So my expectation is that if we want to invest in other options' benefits, some of them will still be on the table, but we'll have to spend AP and get lucky, and so it's a question of what our priorities are.
Something I feel that's been bothering me is that some properties of each choice are being treated with equal weight, but reasonably speaking many advantageous properties of the We can't really be acquired later, even if we were willing to do battle-altar levels of research to try and replicate them. We just go 'yeah, they're amazing in these ways', but since it took the same amount of text as the other options we aren't really thinking about what that sort of thing means.
The We can move in three dimensions. That's not the same as a ladder system. Or, if it is, it's roughly equivalent to having ladders covering every solid non-book surface in the library, magically spelled to only be accessible to authorized personnel. Ladders in the closets. Ladders on the ceiling. If more space is needed, they can put webs between those solid surfaces and invent more surface area ex nihilo.
If you had to pick something up in the middle of a mess without cleaning up the edges you could either get a long crane and a halfling, or else a single we could go and grab that thing by hanging down from the ceiling with mindless non-effort.
Replace 'a mess' with 'a crowd 'and 'a thing you want picked up' with 'a patron that you want to pass something to without disturbing everyone else' for a more mundane use case. (But not literally, that sentence wouldn't make sense.)
The We are telepathic. Or, echolocative-pathic. Close enough, anyway. That's not the same as having an intercom. Or, if it is, it's roughly equivalent to every single librarian in the building livestreaming everything they're doing to every other librarian in real time, and those other librarians having the sense of mind to pay attention to what every other librarian is doing at the same time.
"Hey, does anyone know where the treatise on giant spider superiority is located?" "It's not in the fiction section." "Oh, never mind, I found a researcher refiling it in entomology." Total time to locate that book, three lines of dialogue.
Except, nobody else can hear them do any of that, because it's in their head. No one can eavesdrop, or overhear, or distract them. In addition to fulfilling the obvious librarian requirement that people should be silent in a library, it's the highest speed that a request can be made and fulfilled by a patron. It's futuristic even by the standards of our already futuristic 2022 technology, much less anything anybody in Warhammer has ever had the pleasure of experiencing before.
The We have the numbers. There's always replacements for any individual spider body. That's not the same thing as having a good recruiting system. Or, if it is, it's roughly equivalent to being able to hire a new librarian by walking outside your door and doing the little hypnosis pocket watch trick to make them instantly trained and willing to work for room and board.
They don't get sick all at once. They don't have hiring problems. They don't have loyalty problems. We can reasonably say they're immune to most mundane forms of corruption. They can't steal because the library will already be theirs. They can't be bribed because the library is already everything they want. They can't be seduced, or caught playing office politics, or blackmailed. Their demeanor is impeccable.
Even supernatural corruption would have a hard time with them. Mutations only effect single bodies, and there's no moral cost to disposing of them. Most mind control would hit a single spider and stop. Could spells be created to get around that? Maybe. But if they have to write a new chapter in the book to get around your defenses that's still better than them being able to stick to the old familiar pages.
The We can protect themselves, and the library. That's not the same as the librarians being trained for combat. Or, if it is, it's roughly equivalent to picking up all the orphans, convincing them that protecting the library is worth more than their very lives, and then raising them all to be fearless, heavily armored, poison wielding ninjas who can cling to the walls and are okay with human wave tactics if that's what it takes to eliminate threats.
Every single one of them, with no training turnarounds. No hiring turnarounds. No having to transport orphan caravans to your secret library monastery where everyone is trained in book-fu. No infiltrators, no defectors. Spies can't even disguise themselves as We because the We all have wireless radio and could immediately identify something that was pretending to be one of them but wasn't saying anything, and the spy probably wouldn't even realize that they had been made because they'd be challenged on frequencies they can't even hear.
The We are just, you know, super cool. Our name is Weber. They are spiders. We are soul mates. This was intended. No matter how many AP you give the locals of Karak Eight Peaks, they can never become a hivemind of giant orc-eating spiders that's also a fundamentally decent person with good morals and the capacity for empathy.
But, if you give the We enough AP, they can become an accepted member of the community of Karak Eight Peaks. And that won't happen if we don't take a chance, one opportunity or another, to bring them into the public eye. To show people that they're more than just a random encounter you hope you don't roll in the Underdark, inexplicably on the occupying faction's side because the programming is kind of basic and they're never going to be in the same room as the humanoid units anyways.
To show that they're not just... a bug.
That pun was awful. I'll close this post out.
