Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Previous reports: Vampires were probably involved.
My write in: And one of the few people who could have done what was done is this guy.

Not hard.
1. I disagree that he was one of the few people who could have done it. please recall that the castle was half abandoned for a time, with no lord and no council members remaining. So without any masters anyone could have done it really.

2. Your phrasing is bad and doesn't properly communicate what you want it to. Which is not good when making a report to our boss

That actually wouldn't be a bad idea. It'd also help us deflect from the fact that we didn't get a whole lot done on our assigned task this turn.
We actually did get a decent amount done. Just, there is much more to do.
"I built a small network. I have several expansion points in mind though"
I'm disappointed we went with the criminals and peasants, really. I expect we'll get some blowback from not going in the direction he told us to, ie securing Wurtbad. Yes, yes, the criminals will give us information, but this guy's an Elector-Count and a Witch Hunter, so he's not going to be wanting the security of his city in the hands of thieves.
I am hoping this turn we spend an action or two on that.
 
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It's probably a good idea to start seizing the monopoly league, since it is possible that we aren't able to grab the merchant for reasons. Having a part of that network would help fund the Count's army, as his treasury is rather empty.
 
I was reading bits of Realms of Sorcery, and, quote from the life of a Journeyman section:

"...to travel the world for a period of several years, during which time they are forbidden to return to within fifty leagues of their master or their College building. This period of wandering is known as "journeying," and a Magister's apprentice in this period is known as a Journeyman Wizard."

So, if I read it right, we don't go back until we're ready for the test of Magisterhood. Can't go within 50 leagues of Altdorf.

So, bad. But, gives us a reason to tell van Hal we need to focus on Magisterhood, so we can move freely.

Incidentally, if we do go with this text, we appear to some sort of super-prodigy, (which I think might have been alluded to in the jealously of fellow apprentices?), as:

"No apprentice younger than late-twenties early-thirties has ever been released to become a Journeyman in the recorded history of the Colleges."

Or we were deliberately sent out unprepared and early by those Mysterious Parties Unknown. Either-or.
Huh. I'd like @BoneyM to confirm that we're actually forbidden from getting within 50 leagues of Altdorf here, because I would have expected us to immediately reply to the Count's request that we go to Altdorf-or-wherever with "I'm forbidden by the Colleges" if that was the case instead of going "if I find the time".

We are bizarrely young considering that last bit, though. Or maybe we'll be scrubbed from recorded history and they'll keep saying the same line, making the next patsy who comes along to get shoved into a job over their head also think they're the first.
 
I was reading bits of Realms of Sorcery, and, quote from the life of a Journeyman section:

"...to travel the world for a period of several years, during which time they are forbidden to return to within fifty leagues of their master or their College building. This period of wandering is known as "journeying," and a Magister's apprentice in this period is known as a Journeyman Wizard."

So, if I read it right, we don't go back until we're ready for the test of Magisterhood. Can't go within 50 leagues of Altdorf.

So, bad. But, gives us a reason to tell van Hal we need to focus on Magisterhood, so we can move freely.

Damn, that scuppers that idea. If we pray to Ranald, maybe @BoneyM would retcon that, because I was kind of excited to go to Altdorf.

We actually did get a decent amount done. Just, there is much more to do.
"I built a small network. I have several expansion points in mind though"

I realise I'm being more than a bit pessimistic (probably because my plan didn't win), but we took two actions towards it, one of which we probably don't want to tell him about (the Thieve's Guild) and the other isn't really the best for what he wanted us to focus on (the surrounding villages). So we're left, in my eyes at least, with a single action's worth of not-hugely-applicable security apparatus.
 
It's probably a good idea to start seizing the monopoly league, since it is possible that we aren't able to grab the merchant for reasons. Having a part of that network would help fund the Count's army, as his treasury is rather empty.
The treasury is recovering now that we got the books.
And seizing the network for money would be the dismantle option. Which will also improve the economic state of the fief as well.

As per QM we will need VERY convincing arguments to convince him to let us take it over as it is. which yes, will give us some intel... but continue seriously harming the fief. I am personally all for dismantling it. we cannot trust intel from it anyways, it would take more time to make it inform us than we have.

And at the end of the day the damage it causes the economy is simply too great, we can do our job without it so let him dismantle it so the economy can recover
I realise I'm being more than a bit pessimistic (probably because my plan didn't win), but we took two actions towards it, one of which we probably don't want to tell him about (the Thieve's Guild) and the other isn't really the best for what he wanted us to focus on (the surrounding villages). So we're left, in my eyes at least, with a single action's worth of not-hugely-applicable security apparatus.
I agree, and voted for your plan too... but I think it's recoverable and not too big a blunder.

... actually one thing we could do is say, we have made solid progress, but need another "turn" on it.
 
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Before we expand our network further we need to actually setup some kind of headquarters staff to actually analyze the info for us.
 
[] The Wurtbad Thieves Guild is basically a church group right now, instead of an actual organization. If you started throwing your weight around, that could change. Imagine the power you would wield if the criminal underworld reported to you. However, imagine how much more damage they'd do to Stirland if they were united... and you're not sure that Van Hal would be easy to convince.
I'm opposed to doing this. Hevily opposed. We don't really need power, they're informing us which is what we want. Getting them organized into a more effective economy-ruining force will quickly make them an effective career-ruining force

Also im way late but i found this in my quotes and
He shuffles the papers, then looks over to Anton. "How did you find the Knights of Morr?"

"I went to Siegfriedhof and they were right there," he replies, then smiles at the look Van Hal gave him.
I fucking love Anton
 
Before we expand our network further we need to actually setup some kind of headquarters staff to actually analyze the info for us.
We kinda have that already. each village has only 1 villager reporting to us, the village head. And the thief guild has only the 2 heads of the guild reporting to us directly. each with a bunch of people reporting to them
I'm opposed to doing this. Hevily opposed. We don't really need power, they're informing us which is what we want. Getting them organized into a more effective economy-ruining force will quickly make them an effective career-ruining force
I agree.
 
The treasury is recovering now that we got the books.
And seizing the network for money would be the dismantle option. Which will also improve the economic state of the fief as well.

As per QM we will need VERY convincing arguments to convince him to let us take it over as it is. which yes, will give us some intel... but continue seriously harming the fief. I am personally all for dismantling it. we cannot trust intel from it anyways, it would take more time to make it inform us than we have.

And at the end of the day the damage it causes the economy is simply too great, we can do our job without it so let him dismantle it so the economy can recover

The "sieze" i meant was more fold the parts we took over into the Count's stewardship Department. Gets brownie point with payroll and legitimate reason to insert people into merchant and guilds.
 
The "sieze" i meant was more fold the parts we took over into the Count's stewardship Department. Gets brownie point with payroll and legitimate reason to insert people into merchant and guilds.
Yes, which is exactly what
[] The Stirlandian League is a cancer eating at Stirland's economy, and it must be destroyed.
does

Here is how it plays out (based on what we have setup so far)
1. We use the retrieved law books and the fact they were operating illegally before to find out all the ways they evaded taxes.
2. We arrest their leaders, openly try them for tax evasion, and the baron confiscates the entire league. Instead of a small % of their income as taxes, they are now paying all their profit to him.
3. The monopoly laws granting laws are canceled and the league is broken up into individual components. who continue to operate under the baron's ownership. unless they are sold. The profits they give decrease, but still more than the taxes
4. We insert spies into the remaining operations. With their monopoly broken, several alternative trade routes are opened, greatly benefiting the economy of stirland in its entirety. But requiring us to insert spies into those routes as well.

On the other hand this option
[] The Stirlandian League is a gold mine of information, and it must be yours.
would work like
A. We capture the former spymaster. And interrogate him on who answers to him there now
B. We vet them, deciding who to keep and who is too loyal to him and has to go. And then make contact with them
C. We use underhanded tricks to become the new owner and CEO of it (old spymaster had accident, willed it to us)
D. We continue to strangle stirland's economy. But hey, at least it is a little easier to get intel.
E. We make a lot of money from it personally. Our boss doesn't, and neither do the common people of stirland who continue to suffer this corruption. We probably violate our oath of poverty. Taxes don't really go up. Even if we give boss a lion share of the profit, its still noticeably less than having proper trade

oh yea, almost forgot a step
We roll a hard DC to convince the boss to let us do it. On failure he likes us less and refuses. Because he actually wants it shut down
 
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I still think plan Spymaster is good because it really fleshes out the entirety of the spy network we need to become the all seeing eye within Stirland. The Thieves Guild is a bit of a risk, but take no chances and get no rewards.
 
I still think plan Spymaster is good because it really fleshes out the entirety of the spy network we need to become the all seeing eye within Stirland. The Thieves Guild is a bit of a risk, but take no chances and get no rewards.
It explicitly avoids giving our boss the choice of what to do with the league. While only offering the one option we said we cannot do until we capture our predecessor.

So, it is double-bad, in that it is both harmfully presumptuous, and contradicts our explicit excuses from 2 turns ago
 
It explicitly avoids giving our boss the choice of what to do with the league. While only offering the one option we said we cannot do until we capture our predecessor.

So, it is double-bad, in that it is both harmfully presumptuous, and contradicts our explicit excuses from 2 turns ago

True, but have you thought about just ignoring that?
 
Can we spend an action to study the asp it would be helpful knowledge in the future

It also will be very helpful in making it a familiar in particular
 
[X] Plan Stirland league or Castle Servants
we need to get problems off our ass, we can get rich later. Hell, our salary will pay off our student loans in 8 years- we can get legitimaterich off that, we just need to make it through.
 
[X] Plan Stirland league or Castle Servants

I am too diseased (damn nurgle!) and too tired to make a plan right now so for now voting for this one, not ideal but I prefer it over the others
I'll see how I feel tomorrow. or if 17 has made a plan by then

I dunno, because we can?
While we are physically capable of doing it, there will be negative consequences for choosing to do so. Just like how we are physically capable of intentionally swallowing poison. I need a better reason than "because we can" to consider such a self harming act.

we need to get problems off our ass, we can get rich later. Hell, our salary will pay off our student loans in 8 years- we can get legitimaterich off that, we just need to make it through.
I am almost tempted to just ask our boss to pay off our tuition and garnish our wages until we can pay him back... or I would if he had any money. Maybe once we repossess the league?

Actually, this is basically the perfect reason to repossess the league! so we can pay off our student loans! priorities!
 
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While we are physically capable of doing it, there will be negative consequences for choosing to do so. Just like how we are physically capable of intentionally swallowing poison. I need a better reason than "because we can" to consider such a self harming act.

I'm not being all too serious, I'm just half-heartedly defending a plan that was done off the top of my head. I really appreciate what @BoneyM is doing (all the lore is fantastic) too, it's amazing.

That being said, this seems like a good plan too.

New

[X] Plan Stirland League or Castle Servants
 
I'm not being all too serious, I'm just half-heartedly defending a plan that was done off the top of my head. I really appreciate what @BoneyM is doing (all the lore is fantastic) too, it's amazing.
Ok, fine. that was actually amusing if you were just joking around. Yea, your plan overall was fine, just had a few spots that could use refinement
Rennald knows I tend to fix a bunch of mistakes in my plans thanks to feedback people give me.
 
Ok, fine. that was actually amusing if you were just joking around. Yea, your plan overall was fine, just had a few spots that could use refinement
Rennald knows I tend to fix a bunch of mistakes in my plans thanks to feedback people give me.

I do think that utilising the Thieves Guild is a good idea into the future (Praise Renald) but the arguments over solidifying our position carry too much weight to pass up to be honest.
 
Ranald is simply having SO MUCH FUN with us isn't he?
And the funny part is we're learning intrigue from our boss rather than the reverse.

[] I've got a whole bunch of friends now, but I could always use more!

Reasonable.

[] You've got the town of Biderhof eating out of your hand. If you could think of a reason to justify it, maybe all the taxes from it's lumber sales could flow into your pocket instead.

Haha nope!

[] The Wurtbad Thieves Guild is basically a church group right now, instead of an actual organization. If you started throwing your weight around, that could change. Imagine the power you would wield if the criminal underworld reported to you. However, imagine how much more damage they'd do to Stirland if they were united... and you're not sure that Van Hal would be easy to convince.

Doubly nope.
We might do this but we aren't offering it at council anytime soon.

[] Drakenhof. You almost hesitate to suggest it, but... surely this must be investigated.

Boss already noted we aren't ready last turn.

[] The disappearance of your predecessor is very concerning, especially since he's actively trying to sabotage the hunt for him. He must be found, and I've got a lead: Julbach.

We got leads, we can pursue them

[] The Stirlandian League is a cancer eating at Stirland's economy, and it must be destroyed.
[] The Stirlandian League is a gold mine of information, and it must be yours.

I think we could just blow this thing anytime now.
Not a high priority personally though. Got great synergy with a thieves guild expansion incidentally to take advantage of the vacuum

[] There is a risk of enemy agents infiltrating the castle staff - they must be watched.
[] The castle staff can be a great source of information and first line of defence - they should report to you.

Including the staff into the network is probably one of the things that should be done soon

[] Seriously what is up with the East Wing.
[] If I had proper facilities, I could do better work. Please fund me renovating my secret underground palace.

Low priority.

So that'd be:
[X] [Options] Plan Stirland league or Castle Servants
[X] [Report] Your informants now span Wurtbad, Biderhof, Tarshof and Julbach. Its been quiet so far on that end, but should anything happen out there you'd hear of it before things catch fire.
[X] [One-on-One] In addition to the more public network, you have some of the criminal underground of Wurtbad as your informants. They're criminals, but they love coin and hate vampires as much as anyone else.

Next turn action allocation I think:
-2 actions on the job. Probably spymaster hunting. We can throw
-1 action expanding our network, currently thinking it'd be over Western Stirland. We may have an option that leverages the thieves guild to contact the thieves guild of other towns as well, depending on the costs.
-1 action continuing the sword training. We're close to becoming an actually passable fighter, and would prefer to be able to at least not be a liability when someone tries to murder us.
-1 action improving our Enchanter skill in preparation for checking out the magic weapons the next turn
-1 action researching the snake. It hadn't bitten us in the ass yet, but I'm sure Ranald would find it hilarious to.

Bonus: Ranald's creed disfavors murder, rape and other such crimes IIRC, so by expanding his influence over the criminal underground, we'd see a lot more thefts, fraud and general economic damage, but a drop in violent crime over time. We probably should do that on our own time. Not in a big rush.
 
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[X] [Options] Plan Stirland league or Castle Servants
[X] [Report] Your informants now span Wurtbad, Biderhof, Tarshof and Julbach. Its been quiet so far on that end, but should anything happen out there you'd hear of it before things catch fire.
[X] [One-on-One] In addition to the more public network, you have some of the criminal underground of Wurtbad as your informants. They're criminals, but they love coin and hate vampires as much as anyone else.
 
Okay, report we can put together that's fairly simple and direct about what we've accomplished and its limitations. With only two actions actually devoted to our job last turn that's limited but fairly good within its scope. Note that the Solo report basically assigns two of our action for the coming turn by telling the Count that we will do things, but those are things that we should be doing anyway in my opinion so I don't have an issue with that.

[x] [Report] We've established a network of informants reporting to us from Wurtbad itself and in the surrounding villages. We should pick up on anyone setting up operations outside of town, unusual travelers, and people hiring on local help for illicit activities. That's not going to catch every vampire or spy coming into town but it should catch the overconfident, careless, or unlucky.

[x] [Solo] We can write to the Grey College requesting intelligence on his new prospects, though actually traveling to Altdorf to investigate them would leave Stirland without a spymaster for quite a while. There's no guarantee they'll give us anything useful, but we'll be writing them anyway because there's a killer illusion-snake trying to murder us. He shouldn't need to worry about that, but if we're found dead with two suspicious puncture holes in the corpse, he should probably check whether it's vampire fangs or giant snake fangs before making assumptions.


As for our proposed actions... for reference, last report's vote for action proposals:
-[*] Possible orders:
--[*] The disappearance of yourpredecessor is very concerning, especially since he's actively trying to sabotage the hunt for him. He must be found, and I've got a lead: Julbach.
---[*] Capture of predecessor can lead to taking over the Stirlandian league for purpose of spying
---[*] Could he be related to the vampire plots? if so then finding him is a priority.
--[*] The Stirlandian League is a cancer eating at Stirland's economy, and it can be destroyed now that we have the ledgers.
---[*] The former spymaster has been acting against us. He probably still controls his spies in the league. Destroying it now would deprive of him of valuable resources, but may also destroy possible leads on his location
--[*] I've got the budget for a proper network of informants, now it just needs building.
--[*] Variant Writein: Drakenhof. This vampire plot to subtly take over stirland is concerning. We know there are vampires in sylvania, but who and where? And what exactly have they done in stirland so far? I could try to examine other stirland nobles for possible vampire connections, although this seems a bit of a shot in the dark. Alternatively, follow up any leads acquired from the interrogation of Stolpe.
This can be pretty easily adapted by our accomplishments and new information to the new proposals:

[x] [Options] Plan League or Network
-[x] The disappearance of your predecessor is very concerning, especially since he's actively trying to sabotage the hunt for him. He must be found, and I've got a lead: Julbach.
--[x] Capture of our predecessor could lead to taking over the Stirlandian League for purposes of spying, and give us knowledge of his past actions and whether he's involved with any other threats.
-[x] The Stirlandian League is a cancer eating at Stirland's economy, and it can be destroyed now that we have the ledgers.
--[x] The former spymaster has been acting against us. He probably still controls his spies in the league. Destroying it now would deprive of him of valuable resources, but may also destroy possible leads on his location
-[x] I've got a whole bunch of friends now, but I could always use more!
--[x] If the Count wants Wurtbad truly locked down, we can focus on expanding and deepening our local network.
--[x] Our current network is focused around the Wurtbad area. If suspicious activity happens farther afield we don't have any sources in place to let us know.
--[x] We know that at least one Von Carstein is active. If they focus on the nobility we'll want eyes on Stirland's prominent families.
 
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