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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Reynal said:
Better safe than sorry is the name of the game when you're dealing with a company that's on track to become one of the most powerful in the Empire. Especially when it has a focus on dominating local markets and exploiting information advantages, as both approaches are eminently abusable.

I don't have anything against a rumor mill in the near future, but we don't exactly need one now. A spymaster or someone whose job it actually is to worry about/account for the ripples from events in other places needs a rumor mill, but neither our current job nor the responsibilities we have taken for ourself would really benefit from it.

Meanwhile, corruption is way easier to nip if you start early, and the general merchant culture of the Empire is really fairly corrupt. Discouraging people from taking up riverine piracy by putting together patrol boats prior to it spiking means that fewer people are going to get into the piracy business and fewer boats are lost playing catch-up in patrol boat numbers and training. Yeah, I get that you want the rumor mill sooner rather than later, but I'd rather we ensured that the foundation is well built and obvious major risks are protected against before going for a stretch goal/vanity piece.
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Do I have to go back and count how many "better safe than sorry" actions the EIC has consumed like some kind of ravenous action-eating beast? Listen, BoneyM will always be happy to feed us another "safety" action. There will never not be a "better safe than sorry" action. So it's just a question of when we stop being afraid.

It's not the rumor mill exactly... it's pretty much anything else other than the least useful possible choice.
 
I still want to Social Vote Edda. We never really got into the whys and wherefores of her deciding to personally lead Clan Izor into the trenches Trench and against the trolls.

Oh, and maybe we can Social Vote Wilhelmina. You know, mention all this stuff we've been doing like building an internal policing branch.
 
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DragonParadox said:
Would utility in Mathilde's future research (book sources for their respective realms and correspondence on magic) count?
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Good reason to seek a suitable research correspondents among the Damsels of Bretonnia or the Magicians of Araby, but not for befriending the first of each she ever encountered on the off-chance they might turn out to be that suitable correspondent. It would mean I'll never add background characters for fear of the thread wanting to hoard them because they're 'free' from only costing a social action. It would represent a huge amount of research and world building and character creation on my part, so if the thread wants to go there it has to pony up the AP.
 
Guile said:
I still want to Social Vote Edda. We never really got into the whys and wherefores of her deciding to personally lead Clan Izor into the trenches Trench and against the trolls.

Oh, and maybe we can Social Vote Wilhelmina. You know, mention all this stuff we've been doing like building an internal policing branch.
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Not quite didn't know, we know the broad thrust, every dwarf must be a skilled warrior by cultural expectation and most of the Council are experienced, great warriors besides(see the scene where we tested the silk, the whole council is extremely heavily armed). By contrast, we've seen from the expedition turns that she's carefully isolated from danger by her clan.

Between that and her self perceived failure in managing the Undumgi, she has a sore need for validation. And she found it in battle.
E: Woo, Boney Insightful!
 
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BoneyM said:
Good reason to seek a suitable research correspondents among the Damsels of Bretonnia or the Magicians of Araby, but not for befriending the first of each she ever encountered on the off-chance they might turn out to be that suitable correspondent. It would mean I'll never add background characters for fear of the thread wanting to hoard them because they're 'free' from only costing a social action. It would represent a huge amount of research and world building and character creation on my part, so if the thread wants to go there it has to pony up the AP.
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Fair enough, though if we ever do pay the AP for a magician or a damsel it would make sense to start with those on the reasoning that we known them IC wouldn't it?
 
Briefvoice said:
It's not the rumor mill exactly... it's pretty much anything else other than the least useful possible choice.
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I think the check against hostile actors infiltrating the company pick being taken is quite justifiable given the leverage the company has and will have in the future. If we go even further and pick something like the financial auditors (Yes there's an argument that the ones cooking the books are great targets for hostile powers to flip, but it's getting far afield.) then I think we're going down the path of not properly using the half action to actually advance our goals but I definitely don't see that it's gotten to that point yet.

Since turn 21 when we voted to change it into an ordinary organization we've done
22: Stirland campaign updates
23: Weaver search
24: Undumgi info
25: Internal investigation division

So three of the four actions since turning it to an information gathering apparatus have been about just that.
 
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Reynal said:
A spymaster or someone whose job it actually is to worry about/account for the ripples from events in other places needs a rumor mill, but neither our current job nor the responsibilities we have taken for ourself would really benefit from it.
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You have to remember that Mathilde is more than the Loremaster, she is also a rapidly rising Grey Magister who is starting to reach the radar of imperial politicians.

A knowledge of current affairs is very necessary for Mathilde, and she can't exactly open up the Barak Vaar Merchant Gazette or Altdorf Daily Herald or the Marienburg Times every day to keep up on current affairs. Without a rumor mill, her ability and the threads grasp of current affairs within the Empire and Karaz Ankor is limited, and that has potential ramifications for things like the Al Ulric himself wanting a meeting with Mathilde, or any future assignments the Grey College might request or suggest of Mathilde.

An argument against the rumor mill on Mathilde's job in the Eight Peaks ignores the actual point that the rumor mill is for Mathilde the Grey Magister and the EIC shareholder.
 
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Exmorri said:
I'm really looking forwards to hearing about (maybe attending) Belegar's upcoming full announcement to Karaz-A-Karak. No doubt there will be some harsh words with Thorgrim - but for everyone else, and partly even for Thorgrim, I think the attention is going to be on the fact that the dwarfs have Vala-Azril-Ungol (K8P) back, and with relatively light casualties. Break out the Bugman's, this is a day for rejoicing!
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I think the best move Belegar could make is to simply make the report without judgement or condemnation (even privately). Because Thorgrim will always know what he said/did, even if no one else will. Let Thorgrim have his own "maybe I really was wrong about this whole thing after all" moment privately. Let him not feel shame for being wrong, but hopeful that the outcome his cynicism predicted was utterly shattered.
 
picklepikkl said:
Six social actions.

1 Duckling Club.
2 Someone Reaches Out
3 Belegar T Posing On Thorgrim
4 Beleger Private Talk

I think those we can rely on.

I'd like the last two to include at least one K8P person we haven't interacted with much; Soizic, Oswald, or possibly Ruprecht Wulfhart are all good options. Indifferent on sixth slot.
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Considering Mathilde's response to killing the Skraven looking after the breeders, and that she does not like thinking about that hours long moment where she killed the orcs, I think her teacher might be a good bet.

Regarding EIC, I wonder if after our debt is payed off, if we could redirect our income from it to help support various shyllan temples, not on gifts they can't use or sell, but in hard cash they can spend.

It might also be something we can tie into our spying operations a little bit?

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Edit: I also think that the audit group was a good idea before we went hard on the spying thing because I was worried about Lhamine infiltration, and I didn't want us to start making direct "wave making" actions in the whole espionage field.

Now we have that, I am hopeful we can get a good start on espionage stuff. Provide we don't have anything like the "looking for weavers" action pop up.



I also don't want to give the company a millitary navy - I think K8P should handle river patrols in the area.
 
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Previously, when Mathilde has needed to know something about matters in the Empire, the Grey College has sent us the information. I don't see why that won't continue to apply. Her building an information network in the Empire is her deciding that she needs to know things that the Grey College doesn't.

In this, I trust their judgement. James Bond doesn't need to establish his own network of sources. He relies on M to tell him what he needs to know. I would assume that in this situation, if we tell Algard Mathilde will speak to the Ar-Ulric, she will then need to know, and will be briefed. That briefing will probably be far more comprehensive than a company that doesn't really operate in the North of the Empire could produce.
 
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Alratan said:
Previously, when Mathilde has needed to know something about matters in the Empire, the Grey College has sent us the information. I don't see why that won't continue to apply. Her building an information network in the Empire is her deciding that she needs to know things that the Grey College doesn't.

In this, I trust their judgement. James Bond doesn't need to establish his own network of sources. He relies on M to tell him what he needs to know. I would assume that in this situation, if we tell Algard Mathilde will speak to the Ar-Ulric, she will then need to know, and will be briefed. That briefing will probably be far more comprehensive than a company that doesn't really operate in the North of the Empire could produce.
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I see it the other way - this information network via the EIC will have a lot of redundancy with college networks, but information we collect and collate (or have a perpetual collate for us) will occasionally be useful to send on, possibly vital.

It's supporting the college, not competing.

And that was also Mathilde's reasoning when she opened the EIC branch in K8P at the time. Your one example about the Al-Uric does not diminish the overall benefit that the EIC information network can provide to the college.

Mathilde does not operate in a weird parinoia-(game)-esque where the college wants her to not know things to control her - with so many plots, problems and the fact they want more useful information all the time, Mathilde having better info is something they want, espically if it something the college did not know about and can be passed on.
 
Alratan said:
Previously, when Mathilde has needed to know something about matters in the Empire, the Grey College has sent us the information. I don't see why that won't continue to apply. Her building an information network in the Empire is her deciding that she needs to know things that the Grey College doesn't.

In this, I trust their judgement. James Bond doesn't need to establish his own network of sources. He relies on M to tell him what he needs to know. I would assume that in this situation, if we tell Algard Mathilde will speak to the Ar-Ulric, she will then need to know, and will be briefed. That briefing will probably be far more comprehensive than a company that doesn't really operate in the North of the Empire could produce.
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We can't always expect Grey College to pre emptively deliver information to us.
And more importantly, James Bond is a pawn, a tool. Personally, i don't see Mathilde as someone who would just sit back and wait for others to make decisions for her, and if we want Mathilde to be a player in Grey College, instead of a tool that gets pulled out of the box when needed, we need to make sure she has sources of information other than what Algard drops on her.
 
I find argument on whether Mathilde needs rumor mill or not utterly irrelevant, because it's questers who need it. Every time Boney drops another one tantalising hint of their world building at large I'm salivating at the thought of having a rumor mill.
 
Alratan said:
Previously, when Mathilde has needed to know something about matters in the Empire, the Grey College has sent us the information. I don't see why that won't continue to apply. Her building an information network in the Empire is her deciding that she needs to know things that the Grey College doesn't.

In this, I trust their judgement. James Bond doesn't need to establish his own network of sources. He relies on M to tell him what he needs to know. I would assume that in this situation, if we tell Algard Mathilde will speak to the Ar-Ulric, she will then need to know, and will be briefed. That briefing will probably be far more comprehensive than a company that doesn't really operate in the North of the Empire could produce.
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To add on to what others have said, this also assumes that Mathilde is still just James Bond, instead of being a James Bond-M hybrid in terms of both abilities and responsibilities. Her master Regimand is likely in the same boat, though more on the M than the Bond, given his penchant for vanishing on business every so often.
 
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NuclearConsensus said:
To add on to what others have said, this also assumes that Mathilde is still just James Bond, instead of being a James Bond-M hybrid in terms of both abilities and responsibilities. Her master Regimand is likely in the same boat, though more on the M than the Bond, given his penchant for vanishing on business every so often.
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Like, the guest started with MAthilde becomming a spymaster.
That's basicly M, except on smaller scale and with lot less funding.
And we have only been going up from there.
We're a Grey Magister in charge of a tower and looking after several journeymen of other colleges, a loremaster of a culturally important dwarf Karak.
We keep talking about becomming a Lord Magister.
"We'll be told what we need to know" is not how a Grey Lord Magister should be thinking. We need to aim to be the person who gives out information based on need, not the one being given it
 
picklepikkl said:
Six social actions.

1 Duckling Club.
2 Someone Reaches Out
3 Belegar T Posing On Thorgrim
4 Beleger Private Talk

I think those we can rely on.

I'd like the last two to include at least one K8P person we haven't interacted with much; Soizic, Oswald, or possibly Ruprecht Wulfhart are all good options. Indifferent on sixth slot.
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5 Heidi and Mandred - Mandreds first birthday.
 
So this is completely of-topic, but have we ever tried using the Eye of Gazul on vampires? How would that interact with their weird immortality, since it severs their soul from their body? We do have a couple of skulls sitting in our tower...
 
On another long-term project, that likely isn't feasible, but I'd like to have your opinion on.
The Badlands, would it be profitable to attempt to build a railroad to Barak Varr, or would it just be ork/goblin bait?
I know that we've already got the river there, but nothing beats a proper railroad for proper hauling of goods.
 
Asheram said:
On another long-term project, that likely isn't feasible, but I'd like to have your opinion on.
The Badlands, would it be profitable to attempt to build a railroad to Barak Varr, or would it just be ork/goblin bait?
I know that we've already got the river there, but nothing beats a proper railroad for proper hauling of goods.
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Cost alone would kill a Barak Varr-Eight Peaks railway. Just building rail from Ulrikadrin to Eight Peaks was considered ruinous, and that was with a mostly secured route.
 
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