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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Hey, do you think that watching an Ice dragon while it slaughter the Skaven would be enough for a paper? I mean it is casting some pretty strong magic! How often does a wizard ever see a Dragon let alone an Emperor one of this specific type in action and how many of those are windsages? Probably get some favor out of it just for the topic and maybe provide something useful for the light college.
 
Ericwinter said:
Eeeeeeeh, first off, let me begin by saying that if it were just money, I wouldn't be nearly as opposed. Money isn't a big deal, it's mostly the services that pissed me off. On the other hand, it's still paying the dragon to not attack us. I don't.... I really shouldn't have to explain why that concept is just stupid. You should never have to pay someone not to kill you, and if you do, than that person is legitimately a danger, and thus should be removed. If two beings can't live peacefully in the same vicinity without some sort of tribute from one side or the other, they shouldn't be living in the same vicinity at all.
In a slightly tangential note, I'm not opposed to paying the dragon for some of the non-monetary treasures in its hoard, which would suit just fine as giving it gold to make things smoother, especially if we buy at a higher price for the courtesy. That, at least, I would agree with, as it's at least an actual transaction instead of enforcing non-action.
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The idea that if you need to pay a person to not attack you they are a danger and that you should remove dangers is indeed valid, when one can remove them for less cost than it takes to make them ignore you.

However, given the power of Emperor Dragons that can use a wind that is very very good at countering their weaknesses and is rather destructive besides, I see paying it money and offering services we'd likely end up doing anyway as an incidental part of living in Karag Yar and holding the West Gate to not be our problem to be of much less cost than fighting it.

See in this quest, the Conspiracy of Silence (If we assume for this discussion it is doing what it is intended to do, which seems so given some of Boney's responses). Or see in cases of ancient IRL history of city states buying off nomadic tribes.
 
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picklepikkl said:
The dragon considers Zilfin its mountain. Possibly not all of Zilfin! It's possible it knew about the skaven below it and was OK with that before they gassed it. But, regardless, Zilfin is de facto the dragon's home. Belegar also considers that place part of his home; the conquest of K8P will not be complete until he is King of Karag Zilfin. There is some conflict here.

Like, ideally it would be nice to exchange gifts and become allies, that would be awesome, but @Redshirt Army's original proposal was "we will pay you X money and provide Y service in exchange for you acknowledging the dwarves as the owners of Zilfin and letting them live in the parts you aren't directly using." For a disputed-ownership real-estate case, this seems pretty legit; two parties have a claim on a piece of property, the one that currently possesses the property in question accepts compensation and a long-term lease to grant title to the other.

The specific of "guarding its hoard" is not a key part of the thing. But people were getting up in arms about how this is a tribute payment or that it's a state of vassalage. It's not; it's an out-of-court settlement, because "court" in this case is "the battlefield."
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Agree..

Lets remember
Belebro is perfectly content to conquer Karak Lhune and then conquer the other Karak every once in a while. Anything else is a bonus.

Just hold of declaring dragon mountain as part of his kingdom for as long as that dragon lives.

A thosand or two thousand years is nothing to a dwarf.

When the alternative is having a dragon vs everyone, if the best deal we can have is to tolerate and even more to a dragon..

By all means, lets negotiate.


Dragons have bad temper, but its always better to talk rather then killing the dragon first.

First theres our image as a good guy.
And second, what if the dragon kills us.
 
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ArvisPresley said:
Live Eshin Friend Live!!
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Think of all the tips we could swap! And then verify before using it against the other party only to run into the traps they prepared for that specific method.

It'll be a grand old time; Mathilde will laugh, Eshin Friend will laugh, then we both keel over from the poisons we secretly exposed each other too.
 
BungieONI said:
However, given the power of Emperor Dragons that can use a wind that is very very good at countering their weaknesses and is rather destructive besides I see paying it money and offering services we'd likely end up doing anyway as an incidental part of living in Karag Yar and holding the West Gate to not be our problem to be of much less cost than fighting it.
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My problem is that there's a cost at all. Yeah, it would totally be worth it to simply make the thing stay away, but the problem isn't just material. Remember when we were all arguing over whether the whole services/tribute thing would make us essentially a vassal? Maybe, and this is a big maybe, if we offered it right from the get-go, it might not be considered that way, but if the dragon started demanding things? Yeah, that's a vassalship, no two ways about it. And not only does Mathilde not have the kind of authority to make a deal like that, but Belegar would never accept it. The whole dwarven nation would never accept it. I'm not saying it would not be worth paying the thing to make it go away, I'm saying it's not an option in the first place, no matter how much people may want it. And even if it was, we would be better off going in with the plan to just get a peace agreement, and if the dragon asked for more, then work it out based on their asking price. It's bad negotiating to start by offering more than the absolute minimum, especially when the thing you're negotiating with would be most likely to give you what you want anyways. I doubt the dragon particularly wants to attack us anyways, so just asking it to nicely go back to bed should be the first order of business. Just like we would probably be defending the Karak--and incidentally its horde--it would probably leave us alone.
 
BungieONI said:
So a point I don't understand is why paying in gold or silver being necessary or unnecessary actually has much bearing on this discussion. Belegar is sitting on an astounding amount of money, natively and has at least three options for more in the We, Silk Road trading and Karagil mining. He has so much of it that its actual value to us is pretty natively low, but as it is still gold and or silver it is valuable to a dragon because of their natures.

If it is natively of lower than normal value to us, why is paying a being that likes it and values it more than we do and will continue to do so, an issue when you can basically frame it as "Being polite only costs you breath and might save you a lot of trouble"? Where in this case "polite" translates to "Do something that is very likely to make it more pleasant to deal with" if we can even deal with it at all on the diplomatic level.

If, in a negotiation where both beings can cause problems for each other, you have a thing you both value but one of the parties values far more than you do giving that party that thing is a simple move to buy goodwill.
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Belegar may have a problem with paying someone his recaptured dwarf gold, personally wrested from the hands of a vast tide of greenskins at the cost of many dwarvish lives, for the privilege of them continuing to sit on their pile of (more) stolen dwarf gold in his ancestral home. That's not really that unreasonable.

It's kind of like, hm... okay. So you have to abandon your home because of a potential tropical storm. Weeks later, you return to find someone with a machine gun has been squatting in your guest bedroom. He's moved your TV and microwave into his room. You then have to pay that person rent to use your own house, because if you don't he'll probably shoot you.

You can see where, if all your friends were like, 'Look man, you just have to accept that squatter is a human being too, and you should just cut a deal with him, maybe he'll let you use your microwave if you ask nicely', it might stick in your craw, yes?
 
Guile said:
Belegar may have a problem with paying someone his recaptured dwarf gold, personally wrested from the hands of a vast tide of greenskins at the cost of many dwarvish lives, for the privilege of them continuing to sit on their pile of (more) stolen dwarf gold in his ancestral home. That's not really that unreasonable.

It's kind of like, hm... okay. So you have to abandon your home because of a potential tropical storm. Weeks later, you return to find someone with a machine gun has been squatting in your guest bedroom. He's moved your TV and microwave into his room. You then have to pay that person rent to use your own house, because if you don't he'll probably shoot you.

You can see where, if all your friends were like, 'Look man, you just have to accept that squatter is a human being too, and you should just cut a deal with him, maybe he'll let you use your microwave if you ask nicely', it might stick in your craw, yes?
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On the one hand yes.
On the other, Mr. Machinegun killed a few thousand other squatters who would have turned your microwave into explosives and shanked you without negotiations.
 
So another point on the whole paying off the dragon issue. Now, I do think that we probably have decent odds of assassinating it and would be able to beat it with the full weight of the dwarves behind us. And I understand the sentiment that we shouldn't offer pay tribute when we have better odds in a battle (probably).

But consider the casualties that the dragon could cause in an actual battle. We've seen the damage it's done to the Skaven and even if I think we'd win a battle of attrition it'll cause significant casualties. The most important problem for K8P is the lack of population, hell we barely have enough forces to hold our recent gains, much less actually populate them.

On the other hand we're probably gonna be swimming in money soon from trade, mines and silks. Gold is replaceable, dwarves less so.

So for me, the question is this: are you willing to spend some gold to save dwarven lives? I'm personally willing to pay a good amount and I think Belegar would agree considering his recent sentiments regarding the reclamation effort.
 
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Luminous said:
Yes it is. Remember that most Dwarves live for around two centuries. Two thousand years is still a lot of time to them.
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What i mean is.. culturally.

There are dwarven clans that still calls themselves k8-ters instead of their new karak.

Belegar himselves is a living proof that, no, it might take 2.5 millenia, but we'll be back, we'll retake OUR home, and no force on this earth can stop me.

On that note, either they will put their foot down and klaim it, by blood, or do the smart thing, and propose a non agression with the dragon.


Edit and i just want to remind that we also supposed to have one of the lowest diplo points in the council.

Who's available that can sweet talk a dragon?
 
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Alliterate said:
It's a high level battle magic wielder. I believe chances are reasonable the Dragon could counterspell the Burning Shadows delivery mechanism at least as easily as Mathilde could.
Or do Hysh stuff like "emit shining brightness akin to the sun" and essentially render Shadows=No.

I don't think we can rely on the tower as anti-dragon superweapon, let alone compensate for the problems in hitting it if it's flying.
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Solid points.
 
Of course, this is all pretty premature when the dragon could well get killed by an Eshin sorcerer-assassin or the incoming million-orc army in the next 24 hours.

I suppose that's never stopped us from speculating before...
 
Artemis1992 said:
On the one hand yes.
On the other, Mr. Machinegun killed a few thousand other squatters who would have turned your microwave into explosives and shanked you without negotiations.
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But we didn't ask him to do it. Yeah, if he agrees to continue killing any other squatters that show up, it'd be cool, but just paying him so that he lets you live in your own house? that's fucked up, in a lot of ways.
Trickster314 said:
So another point on the whole paying off the dragon issue. Now, I do think that we probably have decent odds of assassinating it and would be able to beat it with the full weight of the dwarves behind us. And I understand the sentiment that we shouldn't offer pay tribute when we have better odds in a battle (probably).

But consider the casualties that the dragon could cause in an actual battle. We've seen the damage it's done to the Skaven and even if I think we'd win a battle of attrition it'll cause significant casualties. The most important problem for K8P is the lack of population, hell we barely have enough forces to hold our recent gains, much less actually populate them.

So for me, the question is this: are you willing to spend some gold to save dwarven lives? I'm personally willing to pay a pretty good amount, considering how valuable dwarven lives are due to their scarcity and I think Belegar would agree considering his recent sentiments regarding the reclamation effort.
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It's not what we're willing to pay, it's what Belegar is willing to pay, and just how much we, as Mathilde, are really allowed to give in his name. This isn't just gold, it's a lot of Dwarven pride and self-worth too.
On a mostly unrelated note, however, if say, the dragon dies in battle and all of this is made moot anyways, what sort of thngs could we actually make from its body? There's the dragon bone staff for one, but anything else? Dragon-leather robes, perhaps? dragon claw knife? Scales for something or other? I don't really know.
 
Alliterate said:
It's a high level battle magic wielder. I believe chances are reasonable the Dragon could counterspell the Burning Shadows delivery mechanism at least as easily as Mathilde could.
Or do Hysh stuff like "emit shining brightness akin to the sun" and essentially render Shadows=No.

I don't think we can rely on the tower as anti-dragon superweapon, let alone compensate for the problems in hitting it if it's flying.
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I think there is a chance we could get a surprise attack or overwhelm them if they're busy wrangling, let's say, Kragg at the moment, but otherwise, you're right.
 
Ericwinter said:
My problem is that there's a cost at all. Yeah, it would totally be worth it to simply make the thing stay away, but the problem isn't just material. Remember when we were all arguing over whether the whole services/tribute thing would make us essentially a vassal? Maybe, and this is a big maybe, if we offered it right from the get-go, it might not be considered that way, but if the dragon started demanding things? Yeah, that's a vassalship, no two ways about it. And not only does Mathilde not have the kind of authority to make a deal like that, but Belegar would never accept it. The whole dwarven nation would never accept it. I'm not saying it would not be worth paying the thing to make it go away, I'm saying it's not an option in the first place, no matter how much people may want it. And even if it was, we would be better off going in with the plan to just get a peace agreement, and if the dragon asked for more, then work it out based on their asking price. It's bad negotiating to start by offering more than the absolute minimum, especially when the thing you're negotiating with would be most likely to give you what you want anyways. I doubt the dragon particularly wants to attack us anyways, so just asking it to nicely go back to bed should be the first order of business. Just like we would probably be defending the Karak--and incidentally its horde--it would probably leave us alone.
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So the thing that I'm trying to explain is that this is basically a diplomatic scenario that is well trod in Warhammer, of a stronger power being given a payment to not bother a lesser one. Same IRL too. And it works, and it works really well.

But that aside since I've already covered it. I don't think Mathilde should be the one at the negotiation table. And as you frame it yourself if it starts making demands that are not counter offers to our own and part of the negotiation process, then that is breaking the deal we've set with it. And yeah, that's a problem. But if we cut out the possibility of it making counter demands or counter offers at all, we're back at "And so we won't negotiate".

Which is really bad, because then Belebro has to spend the lives of most of his kingdom. For a mountain that he can't fully populate or use already.

Guile said:
Belegar may have a problem with paying someone his recaptured dwarf gold, personally wrested from the hands of a vast tide of greenskins at the cost of many dwarvish lives, for the privilege of them continuing to sit on their pile of (more) stolen dwarf gold in his ancestral home. That's not really that unreasonable.

It's kind of like, hm... okay. So you have to abandon your home because of a potential tropical storm. Weeks later, you return to find someone with a machine gun has been squatting in your guest bedroom. He's moved your TV and microwave into his room. You then have to pay that person rent to use your own house, because if you don't he'll probably shoot you.

You can see where, if all your friends were like, 'Look man, you just have to accept that squatter is a human being too, and you should just cut a deal with him, maybe he'll let you use your microwave if you ask nicely', it might stick in your craw, yes?
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He may, he may not. Basically this entire point I'm pushing is Realpolitik, and he has a trait that's right there for that.

Now as for the analogy, I can understand some people being pissed about the offer. I also think its a bad one because we're not at the situation where in order to use our house we need to pay rent. For one, the suggestion was a one time payment of "Hey we're buying the title now" and for two its just the guest bedroom and the microwave and TV and the suggestion was negotiating a deal to get them back from the dude who can kill you far easier than you can kill him.

If the two terms of: One time payment and protection are dropped. What's actually the problem? As far as I can tell there isn't one from most people objecting to what Redshirt suggested. Also as I've said before, one of these is something I consider politeness, and one is something that will already happen as a matter of incidentally living in Karag Yar and the rest of Eight Peaks. The agreement to protect it just makes us responsible for getting stolen stuff back.

Because its hoard is in Zilfin in order for thieves to take it or assassins to infiltrate it they have to actually get in there. To get in there they have to get through the West Gate or the Underways from Karagril or Yar. We will be living and garrisoning both Yar and the West Gate if we have our druthers and the dwarves won't skimp on defensive structures there. They certainly won't skimp in Under Karagril because of Karak Drazh. Obviously they would fortify the Underway between Under Zilfin and Under Yar and Under Zilfin and Under Karagril.

So the thieves and assassins have to get past all of our normal living structures to do the deed. If we're already doing this, there isn't anything that really needs to be done for protecting it than formalizing the arrangement and agreeing to get it back. Which we might end up helping with anyway if they cause any other trouble on the way in or out, or if we want to hurry it up to keep the Dragon's rampage through the countryside to a minimum.
 
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vsh said:
I think there is a chance we could get a surprise attack or overwhelm them if they're busy wrangling, let's say, Kragg at the moment, but otherwise, you're right.
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Honestly... I am pretty sure that killing the Emperor Dragon is a longshot.

Like, "If we toss everything at it, we might slow it down as it slaughters all of us enough for both of our Runelords to work together and use a dozen Ancestor Runes in conjunction to probably, maybe, kill it or for ranald to take pity on us and use Divine Intervention."

I am not even joking, I am completely serious and while I might be wrong, I don't think I am that far off.
 
Honestly, I just want to kill the dragon so that we can get access to dat sweet, sweet Dragon Bone. Last time we had access to dragon bone, we ended up having to give up most of it (which I can understand given the circumstances, but still...).

But now?

Listen, I like our chair, but if you think I'm going to give up the chance to get us a shiny dragon bone staff, you're dead wrong.
 
dunk1010 said:
Honestly... I am pretty sure that killing the Emperor Dragon is a longshot.

Like, "If we toss everything at it, we might slow it down as it slaughters all of us enough for both of our Runelords to work together and use a dozen Ancestor Runes in conjunction to probably, maybe, kill it or for ranald to take pity on us and use Divine Intervention."

I am not even joking, I am completely serious and while I might be wrong, I don't think I am that far off.
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Well yeah. Honestly, killing Malekith would be easier in many ways than an Emperor Dragon.
 
zamin said:
Honestly, I just want to kill the dragon so that we can get access to dat sweet, sweet Dragon Bone. Last time we had access to dragon bone, we ended up having to give up most of it (which I can understand given the circumstances, but still...).

But now?

Listen, I like our chair, but if you think I'm going to give up the chance to get us a shiny dragon bone staff, you're dead wrong.
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I find the taste of sweet Dragon Bone pretty worthless when we'd end up having to pay for it in the lives of most of Clan Angrund, the Clans of Izor and Azul, the Undumgi(who are currently completely unique, more so than Dragon Bone), the halflings, and risk the lives of the two currently greatest living Runelords and more than likely our own life.

There are easier ways to get dragon bone. Like putting up a bounty in Barak Varr.
 
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