So no Elector Count Quest AU yet? I really want to read the next part.
I've been preparing to run my own Advisor Quest, actually. But I guess...
Meanwhile in a parallell universe, user MoneyB wrote:
Uncertain Loyalties - an Advisors Quest
Turn 7ish
Winning Plan:
[-] Plan Something Old, Something New
[-] Diplomacy: Gather local support for constructing the Hugelwege.
[-] Martial: Lead patrols to guard the construction of the Hugelwege.
[-] Stewardship: Survey Stirland's mines and ore deposits.
[-] Intrigue: Investigate the castle infiltrators.
[-] Faith: Continue recruiting army chaplains.
[-] Learning: Write-in: Begin construction of Project Hugelwege, a road and chain of forts between Leicheberg and Langwald, as a stepping stone to moving on Sylvania proper.
[-] Personal:
-[-] Assistance: Help Mathilde investigate the castle infiltrators.
-[-] Staying In Practice: Train Diplomacy.
-[-] Look into Gustav some more. Your spymaster had a good impression of him, but an impersonal and distant one.
Mathilde interviews one of the captured infiltrators and finds a spell on them. She confirms that the dead infiltrators have the collapsed and burnt-out remains of something similar in them, which she's a little reluctant about getting too close to for several reasons: it involves Dhar, it involves poking into dead people, it involves necromancy, and it involves magical difficulties.
You, on the other hand, are absolutely in your element as a (former) Witch Hunter, cutting apart necromantically-infused revenants and taking notes for future reference on how other Witch Hunters can best search out and combat such things in the future. It's practically a vacation! Once the living infiltrators are hung for treason, you repeat the procedure to check your notes, and wind up making so many notes that you have to call for extra paper. You ask Mathilde for a few comments on the standing spell she saw and how it compares to the burnt-out version in the corpses, and by the time you're done, you have a small book's worth of notes. Might even be worth publishing.
Once that's done, though, Mathilde has to ride off to check people's credentials, and you have to go back to your job of listening to the Count of Flensburg and the Mayor of Flensburg bicker.
The days pass quietly for a while. Letters come in from Wilhelmina regularly. Letters occasionally trickle in from elsewhere. Detlef reports that ghouls attacked the base camp of the Hugelwege, and will you please recall him because he is not a ghoul-fighter. Kasmir does not send any letters. You're not sure if this is because of personal annoyance or simply because his current duties don't merit it.
The yearly letter from the Moot comes in again. It's brief, polite, and asks the same thing as last year, and the year before that: Do you want to come over for Pie Week and enjoy both delicious pies and a diplomatic summit with the elected representatives of the Grand County of the Mootland? You pen the same noncommittal polite reply as every year. Sometimes you wish Stirland could be more like this: keeping the peace internally and rarely bothering you.
With Anton away on the very edge of Stirland, you have to handle a lot more meetings yourself, and you make a deliberate effort to be polite, engage people's concerns, remember their relatives, and patiently wait for them to get to the point when they're rambling. It seems to work.
(Marginal success, +1 Diplomacy.)
Looking into Gustav's background mostly confirms Mathilde's impression of him: a dashingly heroic lead-from-the-front figure who charges in guns blazing and wins victories against improbable odds. His record has disciplinary complaints for occasional disorderly conduct and one drunk on duty, which is disappointing, but at least it's not mass fraud. There's fraternization with someone who turned out to be a Chaos cultist, but Gustav swears he was as surprised as everyone else.
In the last few weeks leading up to the next meeting of the Privy Council of Stirland, you find yourself gritting your teeth in impatience several times. Gossip about the Hugelwege is leaking back, but third-hand gossip from a hundred miles away can't tell you anything useful. Sadly, it would also be not very useful to call Gustav and the others back too often for constant reports, or they'd spend all their time traveling instead of getting things done.
Finally, everyone files in to start giving their reports.
Chancellor Anton Kissinger has had great success obtaining corvee and supplies for the Hugelwege. There's been a bit of complaining as there always is with such things, but everyone in the region recognizes that it is very much in their interest to support the Elector Count when he wants to reinforce the Sylvanian border.
Marshal Gustav Jungfreud is very enthusiastic about everything. He's fighting gloriously on the frontlines! He's recruiting new regiments for Stirland! He's driving civilization and order into Sylvania! He's grateful for his appointment as Marshal! His report is littered with war stories, effusive thanks, and praise for particularly heroic soldiers deserving of promotions. But at its core, things are going well. When you ask him for a few estimates of numbers of the ghouls and ghosties that attacked, he has to consult notes, but eventually confirms they've been increasing.
After those, Architect Detlef Schultz has very little new to add. The Hugelwege is progressing. There's barracks going up, and fortifications being constructed, and will you please recall him? The plans are firmly drawn up and the workers know what to do and he can check in occasionally without needing to live in Sylvania and the worst that can happen in his absence is that the road veers a little.
Please.
(-1 relations with Detlef. He hates this assignment.)
Anton rolled the lowest of the three here with only 28, but between his Diplomacy score and the synergy bonus from putting half your council on it, he made it to the 65 breakpoint anyway. Project Hugelwege is expected to take three more turns at the current rate, meaning "if you keep three councillors on it and they all roll well enough". At least one is required for progress to continue at a significant rate.
Spymaster Mathilde Weber gives her report on the castle infiltrators - cribbing from your notes a few times, you note with amusement - and her work in checking the connections of everyone else now working in the castle so she can be sure this won't happen again. To hear her tell it, she's meticulously verified the family tree of your entire staff now.
Steward Wilhelmina Hochschild slams down a giant bundle of notes on the table. "This is the collected overview of every mine, shaft, vein and prospectus in Stirland that I've been able to acquire." She sighs in frustration. "Near as I can tell, they come in three general categories: those that are mined out, those that are tied up in disputes, and those that need a lot of work to become profitable. Some of them are in more than one category." Wilhelmina shakes her head. "But I suppose if there were an easily available, rich vein, they'd already have gotten to it, wouldn't they? I'll leave the summary in your office so you can look at it later."
You squint suspiciously at the stack of notes. You feel as though it's looking back, trying to stare you down with its sheer heft. You're muttering veiled threats under your breath about how drafty your office is and how much you could use a good fire when Wilhelmina interrupts. "Didn't quite catch that, Abelheim?"
You shake your head. The stress of the job must be getting to you if you're trying to intimidate a stack of papers.
Choose one action for each advisor. Voting in plan format.
Loyal, well-funded advisors may carry out additional projects on their own time to gain your favor, but this is not reliable.
Multiple advisors get a synergy bonus to working on the same major task, assuming they can make a relevant contribution.
In every category, you may also []Write-in.
(This is an AU post, you should not actually choose or vote for anything here.)
[] Diplomacy:
-Have Anton continue Project Hugelwege.
-Try to resolve the Flensburg Paradox.
-Have Anton return to schmoozing with the nobles of Stirland, he seems to do a good job of that.
-Have Anton branch out to Talabecland, you could use some friends there.
-Send Anton to shut down the Stirlandian League.
-Resolve mining disputes so you can get metal for your army and money for your treasury.
[] Martial:
-Have Gustav continue Project Hugelwege.
-Lead a purge into Sylvania now, before it spills over and puts you on the defensive. (Starts interlude turns.)
-Prepare the army for a purge of Sylvania in the near future.
-Send Gustav to shut down the Stirlandian League.
-Let Gustav establish the pistolier and outrider companies he's requested previously.
[] Stewardship:
-Have Wilhelmina continue Project Hugelwege.
-Send Wilhelmina to shut down the Stirlandian League.
-Resolve mining disputes so you can get metal for your army and money for your treasury.
-Inspect one of the other advisors to see if they're cooking the books.
-Issue a special one-time tax. Several previous Elector Counts have done this when they were in dire straits. Some even did it repeatedly, making them very unpopular.
[] Intrigue:
-Root out the previous spymaster.
-Send Mathilde to shut down the Stirlandian League.
-Study the spell used on the castle infiltrators. It might help detect future infiltrators. It might also provide useful magical knowledge.
-Investigate Drakenhof. That seems to be where the evil mastermind behind so much of your trouble is.
[] Faith:
-Continue recruiting more priests for the Army of Stirland.
-Have Kasmir continue Project Hugelwege.
-Order Kasmir to do some ecumenical outreach.
-Ask Kasmir for spiritual counseling in your crisis of faith.
[] Learning:
-Have Detlef continue Project Hugelwege.
-Refurbish Eagle Castle's basement.
-Restore Eagle Castle's guns.
-Rebuild Eagle Castle's fortifications.
-Send Detlef to shut down the Stirlandian League.
Choose three Elector Count actions. "Write to" options count as half actions if you take more than one (correspondence is easier to handle in parallel).
[] Personal:
-[] Intervention: Select a second project for one of your advisors this turn. Cannot be chosen with Assistance.
-[] Assistance: Select one of your advisors, their project gets +10 to all rolls this turn. Cannot be chosen with Intervention.
-[] Investigate one of your councilmembers. (Choose which one.)
-[] Replace one of your councilmembers. (Choose which one, triggers subvote on potential replacements.)
-[] Staying In Practice: Select an attribute to train. Higher attributes are harder to raise. Failing this action increases the chance of it succeeding if you pick it again the next turn.
-[] Visit the Moot as requested.
-[] Write to some of the other Elector Counts and ask for advice on ruling well.
-[] Write to the Grand Theogonist and complain about Kasmir.
-[] Write to the Grey Order and complain about Mathilde.
-[] Write to Talabecland and complain about Detlef.
MoneyB, is there any hope of getting Project Hugelwege finished this turn if we put all six advisors on it? Basically pouring all of Stirland's available state resources into it and making it clear to everyone this is the priority and will of the Elector Count?
MoneyB said:
First of all, no, there's a limit to how much faster things go even if you focus on them. Nine women can't have a baby in one month. Second, how exactly are you expecting your spymaster to contribute to roadbuilding? She could prevent people sabotaging it, but that's reactive, it doesn't help the construction itself.
This isn't D&D, dude, there isn't a thousand-spell splatbook with Lesser Create Road and Greater Create Road, and even if there were, those spells would probably be Chamon or Hush, not Ulgu. Even Aqshy would probably be better than Ulgu for roadbuilding if you can demolish obstacles.
I think you mean Hysh. Hush is definitely an Ulgu spell though.
Okay, guys, which advisors do we put on what now? I'm thinking we need to pull Detlef off the Badly Spelled German Road, even if he was boosting the other two's rolls, and I'm not seeing much use for fortifying Eagle Castle right now, so he should probably go for the League. Either Wilhelmina or Mathilde should support him there. Kasmir can probably step in for Detlef and smite undead on the frontier, it'll be a nice noncontroversial assignment. Gustav and Anton appear to be doing fine where they are. So either Mathilde or Wilhelmina should be on another project unless you want three people on the League. I'm thinking either the mining disputes or the previous spymaster, both of those improve the overall state of Stirland, whereas several other things like 'study spell' seem like shiny distractions now that we've just removed infiltrators and had a proper vetting.
I think only one advisor should mind Project Hugelwege. Leaving three of them there for three turns means nine advisor-turns (=1.5 years) while one single advisor will *probably* get it done in less than nine of his/her own advisor-turns (=4.5 years).
I love the Moot. Inviting us to Pie Week every year. We're probably going to miss it this year too, aren't we? Shame Abelheim keeps being so deluged in work he can't even take a week off.
I like the Moot too, but the Moot is fundamentally low priority because it's not a problem in any way at all. They have no demands on us. We have no current interest in them. Now, I don't want to encourage them to become a problem to grab our attention, but I don't think they're going to do that.
What are the odds that ten turns from now, there's going to be an ACTUAL malevolent stack of papers of some sort? Chaos Papers? Or maybe Necromantic Papers? I mean, papers are basically the dead flesh of trees, right, so they could arguably be made into zombies.
Please don't give the QM ideas like that.
Management wishes to remind you that shadow turns are for entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as reflective of events in the true quest.
