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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Ok, so i had to skip about 20 pages of discussion, but it looks like it's mostly rehashing things and the vote looks to be in a good place.

I did want to chime in and say the idea of individuals romancing civilizations was really cool- and a genre that only the we could really write properly.
 
well, it looks like its time to compete

won't have minded the dragon, but technically Local doesn't block the cult of Venra or runesmiths if they open a local temple/guild.

could even go out of our way to help that along.

The Dragon is a local, so at least he will be involved as a customer if not staff.

[x] Locals
 
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My main concern with Locals is the higher corruptibility risk. Because even if most of them are fine, if somebody fails their Will check and falls to a memetic hazard/takes a bribe to do something fishy with our books, then we have issues. Stuff like Collegiate, Halflings, and Runescribes mitigate the issue by either drawing from a corruption-resistant pool or having a larger pool of candidates to sort through which allows for raised standards.
 
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@Boney , if it turns out we really need to bribe Cython in the future, and the library is staffed by someone else, could we still use it as a bargaining chip?
 
Vote is very close. I suggest anyone who not voted Locals or The We to vote for whatever option your prefer more. Other options has little chance of winning right now.

Adhoc vote count started by StormySky on May 12, 2022 at 1:41 PM, finished with 1890 posts and 343 votes.
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Glau said:
Ok, so i had to skip about 20 pages of discussion, but it looks like it's mostly rehashing things and the vote looks to be in a good place.

I did want to chime in and say the idea of individuals romancing civilizations was really cool- and a genre that only the we could really write properly.
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I was rather proud of the thought. I have no idea how it would work, but would be really fun to see.
 
StormySky said:
My main concern with Locals is the corruptibility. Because even if most of them are fine, if somebody fails their Will check and falls to a memetic hazard/takes a bribe to do something fishy with our books, then we have issues.
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I mean we have the same issue if The We fail but much larger. The locals might be more likely to be corrupted but they're also much less able to do damage if they are corrupted whereas if the singular We is corrupted it can do anything and there's no-one to stop it.
 
I would like to point out to anyone that is just voting Cult of Verena or Runesmiths, that it would be possible to promote a local cult/guild at a later date! if you vote local!
 
Tomcost said:
So, right now Cython is very far indeen from the top. What are the main concerns of the thread regarding him? Losing agency, or something else?
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Cython is a very active character in my opinion, and as a *dragon* with intesting lore they'll never be far from swinging into the story, the interest in books and the religious studies are easy avenues that are likely going to play out no matter what. They will be a presence...honestly for the entire quest barring radical shifts in the status quo.
I think Cython would be a very interesting librarian, and would are my number 2.

However The We have been largely sidelined since before The Expedition, and i haven't had an honest reason to engage them with the story because they are very isolated from the concerns of Mathilde. And that sucks because they're friendly spiders!

For me this vote us an opportunity to decide who we want to tie into Mathy's regular interactions, and Cython has no risk of being ignored.
 
Fayhem said:
Since I saw my last post sparked a bit of a mini-discussion re: arachnophobia, I did have one thing I wanted to add. Namely, I saw a number of people noting that they loved spiders and felt them to be unfairly maligned. And those feelings are totally valid! Spiders are, in reality, largely harmless to humans, and in many ecosystems occupy roles that are outright beneficial from a human perspective.

The issue, from an arachnophobe's perspective, is that is irrelevant. The definition of a phobia is an irrational or excessive fear relative to its cause. When you try to "educate" somebody with a phobia about how their fear is irrational, you are typically not actually providing them with new information.

The reason I decided to make a point of noting this here is that while exposure therapy can sometimes be effective for some people with phobias, it is not effective for everybody, and the process of attempting it can be quite emotionally trying in its own right. So if part of some people's thesis for voting for the We is that people will be able to just get used to having the library be full of giant spiders, it should be understood that is in reality just flatly not how that works for some people. And as another poster noted, arachnophobia is the most common phobia possessed by humans.

I don't want to seem to suggest that it's inherently callous or whatever to vote for the We, people are still allowed to vote for it and be valid. I just wanted to provide some context that might be relevant if people want the library to be a welcoming environment to as many people as possible.

Also, it seems like a number of the things people are asking about possible benefits to the We from interacting with books are things that they definitely don't need to be librarians in order to do.
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It's such a messy matter.

Indeed, arachnophobia isn't something that can just be "cured" by educating people that "oh it's not really dangerous so your fear is irrational", and people should generally not be forced into a position where they have to interact with their phobia, but what do you do when the spiders are people, and have their own right to be present?

Sometimes what people deserve comes into conflict, through no fault of anyone involved - like how people with cynophobia(fear of dogs/canines, also quite common) should be able to go outside without fear of dogs, but people who own dogs also need to be able to walk their dogs.

I think this situation with a We-run library has much more possibilities for solutions, though. There's the idea of illusions, as already mentioned, which would probably work for some people with arachnophobia even if not everyone. Another idea would be a middleman.

I personally don't think we should use arachnophobia as a reason not to hire the We - Phobias should indeed be accounted for whenever possible, but using them as a reason for exclusion is an extremely dangerous path to go down.

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To elaborate a bit more as to why this is something I feel passionately about...

There are unremovable aspects of me that I have had since I was a child, that are also quite triggering to a sizeable amount of people. There have been a number of people who have judged me negatively for even having these triggering aspects, even though I cannot do anything about me having them.

My existence is fundamentally triggering to some people, and as a result, I sometimes feel like I don't have the moral right to exist in public or even in a number of private spaces.
 
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Jreengus said:
I mean we have the same issue if The We fail but much larger. The locals might be more likely to be corrupted but they're also much less able to do damage if they are corrupted whereas if the singular We is corrupted it can do anything and there's no-one to stop it.
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The thing is that memetic hazards aren't really designed for hiveminds, and the We don't really have reason to take bribes when they're getting paid enough and value books.
 
[X] Cython

I already think Mathilde is too invested in this library and spending too much time on it so having to take even more time out of our busy schedule to teach a bunch of locals or a newly-spawned spider hivemind is less than ideal in my book. Also, dragons are cool and Cython has a bunch of unique knowledge that he might be convinced to share with nagging visitors in order to make them go away.
 
StormySky said:
The thing is that memetic hazards aren't really designed for hiveminds, and the We don't really have reason to take bribes when they're getting paid enough and value books.
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Hence why they are less likely to be corrupted. But less likely is not impossible so it's a trade off. One side has high likelihood of someone being corrupted (pretty much inevitable if the library lasts long enough) but low damage if it does happen. The other side has low likelihood of the We being corrupted but high damage if it does happen.
 
Right, another reason I switched to the We is because we still have to get scribes. The We don't make good scribes due to all the moving around, but locals can do that just fine. Hiring locals as scribes still builds those connections, and the fact that they spend less time around the books means there's less of an issue with them doing something fishy if they do fail Will checks.
 
StormySky said:
My main concern with Locals is the higher corruptibility risk. Because even if most of them are fine, if somebody fails their Will check and falls to a memetic hazard/takes a bribe to do something fishy with our books, then we have issues. Stuff like Collegiate, Halflings, and Runescribes mitigate the issue by either drawing from a corruption-resistant pool or having a larger pool of candidates to sort through which allows for raised standards.
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That's true for every library, and I'm sure there are established protocols for that. Hell, Mathilde's a fully trained Grey Wizard, it's not something she's never thought of before, and appropriate countermeasures will be instilled in the library as basic policy.
 
Versharl said:
[X] Cython

I already think Mathilde is too invested in this library and spending too much time on it so having to take even more time out of our busy schedule to teach a bunch of locals or a newly-spawned spider hivemind is less than ideal in my book. Also, dragons are cool and Cython has a bunch of unique knowledge that he might be convinced to share with nagging visitors in order to make them go away.
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Training the We isn't going to take AP from Mathilde.
 
Note that the vote is slightly less close than it seems: there are currently 2 votes for 'We' (rather than 'The We') so The We have a three vote lead. Still very close.
 
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