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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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DragonParadox said:
I mean if you are looking for first causes I think not admitting that you even had a civil war and thus that elves who do not serve the Phoenix King even exist is the worse sin. It is reasonable from the dwarfs perspective that the organized elven group attacking their caravans belonged to the only elven state they knew about.
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I think if you assume that the dwarves were too stupid to notice that their buddy Malekith not coming around anymore and none of the elves they ask being willing to talk about it probably means Some Shit went down, you are on the elven side by default.

Also the beard shaving was such a pointless act of escalation that one almost has to be impressed by how fast those bridges were burned.
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The beard shaving that was a response to the dwarves rocking up and being insulting shitheads? Yes, clearly it is the elves who were trying to burn bridges.
 
I'm too busy to keep up with the thread, so I'm leaving my vote in the hands of someone I trust

[X] Glau

This how you do it? First time I vote by username.
 
Retrueno said:
To who would exactly sell the Druuchii said information and why? Doing so would probably mean we won't trade with them anymore, besides it wouldn't give any advantage to them.


I also feel a lot of people are taking one trade one Lady Magister of the Empire does as what the entire Empire as a polity does when that is very much not the case.
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The advantage is whatever they gain from the next trade—gold, resources, information, favours, etc. The 'who' could be anybody, and the exact vector is unimportant. The point is that once information spreads, it can reach very distant places, and we have no control over that spread. We don't magically learn about them doing it if it happens, so we would have no reason to stop trading until well after the fact.

I don't think the Empire's reputation matters much here, but I do care about Mathilde's, especially if it becomes known before we go to Nagarythe.

And all of this is on top of the opportunity costs of spending an AP here instead of any of our numerous self improvement or research projects.
 
And I'm supposed to believe that the dwarves would apply the same standard if a hypothetical elf ambassador had started hurling insults at Gotrek the Petty? Pull the other one, it has bells on.
 
There have been a bunch of good suggestions put forward for finding out Eike's Intrigue score and improving it. I don't think I've seen any proposals for her other unknown stat: Piety

I get why; the issue is threefold.
  1. Piety is a very personal thing, and not all of the thread is comfortable with religion even with the filter of fiction. Maybe we just leave Eike to handle that segment of her character sheet on her own and never involve ourself in her spiritual development. It's an odd take for a mentor in a very spiritualist setting who herself has very strong views on several of the Gods, but it's a valid one.
  2. Piety also hasn't been the most relevant stat for us through the quest. It's had high points (generally whenever Ranald gets involved directly), but turn-to-turn we don't make very many rolls using the stat, compared to others. So training it up for Eike isn't really a priority.
  3. Even if we did want to interact with Eike on religious matters, the only Piety action we can share with Eike at the moment that isn't straight-up proselytising is maybe involving us both in Foreign Affairs: the Ulrican Schism. That may end up being diplomacy/intrigue, but God-talk would probably happen enough to get a peek at that spot in her sheet. Other than that, we just have Study. There are a few options there that aren't "pick up a book, nerd". Sending her for a stint with Kasmir. Talking with the Winter Wolves about Ulric, or Gunnars about the Ancestor Gods of the Dawi. None sound exciting, though I expect Boney would find some interesting angle to explore.
 
Andrensath said:
And I'm supposed to believe that the dwarves would apply the same standard if a hypothetical elf ambassador had started hurling insults at Gotrek the Petty? Pull the other one, it has bells on.
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We'll never know, will we?

Maybe Gotrek 'Caledor-de-necker' Starbreaker would have taken his head right off, maybe he'd have just happily started engaging in an insult-off (an actual Dwarf custom). Maybe he would have expelled the ambassador.

It's rather useless to argue in terms of 'this character totally would have done x' when we have it on paper that this other character actually did do x.
 
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So the dwarves can insult the elves all they like, but the elves can't insult the dwarves by giving them a good trim? Got it.
 
Andrensath said:
And I'm supposed to believe that the dwarves would apply the same standard if a hypothetical elf ambassador had started hurling insults at Gotrek the Petty? Pull the other one, it has bells on.
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That's the thing with ambassadors, if they start saying shit you can just send them home and never allow them to come back, but attacking any diplomat is an instant act of war.
 
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Andrensath said:
It is, however, incumbent on the ambassador to be diplomatic. The dwarves were not, and therefore cannot cry foul when they were responded to in kind.
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I mean he did come on account of what seemed to be elves attacking dwarven caravans which were actually Malekith so while i wouldn't count being discourteous and rude to the high elves of all people as a smart thing Caledor still decided to keep his mouth shut on the Malekith rebel problem and from that point on it's war unless you want to advocate a foreign nations citizen slaughtering your owns deserves any less then a grudging war to push back this foreign enemy.

If what looks to be Merienburg forces are currently ambushing and assulting the imperial river navy and citizens and they don't give a good explenation to the ambassador sent but instead decide to shave his head and meme on the empire this quest is going to go real quickly find out how Boney is going to set up dozens of wizards called up by the emperor to put an end to Marienburg and the elves their.

Andrensath said:
So the dwarves can insult the elves all they like, but the elves can't insult the dwarves by giving them a good trim? Got it.
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Your point is? Nation states can genocide other races and nations people and get away with insulting the ambassador when they come time to ask why their slaughtering their people?

Alright so dwarves are in the right to start slaughtering elves equally back then now?
 
Andrensath said:
So the dwarves can insult the elves all they like, but the elves can't insult the dwarves by giving them a good trim? Got it.
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Er. Beards are extremely culturally important to Dwarves. Immensely so. Fundamentally so. Forcefully shaving a Dwarf is on par with brutal mutilation of the highest order with no true way of fixing it.

Hell even for humans. Having one's hair forcefully shaved isn't exactly fun.
 
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Leolu said:
Er. Beards are extremely culturally important to Dwarves. Immensely so. Fundamentally so. Forcefully shaving a Dwarf is on par with brutal mutilation of the highest order with no true way of fixing it.

Hell even for normal people. Having one's hair forcefully shaved isn't exactly fun.
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To put this into context, the guy who got his beard shaved became a Slayer.

I think I should mention that he got his beard shaved forefully in a room full of laughing Elves. Even discounting Dwarven culture, that in itself is an act of violation of your bodily autonomy and a humiliating experience. It's not overstating it when I say that it is definitley traumatising for a Dwarf (and let's be honest, even to a human, nobody likes being humiliated and lose their bodily autonomy). Dwarves don't have the psychological outlets that we do in the modern day, so he chose to vent by rushing into battle and dying to restore his honor.
 
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