger's Snake achieved.]
---
WORKED WELL TOGETHER: +1 to relationship with Wilhelmina. Stewardship stat revealed.
STAT INCREASE: +2 Intrigue
RELATION INCRASE: +1 with Julia, learned more of her beliefs, traits revealed
STAT INCREASE: +2 Learning
TRAIT GAINED: Windreading
SPELLS LEARNED: Drop, Sleep, Dispel, Silence
ALL PETTY SPELLS KNOWN!: +1 Magic
ITEM ACQUIRED: Schrodinger's Demon Snake.
INCOME ACQUIRED: One gallon of raw something every turn.
TRAIT REMOVED: Snakehunted
Discretionary Income: +150g
Embezzlement: -35g
Veteran informants: -40g
Julia: -30g
Replacement mirror and emergency glass bottle: -5g
Townhouse for Julia's base of operations: -150g
---
Net: -110g
Personal Income: +50g
Embezzlement: +35g
Tithe: -5g
Student Loans: -35g
---
Net: +45g
---
The Councillor's Table is much livelier this time around, with you and Wilhelmina animatedly chatting about your shared success against the Stirlandian League and even Gustav getting in on things, since his soldiers helped. To one side, Anton and Schultz are chattering happily away about the small uptick in Wissenland-Talabecland trade through Stirland that has already begun. Only Kasmir is left out of the chatter, his expression determined and the papers in his hands creased from his grip.
Van Hal spoke with you and Wilhelmina earlier, and told you that your success with the League has earned you both a boon and to consider what you will ask for; you've been turning that over and over in your mind since then, exploring the possibilities.
---
Public Report: Write in (optional; can write in word for word, or just outline what is focused on)
Public Report: Select boon.
[] Increase in personal pay
[] Increase in discretionary income
[] A holiday (no assignment next turn)
[] Knighthood (???)
[] Sheep! (substantial confiscated grazelands, many sheep, and related woolworking infrastructure in Wodern)
[] Trading company (found a new trading company in the vacuum using the League's confiscated resources, with the official backing of Stirland)
[] Your own military force (write in type)
[] Serving Stirland is reward enough
[] Other (write in; keep it sensible)
Private Report: Write in (optional; the private meeting is traditional at this point and will take place, simply say whether there's anything specific you want to bring up here)
Potential Orders:
Investigation:
[] There's definitely evil afoot in Drakenhof. Perhaps there's a way to survive investigating this.
[] The disappearance of your predecessor is very concerning, but according to the Stirlandian League he's pulled out of the game with all his ill-gotten gains. If you're not willing to let that go, maybe you could track him down anyway.
[] You built something you don't really understand and trapped something you very much don't understand and now something you really don't understand is leaking out. Um?
[] The spell used by the informants is like nothing you've heard of before. You want to see if you can detect or replicate it.
[] Something your new Lieutenant said gave you an idea. Investigate the shores of the Black Water, see if it can truly be tamed.
[] If we've got vampire troubles, maybe you should spend some time investigating how to counter vampiric infiltration.
Infrastructure:
[] Your intelligence infrastructure is becoming worthy of the title; perhaps you could dedicate some time to expanding it.
[] The Wurtbadian Watch has proven it's usefulness; despite their reluctance, perhaps it should be made part of your bailiwick and expanded to cover more of Stirland.
[] You've got the town of Biderhof eating out of your hand. If you could think of a reason to justify it, maybe all the taxes from it's lumber sales could flow into your pocket instead.
[] The Wurtbad Thieves Guild, despite barely being a loose gossip network, really came through during the take-down of the Stirlandian League. Maybe you should cultivate this useful tool.
[] Other/s (write in)
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Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
"Oi, jackasses! We're under attack, you need to get up now, the Count's pet mage is going to be right behind me..... Oh balls."
"The correct term is pet witch, thank you very much."
So now that it's made it's appearance, I'll reveal the snakerolls: for every action there was a one in ten chance of the Thorned One manifesting during it. It's been a long time since I used probability mathematics but I figured a one in ten chance rolled six times a turn should prove to be a pretty substantial handicap.
It failed every single roll until this turn. The first time Ranald got it, and the second time was just in time for it to be trapped in eternal snake hell.
So, yeah.
It failed every single roll until this turn. The first time Ranald got it, and the second time was just in time for it to be trapped in eternal snake hell.
So, yeah.
DocMatoi
Theoretical Lover of Girls
- Location
- within 2 hours of the White House
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Aw FUCK yes, shenanigans success!
Thoughts on Boons:
[] Increase in personal pay
-runs into vow of poverty
[] Increase in discretionary income
-do we really need it?
[] A holiday (no assignment next turn)
-what the heck would we even do with ourselves?
[] Knighthood (???)
-oooooh, intriguing. Are wizards allowed to hold title?
[] Sheep! (substantial confiscated grazelands, many sheep, and related woolworking infrastructure in Wodern)
-runs into vow of poverty
[] Trading company (found a new trading company in the vacuum using the League's confiscated resources, with the official backing of Stirland)
-runs into vow of poverty
[] Serving Stirland is reward enough
-kiss ass.
Thoughts on Boons:
[] Increase in personal pay
-runs into vow of poverty
[] Increase in discretionary income
-do we really need it?
[] A holiday (no assignment next turn)
-what the heck would we even do with ourselves?
[] Knighthood (???)
-oooooh, intriguing. Are wizards allowed to hold title?
[] Sheep! (substantial confiscated grazelands, many sheep, and related woolworking infrastructure in Wodern)
-runs into vow of poverty
[] Trading company (found a new trading company in the vacuum using the League's confiscated resources, with the official backing of Stirland)
-runs into vow of poverty
[] Serving Stirland is reward enough
-kiss ass.
Dadarian
The King of Queen's
- Location
- Queen's on the Shore
Is it possible Ranald is real? Because that is unreal.
Also we should weaponise the snake-goo.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Imagining the disgusted confusion of QM's as they stare at their dice is one of the finer pleasures of SV questing.