- Location
- Aotearoa
Can't believe you're down on Basil Poledouris.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Germany
[X] veekie
Changing vote.
Changing vote.
Edited version. Response delayed since I did this at a traffic light x.x
Magisches Mädchen Schwertritter Mathilde is my favourite Germanime.
Incidentally this really sold me. Not on line troops. On the riders. Its like giving them a single use bazooka
@veekie, dedicating an action to the famously touchy elf with Mathilde lackluster diplomacy score (without even Renald's blessing to act as a buffer strikes) me as foolhardy. Just in the last update we saw who Mathilde barely squicked by Gustav despite being his nominal peer.
(I would also like to use the personal action to get to know Gustav since Mathilde is going to work with him heavily in the coming year and I suspect that the DC was high because he didn't know Mathilde and suspected her, but it seems like a lost cause)
(I would also like to use the personal action to get to know Gustav since Mathilde is going to work with him heavily in the coming year and I suspect that the DC was high because he didn't know Mathilde and suspected her, but it seems like a lost cause)
- Location
- Earth
@veekie :
Instead of Greatsword Practice, we should do this:
[ ] Combat Training: You're virtually surrounded by armed warriors of various sorts. See if you can convince one to teach you (choose who).
-[ ] Sir Markus von Pfaffbach, Champion of Stirland. Ask him to teach us mounted combat with a greatsword on our Shadowsteed(he's a champion, he should know how to fight mounted, even if great-swords are his specialty and we are going to war. We'll need it. QM allready cleared mounted combat as something we could train.)
--[ ]If the Chapion does not know how to train us for mounted combat Ask Anton to put in a good word with us for one of the local knightly orders, as we are riding to war and need a trainer for mounted combat.
---[ ]Train Fighting from Shadowsteed with a great-sword.
----[ ]If a Teacher can not be found, just train Great-swords.
@BoneyM : The Champion of Stirland knows how to fight mounted or not? Do we know that?
Instead of Greatsword Practice, we should do this:
[ ] Combat Training: You're virtually surrounded by armed warriors of various sorts. See if you can convince one to teach you (choose who).
-[ ] Sir Markus von Pfaffbach, Champion of Stirland. Ask him to teach us mounted combat with a greatsword on our Shadowsteed(he's a champion, he should know how to fight mounted, even if great-swords are his specialty and we are going to war. We'll need it. QM allready cleared mounted combat as something we could train.)
--[ ]If the Chapion does not know how to train us for mounted combat Ask Anton to put in a good word with us for one of the local knightly orders, as we are riding to war and need a trainer for mounted combat.
---[ ]Train Fighting from Shadowsteed with a great-sword.
----[ ]If a Teacher can not be found, just train Great-swords.
@BoneyM : The Champion of Stirland knows how to fight mounted or not? Do we know that?
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
To be clear, Burning Shadows is always centered on the caster. That's why I went with infantry; they'll almost certainly end up in close proximity to large numbers of densely packed enemies. Putting it on cavalry could make for some truly devastating linebreakers, but arranging the lighting might be more difficult. Burning Shadows only makes existing shadows burn, so you want to be able to make sure that as many targets are shadowed as possible by, say, arranging the placement of your troops' torches or carefully positioning a Light spell.
Thats why we're buttering him up by scribing his stories down. And based on Anton, Asarnil is apparently pretty okay with anyone without enough pride or confidence to interrupt him or contest his superiority. Mathilde will be fine, at worst he ignores her.
I'm pretty sure Marcus training action already covers that. I'll take the prioritization from the expert in which element of greatsword fighting is the most important...and keeping in mind we probably want to cover defensive holes more than maximize our peak bonuses. When everything is in our favor we fight on par with Van Hal, but I believe we probably want parry or initiative bonuses more than mounted bonuses at present.
Think of it this way, are we more likely to need the bonus when everything goes as planned, or when we're unable to use our biggest force multiplier?
Was thinking a rider with the spell and maybe 3-4 with a torch.
How bright is our Light?
You haven't actually voted for this plan, but paying off the loans from the Grey College with a lump sum like this is an incredibly bad idea. We pay a tithe of ten percent, and we've been paying 35g towards the loans as well, so at most we could have 10g/turn until we became a knight, at which point we have 19g/turn. Even that's implausibly high, because it assumes we had no other expenses. Of course, we have much more than that thanks to embezzlement, but the Grey College strongly looks down on that kind of thing. More importantly, though, is that having that kind of money to send tells them we had an income source that we weren't paying our tithe on. That's liable to get some harsh punishment from the College.
If you really want to put extra money into the loans, make it a plausible amount. Sixty gold would be able half the amount they'd expect us to have collected.
I feel like Asarnil's enough of an ornery bastard that we're fairly likely to fail those social actions. Plus Mathilde has terrible Diplomacy. The Scribe action should get over the line just on the flattery of the action itself as long as it doesn't roll too poorly, but Free Time is probably going to get nothing. Maybe change it to someone we'll see past more than a couple of turns?
Interesting choice to expand the information network. I don't think we're going to be able to afford it just yet, though. And on top of that is the choice of target. Ostermark's quite far away and lacks a border with Stirland, so we'd either have to go through Talabecland, which is on the opposite side to the canal project we'd want to be looking at, or we'd have to go through Sylvania. Talabecland, Wissenland, Averland, or even the Moot would be better targets for our first forays into foreign intelligence, I think.
I have problems with your Tutoring action. Gustav is a cavalry commander, sure, but he's a pistolier, not a swordsman. We'd be better off getting training from the Greatswords (for greatswordsmanship in general) or one of the knightly orders coming along (for mounted swordsmanship in particular). That is, unless I've misinterpreted your action and you actually want him to train Mathilde in command. He should be fine for that.
I was going to pick up some classics (Dance Macarbe is an excellent pick if not for how overused it is) or Dark Cabaret, I gues I'll throw in what I came up with regardless.
---No lyrics---
Dance Macabre (good but overused)
Dance of the Knights (a bit too martial focused but still fitting)
Zoe Keating - Tetrishead (title doesn't fit but the music does)
---Lyrics fitting-ish---
Amanda Palmer - Machete
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I'd argue that we should train pistol-shooting instead. We have decent close combat skills but our ranged combat is a sling equivalent. Automaged up pistols are a very nice opening move.
The key thing about bound spells is that we'll learn how to detect it and we'll be able to make a sweep for sleeper agents in military.
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
I feel like Gustav could teach us command, general cavalry tactics, swording from horseback (which I am sure he knows because the Empire is far too sensible to think their light cavalry will always be able to avoid melee and have more pistol ammo), or, yes, pistols and any of them would be valuable.
Pistols aren't something we have training in and I'm not going to say they're an ideal choice, but they are better weapons than Magic Dart and would be automatically made magical by our new Bless Weapon mastery. We could probably get ourselves a revolver without much trouble (Gustav keeps getting shot down by Van Hal to equip the entire light cavalry corps but a personal weapon should be within our budget), and that would put us in a pretty good spot in terms of ranged weapon options. Yes, we can fling magic at people, but doing that all day every day isn't particularly deadly unless we develop a personal ranged combat spell or raise our Magic by several points to semi-reliably use Shadow Knives.
Ultimately I was going to leave it up to Gustav's judgement and the roll. If you think that it would be best to avoid leaving that to chance and are dubious about the utility of his weapon training options, I wouldn't mind specifically requesting tutoring in tactics or command- there are likely to be a lot of situations in the upcoming campaign where we're the most high-ranked and personally dangerous person within shouting distance. Being at least a novice in handling those by rallying and commanding troops could serve us well.
Synergy bonus, but I'm explicitly hoping that he likes us enough to send letters at least after he moves on. Great for long distance rumor mills, and if we ever need a dragon...well knowing a guy with a dragon can be valuable
We already know how to detect it once we knew what to look for, the Dhar version particularly also requires constant renewal, so you wouldn't be seeing it on an army deployment, too many people would notice once the army is fielded.
The big obstacle about detecting bound spells is you need a wizard to see the magic.
On the other hand Ulgu is probably better at longer lasting bound spells than Dhar, though it'd be no match for Ghyran, Ghur and Chamon for endurance in their respective elements.
Come to think of it, it MIGHT be possible that Ulgu bound spells last as long as they are kept out of direct light.
Willing to bet Ghyran c
I'm not sure why, but the possible order text is
So maybe we can't do it reliably or fast enough? Either way, good point about the army.
Poor fellow. Died in the middle of a comment. At least whoever found him was kind enough to click Post Reply.
Elector Count Quest AU OP
- Location
- Norway
Decided to write up what an OP of the Elector Count AU quest might have looked like from the perspective of Abelhelm van Hal's players.
Somewhere in a parallell universe, user MoneyB wrote:
Uncertain Loyalties - an Advisors Quest
Within the borders of the Empire of Man, the Elector Counts are among the highest of nobility, second only to the Emperor and - arguably, very arguably - the High Priests. Their word is all but law over the countless thousands of souls within their province.
In theory, at least.
In practice, many of them are constrained a thousand ways by the chains of command. Obligations of law and custom, duties to Emperor and to subjects, treaties with other Elector Counts and with foreign nations, gods-damned paperwork, outbreaks of orcs and undead and chaos cultists and other threats demanding immediate response at the cost of attending to practically everything else, shortages of money and manpower, the endless bickering of petty nobles wanting you to adjudicate, and simple inability to be everywhere at once means that even Elector Counts are sharply constrained in the extent of their rule. Needing to sleep doesn't help either. And some have it even worse than this.
Like you. What made you particularly unsuited to be Elector Count?
[] SPARE TO THE THRONE
Your first brother, taken by the plague. Your sister, abdicated after scarce two years and already withering with stress. Your second brother, killed in a hunting accident. You were not expected to take the throne, and know only the very basics of ruling, being twice inexperienced for your youth as well as lack of proper tutoring. You're not young enough to formally need a regency, but that won't stop some of your older advisors trying to regence on your behalf anyway.
[❌] WAR HERO
With the previous dynasty of Elector Counts in this province having come to an untimely end, the Electors came together in a special meeting to find a replacement. After a week of factioning around their own friends, they settled on you as a compromise candidate: a veteran warrior, well-decorated, known for dutiful loyalty to the Empire and stalwart rectitude, if perhaps rather unimaginative and unsuited to politicking.
[] SICKNESS UNTO DEATH
During the first year of your nominal reign, you took ill and fell into a coma. On death's door, preparations for the succession were already being made when a Jade Wizard intervened to say you would live and not die, so there was a regency. It lasted rather longer than planned. Two years later, you are finally conscious enough to carry out the duties of office, but still dreadfully weak, and your nominal subordinates and advisors have gotten used to getting their own way without your meddling.
[] LETHAL JOKE CANDIDATE
The last Elector Count was a little odd. When he returned a favour you performed for him by adopting you into his household, people shrugged. When he seemed to be infertile (or frigid?), people started to worry. When he died and his last will explicitly specified that the position should pass to you as though you were the son of his body, people objected quite loudly... but in the end, decided that you were probably better than risking a civil war.
[] THE FOP
Rank is supposed to be a privilege, not a responsibility! Court is for enjoying oneself. The flattery may be insincere, but does it really matter as long as they keep it up? In your view, your power and position are supposed to be for occasionally taking the visionary decisions that earn you glory and a place in the history books, not this constant stream of unimportant bullshit. Surely there's someone you could hand such things off to.
[ ] CORRUPTION
Loyalty to the darker powers has great costs, but greater rewards. Or was it the other way around?
Choice of Chaos (access to blessings of Chaos) or Vampire Counts (access to Necromancy and Vampirism); the downsides to such things are as obvious as they are numerous. You will have to be fairly reclusive.
In CK2 quests, you have your advisors, a handful of descriptive lines updated every half a decade or so that regularly spit out three or more neat little options for how to improve your lot in life. They are almost always trusted implicitly even among the most paranoid of threads unless they're described as twirling a moustache and carving chaotic sigils into the meeting room table, and I wondered what their life was like when they weren't delivering their annual reports. Do they truly have no desire other than to serve you, or do they have murkier motivations than their lord ever sees?
So in this quest, advisors will be a lot more important. Your advisors will all be fully statted characters who have attributes of their own and motivations divergent from yours, and you'll be playing the nominal boss who is very limited in 1) capacity to act, 2) your knowledge of the advisors, 3) the advisors' loyalty to you. Most state actions will have to be performed by asking one of your advisors to do them. How well they perform will depend on their attributes, not yours. You start out not knowing their attributes, either, until you take investigation actions. Worse, if your advisors are disloyal they might not do what you ask at all, just lie to you or pocket the money and run. And one of the things that will make them disloyal is - micromanagement. Your advisors, based on their own motivations and abilities, will present three or more options of their own choosing that they propose to do as projects each turn. You can order a write-in, but you are encouraged to choose from among their proposals, because a write-in implies you don't trust their judgment in their field of expertise.
So now it's time to see how you do when things are out of your hands and you're dependent on unknown NPCs. Will you select for competence first, or loyalty? Will you leave your advisors to get up to mischief, or look over their shoulders constantly? Will you try to buy friendship with gold, or will that just invite greed and corruption? Is a little nepotism and embezzlement an acceptable price to pay for an otherwise skilled councilor?
Traditionally, there are six advisors in an Elector Count's privy council, each serving a very different role, but all functioning as the Count's hands in some important domain. Most of these positions start out having been filled outside your control. Short of outright treason, it is very hard to remove any of your advisors, as the others will view this as a threat to their position and power too. But you get to ensure that at least one person starts out loyal to you and not entirely incompetent. Choose the position you have been so fortunate as to be able to influence initially.
[ ] Martial: The Marshal is in charge of military matters, making it the most important position to fill with a trustworthy subordinate. Having a rogue Marshal could mean the decline of your entire army, crime waves and rampant smuggling, the invasion of your province from without, or a coup from within if the Marshal gets ambitious and wins the loyalty of your troops, something he's well placed to do.
[ ] Diplomacy: The Chancellor is responsible for contact both within and without, making it the most important position to fill with a trustworthy subordinate. Having a rogue Chancellor could leave you isolated from everyone from the Emperor to the peasantry. Worse, the Chancellor's silver tongue makes them the greatest risk for suborning other members of your Privy Council too.
[❌] Stewardship: The Steward is responsible for taxes and the economy, making it the most important position to fill with a trustworthy subordinate. A trustworthy Steward means you can hire replacements for any failures, and if you can't buy friendship, well, you can least rent it. But a rogue Steward will fill their pockets at the expense of your treasury, leaving you unable to do important things like pay soldiers.
[ ] Intrigue: The Spymaster is the master of soft power in the realm, making it the most important position to fill with a trustworthy subordinate. Having a rogue Spymaster means having little idea what plots and plans are going at best, if your Spymaster is merely idle or incompetent. At worst, the Spymaster may start actively plotting against you.
[] Faith: The Chaplain is responsible for the souls of an entire province, making it the most important position to fill with a trustworthy subordinate. Where the other advisors can merely steal from you or hurt you, a rogue Chaplain might see you excommunicated, the memory of your name erased, or your people fallen to Chaos.
[] Learning: The most nebulous of all the roles, this role is usually filled based on the Elector Count's desires and prejudices, making it the most important position to fill with a trustworthy subordinate. This is the post of court wizards and witch hunters, Leonardo da Miragliano and other geniuses and madmen, innovators and reformers with the greatest amount of leeway for grand and unusual projects. A skilled and loyal Philosopher (title varies) might catapult your entire province to greatness; a rogue one might blow up your castle and burn down your city, on accident or on purpose.
Finally, in what province have you come into power?
(Province vote elided because it would be too short on interesting content and too much copypasta of the actual OP. If this post seems incongruous with the other Elector Count apocrypha, it's because "Part 1" was written first as a one-off joke and this OP came later with more knowledge.)
.
Uncertain Loyalties - an Advisors Quest
Within the borders of the Empire of Man, the Elector Counts are among the highest of nobility, second only to the Emperor and - arguably, very arguably - the High Priests. Their word is all but law over the countless thousands of souls within their province.
In theory, at least.
In practice, many of them are constrained a thousand ways by the chains of command. Obligations of law and custom, duties to Emperor and to subjects, treaties with other Elector Counts and with foreign nations, gods-damned paperwork, outbreaks of orcs and undead and chaos cultists and other threats demanding immediate response at the cost of attending to practically everything else, shortages of money and manpower, the endless bickering of petty nobles wanting you to adjudicate, and simple inability to be everywhere at once means that even Elector Counts are sharply constrained in the extent of their rule. Needing to sleep doesn't help either. And some have it even worse than this.
Like you. What made you particularly unsuited to be Elector Count?
[] SPARE TO THE THRONE
Your first brother, taken by the plague. Your sister, abdicated after scarce two years and already withering with stress. Your second brother, killed in a hunting accident. You were not expected to take the throne, and know only the very basics of ruling, being twice inexperienced for your youth as well as lack of proper tutoring. You're not young enough to formally need a regency, but that won't stop some of your older advisors trying to regence on your behalf anyway.
[❌] WAR HERO
With the previous dynasty of Elector Counts in this province having come to an untimely end, the Electors came together in a special meeting to find a replacement. After a week of factioning around their own friends, they settled on you as a compromise candidate: a veteran warrior, well-decorated, known for dutiful loyalty to the Empire and stalwart rectitude, if perhaps rather unimaginative and unsuited to politicking.
[] SICKNESS UNTO DEATH
During the first year of your nominal reign, you took ill and fell into a coma. On death's door, preparations for the succession were already being made when a Jade Wizard intervened to say you would live and not die, so there was a regency. It lasted rather longer than planned. Two years later, you are finally conscious enough to carry out the duties of office, but still dreadfully weak, and your nominal subordinates and advisors have gotten used to getting their own way without your meddling.
[] LETHAL JOKE CANDIDATE
The last Elector Count was a little odd. When he returned a favour you performed for him by adopting you into his household, people shrugged. When he seemed to be infertile (or frigid?), people started to worry. When he died and his last will explicitly specified that the position should pass to you as though you were the son of his body, people objected quite loudly... but in the end, decided that you were probably better than risking a civil war.
[] THE FOP
Rank is supposed to be a privilege, not a responsibility! Court is for enjoying oneself. The flattery may be insincere, but does it really matter as long as they keep it up? In your view, your power and position are supposed to be for occasionally taking the visionary decisions that earn you glory and a place in the history books, not this constant stream of unimportant bullshit. Surely there's someone you could hand such things off to.
[ ] CORRUPTION
Loyalty to the darker powers has great costs, but greater rewards. Or was it the other way around?
Choice of Chaos (access to blessings of Chaos) or Vampire Counts (access to Necromancy and Vampirism); the downsides to such things are as obvious as they are numerous. You will have to be fairly reclusive.
In CK2 quests, you have your advisors, a handful of descriptive lines updated every half a decade or so that regularly spit out three or more neat little options for how to improve your lot in life. They are almost always trusted implicitly even among the most paranoid of threads unless they're described as twirling a moustache and carving chaotic sigils into the meeting room table, and I wondered what their life was like when they weren't delivering their annual reports. Do they truly have no desire other than to serve you, or do they have murkier motivations than their lord ever sees?
So in this quest, advisors will be a lot more important. Your advisors will all be fully statted characters who have attributes of their own and motivations divergent from yours, and you'll be playing the nominal boss who is very limited in 1) capacity to act, 2) your knowledge of the advisors, 3) the advisors' loyalty to you. Most state actions will have to be performed by asking one of your advisors to do them. How well they perform will depend on their attributes, not yours. You start out not knowing their attributes, either, until you take investigation actions. Worse, if your advisors are disloyal they might not do what you ask at all, just lie to you or pocket the money and run. And one of the things that will make them disloyal is - micromanagement. Your advisors, based on their own motivations and abilities, will present three or more options of their own choosing that they propose to do as projects each turn. You can order a write-in, but you are encouraged to choose from among their proposals, because a write-in implies you don't trust their judgment in their field of expertise.
So now it's time to see how you do when things are out of your hands and you're dependent on unknown NPCs. Will you select for competence first, or loyalty? Will you leave your advisors to get up to mischief, or look over their shoulders constantly? Will you try to buy friendship with gold, or will that just invite greed and corruption? Is a little nepotism and embezzlement an acceptable price to pay for an otherwise skilled councilor?
Traditionally, there are six advisors in an Elector Count's privy council, each serving a very different role, but all functioning as the Count's hands in some important domain. Most of these positions start out having been filled outside your control. Short of outright treason, it is very hard to remove any of your advisors, as the others will view this as a threat to their position and power too. But you get to ensure that at least one person starts out loyal to you and not entirely incompetent. Choose the position you have been so fortunate as to be able to influence initially.
[ ] Martial: The Marshal is in charge of military matters, making it the most important position to fill with a trustworthy subordinate. Having a rogue Marshal could mean the decline of your entire army, crime waves and rampant smuggling, the invasion of your province from without, or a coup from within if the Marshal gets ambitious and wins the loyalty of your troops, something he's well placed to do.
[ ] Diplomacy: The Chancellor is responsible for contact both within and without, making it the most important position to fill with a trustworthy subordinate. Having a rogue Chancellor could leave you isolated from everyone from the Emperor to the peasantry. Worse, the Chancellor's silver tongue makes them the greatest risk for suborning other members of your Privy Council too.
[❌] Stewardship: The Steward is responsible for taxes and the economy, making it the most important position to fill with a trustworthy subordinate. A trustworthy Steward means you can hire replacements for any failures, and if you can't buy friendship, well, you can least rent it. But a rogue Steward will fill their pockets at the expense of your treasury, leaving you unable to do important things like pay soldiers.
[ ] Intrigue: The Spymaster is the master of soft power in the realm, making it the most important position to fill with a trustworthy subordinate. Having a rogue Spymaster means having little idea what plots and plans are going at best, if your Spymaster is merely idle or incompetent. At worst, the Spymaster may start actively plotting against you.
[] Faith: The Chaplain is responsible for the souls of an entire province, making it the most important position to fill with a trustworthy subordinate. Where the other advisors can merely steal from you or hurt you, a rogue Chaplain might see you excommunicated, the memory of your name erased, or your people fallen to Chaos.
[] Learning: The most nebulous of all the roles, this role is usually filled based on the Elector Count's desires and prejudices, making it the most important position to fill with a trustworthy subordinate. This is the post of court wizards and witch hunters, Leonardo da Miragliano and other geniuses and madmen, innovators and reformers with the greatest amount of leeway for grand and unusual projects. A skilled and loyal Philosopher (title varies) might catapult your entire province to greatness; a rogue one might blow up your castle and burn down your city, on accident or on purpose.
Finally, in what province have you come into power?
(Province vote elided because it would be too short on interesting content and too much copypasta of the actual OP. If this post seems incongruous with the other Elector Count apocrypha, it's because "Part 1" was written first as a one-off joke and this OP came later with more knowledge.)
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Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[x] Plan Practical Combat and Magic
- Location
- USA
I'd actually love to see a CKII quest run this way. The usual formula gets stale after a while. It might also help with the action bloat that plagues longer running ones.
It was mentioned back during the sleeper agent crisis that we discovered how to find the bubble of Dhar as soon as we knew what to look for. But it seemed to require close personal examination. Might be a detection breakthrough would be sensing it at a distance?
Was going to lay out Chamon, Ghyran and Ghur(actually I DID write it in, but it didn't update?)probably could bind their spells indefinitely in their respective mediums. Ulgu probably would last longer in shadow and less in light