I mean, it's because they're' rather angry that spying on them makes sense. If they were happy we wouldn't bother with them
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
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I mean, it's because they're' rather angry that spying on them makes sense. If they were happy we wouldn't bother with them
Yes, buuuuut we want successful spying which generally entails not being noticed doing said spying. My point is that as good as Eike might be in intrigue, Mathilde is better and nordland is an important enough factor in our current project that having a mishap occur while we start a spy ring there would be bad.
See where I'm coming from?
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Now, it's possible that this guy is Panoramia's father; I can't imagine there are a huge number of perpetuals that are married to Lady Magisters, and him being a secular expert on the Cult of the Mother could be connected to her mother's side of the family and why they met/married.
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
Yes, we are back to anything worth doing being too dangerios and and anything not dangerious not being usefull.
And inescapable trap that Thread has walked itself in to.
That's partly why I argued quite heavily to recruit him for the Waystone project. The other part was that he's the Druid's Loremaster, and I felt that the historical knowledge would be a valuable addition to the Project.
In hindsight, getting a dedicated ritualist was probably the better option, but I'm still a little sad we didn't get Pan Dad.
... No I'm saying if we want to spy on nordland DON'T LET IT BE DONE AS THE FIRST FUCKING INTRIGUE JOB OF OUR APPRENTICE...
some people can't read it seems...
Eike will mostly just be using the resources of the EIC to insert agents into positions where they can relay vital information to us.
She won't actually be creeping around the Elector's palace rifling through cupboards. Instead it'll be doctoring documents and providing false references to get specific individuals employed as clerks and accountants.
And besides, the Hochlander would be there, and that's literally his speciality.
Is it a "safe" option? Well, no, there's always risk. But it's a controlled, textbook scenario, and Eike's at the point of her apprenticeship where "safe" is just insulting her.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I think we could try doing it but there are practical limits to how much information a fifteen-year-old without the support of an organization can get about the internal machinations of an Elector Count's administration. Even if we're allowed to have Eike manage the Hochlander (essentially using the Eike Study action for an extra EIC action, which I am very doubtful will fly), that's a much bigger job than seems wise to give someone for their literal first ever fieldwork in spying.
Personally, I'm coming around to delaying the Fog Path road for a turn to see what intel the Hochlander can give us on the Nordland political situation and find out if they have any nasty plans in the works or even have the Waystone Project on their radar at all. A six-month delay is much more likely to matter for infiltration than for the road. And obviously we would assign Eike to shadow that action, if we took it.
I am extremely doubtful that it's permitted for us to use the Eike Study action in this way. It seems like an end run around the action economy that's at the core of the quest by conjuring an extra EIC action from nowhere -- unless she's doing it totally unsupported by the EIC, which is obviously a terrible idea.
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Doing stuff like that seems quite cool, on the other hand. It also seems kind of like it's cheating the AP system? So far the stuff she's been assigned to as self study rather than as part of an action have been pretty self contained, so not as great an amount work to add to an update. Stuff like this seems like a significantly bigger ask effort wise.
And it's a risky first task with incredible risks for our current project. If we want a easier task with less of a risk inserting spies into middenland is even easier. They actually like us, there is already a established EIC base and if something goes bad the consequences are a slightly annoyed todbringer knocking and asking for a apologie instead of a furious nordland elector openly daemonizing the colleges.
einargs
Verified Spiller of the Egg Yolk
- Location
- The Egg Yolk, Outer Layer
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I also just did a reread from that point, and yeah, Belegar is rad as hell. The moment when he clicks the last gems in place and smashes the stone table and leaves craters in the floor is so great.
We could absolutely borrow money from e.g. Belegar before leaving, but yeah, I do want to do the Ithilmar. It'll give us money and help facilitate ties. And it's an action with a time limit before someone else realizes the opportunity.
Having a Waystone prototype that we can bring up when we're asking around for command phrases would be useful. Though we do currently have the river leylines we can use when we say "hey, we're already doing it, telling us just lets us do it better," which Mathilde mentioned as desirable.
Grey wizards are exactly the kind of people who say "well, it's going to happen anyway as part of increased economic ties, so best to do it ourselves so we know who gets what and we can take advantage of the good will."
Sort of; they don't have memories from before they showed up in K8P because the length of their "echo" (memories from before the birth of any current members) is limited by how many members they have.
Yes, let's not throw our apprentice that far into the deep end. She did amazing on setting up trade because she's been trained for it for years on end and is intimately familiar with the EIC. I'd rather get her blooded next turn and have some practice surveillance before sending her off to do something like that on her own.
I assumed it would be like the charcoal, where it was both a Mathilde AP and an Eike AP.
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
Yes and if your read GM post you would now this is the time to put Eiko to work, her school days are over. Send Hoclander and attach Eike to it. She can learn on the job.
Like what do you think it is going to happen even if she got cought trying to build a spy ring in Norland? Diplomatic embarresment for Mathilde at worst. IT is not like we are sending her at EC with a dagger or something. Just expanding EIC information contract which every trader worth their salt does as well to get clues about market changes.
Or do you imagine we are going to send her to stalk EC or something? Because you are acting like it.
Edit:
NVM I missed this completely;
This is absolutey wrong way to go for. Send Hoclander and attach Eike to action. Not this set up to fail shit.
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... A spy ring in Nordland that does not tell us info about what the EC is doing is a absolutely worthless spy ring... And Mathilda is not in the habit of making useless spy rings. So if we establish a spy ring in Nordland there will be an attempt of inserting someone near the EC so that we get good info.
As for what consequences could it bring if it goes bad? The Nordland EC openly accusing the grey college of interfering into internal matters between elector counts... Which is a thing the grey college is absolutely not supposed to do.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
If we take an EIC action to insert agents into Nordland or the Cult of Ulric, and assign Eike to shadow it, then that is obviously fine and I support doing it. That's not the thing that people who are worried about Eike are worrying about, they're worrying about the idea of assigning Eike to do it herself so we can use our EIC action for something else. If it's Mathilde in charge, using the Hochlander, and assigning Eike to help out however she can and learn from it, then yeah, that's awesome and we should do it: it accomplishes something useful and lets Eike help out on the real thing we keep the EIC around for. If Mathilde is like "I'm going to go negotiate for the fog path personally so you're going to go handle the spy op," that's asking for trouble.
In conclusion, I absolutely support something like this:
[ ] EIC: Insert agents into a particular province, cult, company, or institution to start gathering their secrets: Nordland
[ ] Eike Actions: EIC action
and do not support something like this:
[ ] EIC: Negotiate and plan a magical route through the Schadensumpf to allow for easier trade with the Eonir without compromising their defences
[ ] Eike Study: Spy on Nordland
Not only do I think the QM would not allow it, I think it's courting disaster for both Mathilde and Eike.
- Location
- Earth
As I understand it, any spy ring we set up through the EIC would rely on the existing EIC presence we have in the area... which so far consists of one village on the coastline. Otherwise it'll be just the Hochlander doing an infiltration, like what happened with the Cult of Karnos.
Apropos of us possibly buying books on Hoeth, which may end up including one of the myths on the coming of Chaos, I've been going over my notes on the myths on the coming of Chaos and I think I might've come across something notable. Maybe.
The Obernarn Stone gives a list of those present during the Final Stand against Chaos, and it's a pretty short list: King Taal, Ulric the Wolf, Noble Margileo, Just Verena, Sotek the Snake, Manann of the Sea, and Gentle Shallya. Of those Gods, three have no clear equivalent in the elf pantheon: Sotek, Margileo, and Ulric. Taal is commonly syncretized with Kurnous, but in-quest evidence implies that they are seperate beings. So that leaves Verena, Shallya, and Manann, most commonly syncretized with Hoeth, Isha and Mathlann respectively. Why do I find this notable? Well, because back when I was looking into the pantheonic mandala those three Gods were all among the ones that were a bit off:
The Obernarn Stone gives a list of those present during the Final Stand against Chaos, and it's a pretty short list: King Taal, Ulric the Wolf, Noble Margileo, Just Verena, Sotek the Snake, Manann of the Sea, and Gentle Shallya. Of those Gods, three have no clear equivalent in the elf pantheon: Sotek, Margileo, and Ulric. Taal is commonly syncretized with Kurnous, but in-quest evidence implies that they are seperate beings. So that leaves Verena, Shallya, and Manann, most commonly syncretized with Hoeth, Isha and Mathlann respectively. Why do I find this notable? Well, because back when I was looking into the pantheonic mandala those three Gods were all among the ones that were a bit off:
So what I'm saying here is that it's possible that the contributions of the elf Gods who took part in the final battle against Chaos got commemorated in the mandala. Hoeth - who appears in the other two canonical myths as well, and in both of them plays a pretty big role - got five points above his crown, equal to those of Asuryan (who also makes an appearance in the final battle, obviously). Isha got just a single point above her crown, because She helped but wasn't such an MVP. Mathlann, for his efforts, was the only Cytharai to be allowed into the inner ring of the Asur, and perhaps fighting against Chaos was what allowed Him to distance Himself from His disastrous origins and become a God of the sea in the first place.
Right, well I though this was the chain of actions we were discussing, because frankly anything less than this is absolute lunacy. Sending Eike off on her own mini-adventure with zero support is very much the opposite of what I want at this juncture, even if I'm quietly confident that she could handle it.
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
You don't need to insert somebody very close EC in order to get info, there are probably people that is more informed then we are that is vulnareble and finding them is worthwhile. At any rate I do trust Hoclander and Mathilde to set rational limits to their actions. Anything else is paranoia.
As for EC accusing intervention, he would lauged out of the room unless he has proof that Greys are planning to use the info they got for internal politics rather than keeping an eye out as per habit.
I'm opposed to inserting agents into Nordland next turn.
I also think it is urgent to build the RoW bridge across the swamp. We want to build it soon enough that infrastructure isn't invested in on the assumption that shipping is the only way to go. We know construction is about to start. We don't want to discourage investment from pro-integration Houses or encourage those that are on the fence to wait and see because of uncertainty.
We also have no evidence that Nordland is going to try anything - and Middenland should be on top of this if they are. It isn't something that we should be trying to deal with.
This is basically us looking for problems that aren't ours to solve.
I also think it is urgent to build the RoW bridge across the swamp. We want to build it soon enough that infrastructure isn't invested in on the assumption that shipping is the only way to go. We know construction is about to start. We don't want to discourage investment from pro-integration Houses or encourage those that are on the fence to wait and see because of uncertainty.
We also have no evidence that Nordland is going to try anything - and Middenland should be on top of this if they are. It isn't something that we should be trying to deal with.
This is basically us looking for problems that aren't ours to solve.
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- Location
- North Wales
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
The response to an Elector Count complaining about the Greys having a passive information network in his province would be either:
* "Wow, that's sloppy of them. I've no idea where the one in my province is."
* "That's only the network they wanted you to find."
* "Wow, that's sloppy of them. I've no idea where the one in my province is."
* "That's only the network they wanted you to find."
Tasoli
Life is for Living
- Location
- Behind the Keyboard.
I agree. I was thinkg for the turn after.
This I don't really agree. Yes we should not overly interfre but it is a flashpoint and keeping an eye on it makes sense. Incase it looks like it is going to blow up. Having time to duck and cover might be useful. And Eonir-Empire relations is not internal matter to Empire so acting as a diplomat we can warn Eonir if it looks like Nordland is going to attack and thereby keep our reputation with Eonir intact for future relations.
How are we supposed to have evidence on them, when we haven't even started spying on them yet?