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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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deathofrats0808 said:
The Asur have the single greatest navy to sail the Great Ocean, and the Empire's fleet is kind of shit. Plus, the information was supposed to be about the Druchii's enemies, not raiders heading for the Empire specifically, so a lot of what the Empire could do would be "selll the information to the actual target". Also, as logn as the Druchii don't sell it to the Asur directly, I don't think they'll care. It wouldn't even surprise me if the Druchii have done similar thigns before, usign spies in Ulthuan to arrange for their rivals to cross the Asur and get destroyed. The raids are private business after all, not a military operation Malekith would want kept secret.
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The asur have the greatest navy to sail the great ocean but also a lot of irons in the fire, the empire's fleet only has one job. I should clarify that I do not think the asur are particularly WORSE suited to it either, just not so much better that it is particularly reasonable for them to demand "give us the information instead."

And no, I think if a druchii is trying to get a rival killed by asur they're gonna solely rely on "try to trick the rival into overextending" not anything that could be remotely construed as working with the Asur. At the very least it is a reasonable concern for Mathilde to keep in mind so again, if the Asur would insist otherwise, fuck 'em (but I don't think they would.)
 
Boney said:
I tried it and it became an uneditable tag so I guess the Gods have spoken, it's there forever now.
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StormySky said:
Strange, I've refreshed the page several times, including right before I posted this, but I can't see it on my end. Maybe tags take a while to get out?
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I believe that means it's under review by staff. Same thing happened to me, I got the notification about a day later that the tag had been approved and it showed up with the other tags.
 
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Yeah if you click on one of the more specific tags (ie 'divided loyalties') and see DL there you can see 'be gay do crimes' with a shield on it.
 
I'll post what I did about the Druchii diplomats before: Basically we are not the people that should negotiate with them. We a) haven't yet done elfcation, b) aren't spec'd into diplomacy, c) our intrigue comes from magic and dex, not our cha modifier, and d) we have enough power that getting in over our heads harms far more than just us or the project.

At the very least, let's wait on this until after elfcation, especially if they want an answer when they talk to us.
 
Abhorsen said:
Basically we are not the people that should negotiate with them.
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We're not the diplomat the Empire needs, we're the diplomat the Empire has. There's practically no one else who can do the job—or, at the very least, no one I trust to do the job properly.

I guess we could try to delegate it to the Imperial civil service, but it'll probably end up either in the hands of the youngest child of some uber wealthy noble whom the Emperor requires a favour from, or in the hands of a less experienced Grey Wizard who doesn't have our talent for multi-cultural diplomacy.

Theoretically, Egrimm or Elrisse could do it, as they hold the same rank as we do, after all, although the Light Order doesn't have the same reputation for diplomacy the Grey Order does—they are healers, counsellors, and exorcists, mainly. There's also the Ulrican delegation, but we haven't met them yet—and Marrisith told us third hand that Boris is okay with selling monsters to the Druchii.
 
reignonyrparade said:
The asur have the greatest navy to sail the great ocean but also a lot of irons in the fire, the empire's fleet only has one job. I should clarify that I do not think the asur are particularly WORSE suited to it either, just not so much better that it is particularly reasonable for them to demand "give us the information instead."

And no, I think if a druchii is trying to get a rival killed by asur they're gonna solely rely on "try to trick the rival into overextending" not anything that could be remotely construed as working with the Asur. At the very least it is a reasonable concern for Mathilde to keep in mind so again, if the Asur would insist otherwise, fuck 'em (but I don't think they would.)
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Wait, did you think i was saying the Asur would just be like "give us the information". Because I was saying they would trade for it. Not that they'd just force the Empire to hand it over for nothing. The fact they're better suited to deal with it (and they are, the Empire's fleet is kind of shit at it's job and has been since they lost Marienburg) would be an argument for them getting a better deal (and maybe an attempt at getting the Empire to ahnd it over for free, because if it works, great).

Why would the Druchii care if they work with the Asur? The other way around, sure, but the Druchii's philosophy can basically be summed up as "if you can accomplish something, you have the right to do it". With military movements, that'd be a problem, because it'd piss of Malekith and he's scary, but against another house's business pursuits? Sure, I think they'd go for it, although it's probably the sort of thing that gets used as a way to bring noble families down, the same way that an Asur being part of a Cult of Pleasure is. It's not "if you do this, you instantly, definitely die", but if you get caught it has bad consequences and going too far can result in executions all around.
 
Glau said:
So the empire's incentive is to grab everything useful out of the flow just before the river crosses out of their control, and to get what they can for but interfering with the elves grabbing the rest.
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If the empire wants to get a cut it's going to need to be negotiated pay or material from the Asur. The empire doesn't have the expertise to use the raw magic the way the Karaz Ankor or Laurelorn can. The empire can't significantly hold back the flow of magic without ill effect, and I imagine Marienburg is in the same situation.

Marienburg will get a cut for sure; there's no easy way to bypass their Nexus and taking payment for transport of goods is Marienburg's specialty. Though the empire has the initiative over Marienburg, since we're the ones setting out the waystones, Marienburg's location as a logical stopover point between Ulthuan and Altdorf counts a lot in their favour too.
 
Re: the Druchii, I feel like if we want to do any deals with them we should first hit up L.M. Kupfer for diplomacy lessons on how they do stuff. If anyone in the Colleges has even a basic understanding of their society, it's him.
 
Curtains said:
If the empire wants to get a cut it's going to need to be negotiated pay or material from the Asur. The empire doesn't have the expertise to use the raw magic the way the Karaz Ankor or Laurelorn can. The empire can't significantly hold back the flow of magic without ill effect, and I imagine Marienburg is in the same situation.

Marienburg will get a cut for sure; there's no easy way to bypass their Nexus and taking payment for transport of goods is Marienburg's specialty. Though the empire has the initiative over Marienburg, since we're the ones setting out the waystones, Marienburg's location as a logical stopover point between Ulthuan and Altdorf counts a lot in their favour too.
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I mean, if the Asur believe as you do that the Empire can't afford to prevent the flow and aren't capable of doing anything with it, why would they give the Empire (or Marienburg) anything? Like what's the Empire's leverage in that scenario?
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
We're not the diplomat the Empire needs, we're the diplomat the Empire has. There's practically no one else who can do the job—or, at the very least, no one I trust to do the job properly.
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... Maybe, but we are bad at it. The thing is, the Empire doesn't exactly need to talk to them here though. The Eonir got it covered. We have little to gain, and a fair bit to lose, notably the Teclis Brownie points and an elfcation.

That's a good argument when you are forced to act. We aren't. We can just ignore them. We can just ignore them until we do the Elfcation. Why would we really want to deal with Slavers anyways?
 
It's oddly fitting that there's a vocal part of the thread that wants to go to Ulthuan and hunt Druchii, and another vocal part of the thread that wants to meet Druchii and become backstabbing buddies... against other Druchii.
 
Abhorsen said:
Compared to the Drucchii Diplomats? Yes, we are.
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It's worth remembering this is not an official-official diplomatic approach - they didn't bring with them the flag of Naggarond proper (suggesting that Malekith doesn't know or particularly care), and it was heavily suggested that Morathi wasn't aware that the Hag Graef representative was even here. They are here mostly representing their own interests and those of their cities, not the abstract whole of Naggaroth.

Furthermore, deathofrats is right: the people we met were a Dreadlord, a sorceress, and a captain, not what I'd assume are dedicated diplomats. Of the three, I'd say the first is the biggest social threat and the most likely to actually have the highest diplomacy score and even then that's not a guarantee.
 
[x] Okri
[x] Middenland
[x] Nordland
[x] The Black Water Canal
[x] Eonir Tourism
[x] Tzar Boris Bokha
[x] Amber College
[x] Niedzwenka
 
Mopman43 said:
There quite possibly isn't anyone better in the Empire for the task at hand.
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There most definitely is. People spend there lives working at being a good Diplomat. We know someone who manipulated the Druchii enough to cause a near civil war. We aren't even the best wizard at fighting on the project (Egrimm's got 1 more martial), why do you think we are somehow the best at this? That's simply arrogant. We aren't. There's definitely better people in the Empire for this, they just aren't here now. At least the argument of "we're the ones here" wasn't just straight up wrong.

But we don't even have to handle this. Sarvoir is dealing with it now, and we haven't even done the elfcation yet, which I would like to get one with before ever entering to deals with slavers.

I really don't think there's a reason to talk to them, especially when learning about what's up with Nordland/Middenland is a lot more urgent, and on top of that we haven't even done the Elfcation.
 
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Nerdasaurus Rex said:
We're not the diplomat the Empire needs, we're the diplomat the Empire has. There's practically no one else who can do the job—or, at the very least, no one I trust to do the job properly.
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And in diplomacy, there are many times when trying and failing is worse than not trying at all. In fact, I think this is more true in international diplomacy than most places, even when the other side isn't ruled by a Slaanesh worshipper and Mordred but worse.

Do I know Mathilde will fail? No. I think talking to them is on the borderline of worth it, and I can understand wanting to go for it, at least with a social turn that's unlikely to involve actually rolling for anything. (I think? I don't remember seeing dice on social turns before)

However, I also just don't want to. I'm not that interested in reading Mathilde willingly negotiating with Druchii if she's good or mediocre at it, and I definitely don't want to read about her failing at it.
 
Abhorsen said:
We aren't even the best wizard at fighting on the project (Egrimm's got 1 more martial)
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He has 1 point higher pure martial, I'm pretty sure Mathilde would still destroy him with a fair amount of ease thanks to being a Master with a greatsword. Or at leading a force against the Skaven or Undead, for example. Skills are quite impactful.


I doubt any pure Diplomat would be effective in this context, I think diplomacy with Druchii requires you to be a threat yourself to be effective. There's certainly no pure diplomat with experience or training on dealing with Druchii.

We have no idea if Khupfer is even remotely good at diplomacy, his feats in Naggaroth sound more like intrigue to me.

Ultimately, if Diplomacy with the Druchii is desired, we're the only choice because we're the one that the Eonir trust to at least some extent.

I would like to once again state that I have no actual desire to engage with the Druchii.

infinityDivided said:
...Okay, did SV suddenly disappear for anyone else?
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Yeah, I was concerned for a minute there.
 
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