Strong point. Honestly, the problem is that I really want to fit 3 Web-Mat actions into waystones, but a good chunk of them really should be taken with more people than just them.
I want to fit
some Waystone actions into WEB-MAT. In a world without WEB-MAT I would say that Capstone Gold should be taken with Elrisse as well, but we have two Lights and one of them is in WEB-MAT so I
think this will
probably be fine. As for mapping -
You can specify as many or as few members of the Project as you please, as well as bringing in people from outside the Project if you pay for their services or convince them in some other way.
Would saying "hey Dragomas, I am interested in the shape of the network for reasons of state security, you like me, you like the project, you are the head of the Amber Brotherhood, can we make something happen here?" count as 'convince them in some other way'?
Regarding the mapping of the network: looking again at what Mathilde is saying here
There's also the question of fully mapping out the network, because from the sound of it the nexus network has a worrying amount of bottlenecks that could block the flow of half the continent if something happened to them. If the fall of one or two foreign cities would doom the entire Empire, that's something you think that the Empire should be aware of.
Mathilde is specifically worried about the loss of Waystones, so maybe we should consider where this could happen. If we want to delay the study of the Empire in particular, here's my ideas about the other options, more or less in the order of how good of an idea I think they are.
Border Princes: Things switch hands there on a regular basis, it might very well be the case that some malevolent magic users manage to take over some crucial part of the network. And this is close enough to the Empire that it might actually be possible to send an army in such a case. The Border Princes are also mostly blank as far as Mathilde's speculative map goes.
Estalia: Lots of tiny kingdoms, so no central authority to talk to if a crucial Waystone is lost. Not easy for the Empire to handle, but in the future when Bretonnia is on board maybe we could tell them "the city of X has fallen, this is a bottleneck for the Old World network, send a crusade or something". Our current idea of the Estalian network is pure guesswork based on Baba Niedzwenka's secondhand knowledge.
Tilea: Similar issues to Estalia, but it is currently a complete blank so we have nothing to go on. Might be best to do this after Estalia or the Border Princes, as the directions of nearby leylines will give us an idea about where to start looking.
Badlands: Similar worries as the Border princes, but far more dangerous and we're far less likely to be able to actually do something if a part of the network is lost.
Araby: Too far, this should be something for the distant future.
Bretonnia: An excellent candidate for mapping
after we bring them onboard. If we're lucky the Damsels might come to the project with a map of the leylines in Bretonnia, which will obviously save us a lot of trouble.
