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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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DragonParadox said:
Oh I agree, but does he know enough about the diplomacy of the secretive alien race living under the mountains to be truste with their shameful secrets, not just in how he uses them but in how he shares them? That seems a more dubious prospect.
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That's also kind of literally his job. As the foreign advisor. We could also choose to help him understand that.

"You wanna know what I learned about dwarves. Oh boy, "let me tell you what I learned about dwarves."
 
Holy shit. What happened with Ulthar's siblings is something you would find between humans, not dwarfs. God damn. Makes you wonder if other similar things have happened within dwarven history the Dawi don't want to talk about.
 
Uhm, a question here: Do we know if there are any imperial diplomats in the Vala-azril-ungol? I wouldn't be surprised if we have individual countries there, but do we have any unified imperial ones, i.e. diplomats directly under this fellers employ?
 
zxzx24 said:
That's also kind of literally his job. As the foreign advisor. We could also choose to help him understand that.

"You wanna know what I learned about dwarves. Oh boy, "let me tell you what I learned about dwarves."
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He cannot do said job if he is dead, eventually that information is going to get out of his hands to people he never met and could not have vetted. I repeat do we trust the Imperial court in perpetuity with this information?
 
I would caution against the notion that the sharing of secret information with the Chamberlain is a positive. Just because the information is useful to the Empire, does not mean it will not be used at the expense of the Karaz Ankor. We are not beholden to give the Chamberlain sensitive information about internal dwarven relations, so we should not do so.
 
Asheram said:
Uhm, a question here: Do we know if there are any imperial diplomats in the Vala-azril-ungol? I wouldn't be surprised if we have individual countries there, but do we have any unified imperial ones, i.e. diplomats directly under this fellers employ?
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No, the Empire deals with the Karaz Ankor as a single polity so their diplomats are at Karaz-a-Karak.
 
We can't really know how much they already know about Dwarven politics, and can compare against what we say. So I'm inclined to tell the truth about unspoken common knowledge not made explicitly secret. Grey Wizard 101: Everything is a loyalty test.

Anyway... yeah, I think we ought to be sharing unspoken common knowledge with the Empire's head of Foreign Relations. He kind of needs to know if there's unrest or diplomatic landmines in the Empire's oldest ally.
 
Lupercal said:
Okay let me reframe this. Proscribed cult has a very specific meaning in Hams. Chaos are proscribed cults, the greenskin and skaven god/s are proscribed cults, the gods of murder, parties and armed banditry are proscribed cults. It is illegal to worship these gods at all and to be a dedicated follower or priest is certain death if found out.

By contrast if a random merchant or Mathilde was discovered to be a ranald worshipper the the worst that would happen is they/we would be treated as suspicious, like as if we had a proven track record of lying.

Heidi specifically would be in hot water if she was found out because she is both an actual career criminal and the highest authority in the land being devoted to the god of "actually feudalism is silly" would not be accepted by the ruling aristocrats.
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This is true, but we also have WoQM that Ranald doesn't have the legal standing for us to found a knightly order. So even if Ranald gets invited to the grand poobaa, he very explicitly doesn't get all of the same privileges other Cults get.

BoneyM said:
You are! Mathilde got knighted back during her service to Stirland.

On the topic of Knightly Orders, you're not the first to ask:



I've added the above to the Collection of Important Information threadmark.
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Vebyast said:
Keeping our oaths is absolutely in the best interests of the Empire. I'm considering a write in where we say that explicitly, to defuse the situation you're worried about. We are one of the foremost authorities on interacting with the dwarves - just look at how we set up the EIC to always be scrupulously literal and honest with their contracts - and I think we could get the point across that we're not sharing some things because nothing the empire could do with the secrets is as useful as having us keeping our oaths and remaining in the loop.
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But the middle option doesn't actually break any oaths. There's no reason not to give the potentially useful information to our superiors besides simply and frankly prioritizing our relationship with the Dwarfs over our duty to the Empire. Even if the majority of the voters actually agreed with this sentiment, there's no way they would miss the implications, and probably the least of the consequences would be scuttling our (almost assured at this point) promotion.
 
DragonParadox said:
Oh I agree, but does he know enough about the diplomacy of the secretive alien race living under the mountains to be truste with their shameful secrets, not just in how he uses them but in how he shares them? That seems a more dubious prospect.
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Diplomacy is just not Mathilde's strong suit. I recall someone once asking BoneyM if we were considered the Grey College's foremost expert on Dwarven diplomacy, and we got a resounding "no". For all that we're immersed in their culture, the Grey College with its very limited pool of employees had someone more suitable for the role.

To suggest that the Empire's diplomatic services can't rummage up someone capable of telling them "no, the Dwarves feel very strongly about secrets" to at least Mathilde's level may actually be the most egregious case of players considering the PC to be more competent than the NPCs in their own fields I've seen in the entire quest.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
Diplomacy is just not Mathilde's strong suit. I recall someone once asking BoneyM if we were considered the Grey College's foremost expert on Dwarven diplomacy, and we got a resounding "no". For all that we're immersed in their culture, the Grey College with its very limited pool of employees had someone more suitable for the role.

To suggest that the Empire's diplomatic services can't rummage up someone capable of telling them "no, the Dwarves feel very strongly about secrets" to at least Mathilde's level may actually be the most egregious case of players considering the PC to be more competent than the NPCs in their own fields I've seen in the entire quest.
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And will they always listen to that mythical dwarf expert whose loyalties we do not know and competence can only assume?
 
I was expecting happy fun time with friends for this update. Instead, it's "our friends family sucks hard", "our socioppathic sorta-friend is concerning and her tiny human is pathetic", and cutting questions about our loyalty.

And the romance vote gives me visual novel flashbacks, despite never having played one.
 
[ ] Speak honestly of everything not explicitly secret, including rifts within the Karaz Ankor

I'm leaning towards this one. We are a Grey Wizard loyalty towards the Empire is expected, but so is a certain amount of compartmentalization.


Also about the sibling murder... I talked about this kind of thing about 234234345456 Pages earlier - Dwarfs have crime too, all this talk of "no crimes among dwarves" is bs propagande. I mean, they are literally a species that records grudges in books. Only its not talked about in polite company and/or penalties are kept quiet but super harsh (e.g. Slayerdom)
 
DragonParadox said:
And will they always listen to that mythical dwarf expert whose loyalties we do not know and competence can only assume?
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a) "Mythical" - are you seriously suggesting they don't have such a person? Are you doubling down on this?
b) Yes, because why else would they employ them?

To be honest, you appear to be treating the Empire as being as incompetent as 40K's Imperium, when it's very much not.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
Diplomacy is just not Mathilde's strong suit. I recall someone once asking BoneyM if we were considered the Grey College's foremost expert on Dwarven diplomacy, and we got a resounding "no". For all that we're immersed in their culture, the Grey College with its very limited pool of employees had someone more suitable for the role.

To suggest that the Empire's diplomatic services can't rummage up someone capable of telling them "no, the Dwarves feel very strongly about secrets" to at least Mathilde's level may actually be the most egregious case of players considering the PC to be more competent than the NPCs in their own fields I've seen in the entire quest.
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I don't believe that they're incompetent, although some of the write-ins do seem to be leaning on the side of lack of ability. Rather, I don't necessarily believe that (outside of the grey order) they're loyal, because we've killed a lot more disloyal nobles than I remember us being friends with loyal ones, and I feel that that's saying something.
Asheram said:
Holy F... Yeah, that's a massive oversight from the Empire.
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I suppose having individual diplomats for each hold might be a good outcome of sharing, then. The Karaz Ankor isn't centralized at KaK, and it'd explain a lot about dwarf-empire relationships if they assumed it was.
 
BoneyM said:
I'll run out of ideas if he gets one every time he's on screen. Mathilde will get him nice things for major milestones.
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Plus getting magical toys every time he sees Mathilde will make him spoiled and irreverent towards magic.

On a side note, @BoneyM how does Heidi feel about us getting Mandred some harmlessly booby trapped toys to teach him caution? It'd be like teaching a kid to treat electric devices with respect using shoddily wired battery-operated toys. Way more relatable than the ramblings of priests.
 
[ ] Speak honestly of everything not explicitly secret, including rifts within the Karaz Ankor
If someone can throw a rider about emphasizing what topics are delicate and what topics Are Not Spoken Of, and some are already doing so, I'll probably back this one. Bluntly, the emperor and his diplomat have the same goals regarding the schism as we do and can probably better act on them.

Now on to the more important half of the vote:
I'd like to remind people that this happens over the course of months. Over the top stuff can be useful for a first date, but the point of dating is to either figure out if you can have fun with a person, have a relationship with them, or both. In all three cases finding out if you get along during down time is vital. In light of that:
[ ] You've got a puppy, he's got several. Easy. Spend time with him as your pup plays with his.
[ ] The Halflings are renowned chefs, and several restaurants have opened clustered around the base of Karag Nar. Share a meal with her.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
a) "Mythical" - are you seriously suggesting they don't have such a person? Are you doubling down on this?
b) Yes, because why else would they employ them?

To be honest, you appear to be treating the Empire as being as incompetent as 40K's Imperium, when it's very much not.
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I'm suggesting we do not know anything about him or her, what their loyalties or opinions are.

Also I would like to point to Dieter, that is how incompetent the Empire can be, that is almost inevitably how incompetent they will be again at some point given that the succession mechanism has no changed. Anything we say now will not be shared only with today's competent court it will be shared with the court of tomorrow however the dice may fall on their competence or goodwill, infiltration or lack thereof.
 
picklepikkl said:
Well done communicating how downright unsettling Heidi's values are in this segment. She's not just our BFF, she's a professional con artist with no regrets.

And then, of course, the update segues from "observing Heidi's values and lack of real loyalty to anything besides herself and her god" to skewering Mathilde on the fact that her professed and genuine loyalties pull her in several different directions. It's really well-written, @BoneyM, I see why this update took a while to get right.
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You know, it's kinda funny - while Heidi doesn't have a reason to want to burn it all down she is absolutely the kind of person the Grey College would want to keep eyes on to make sure they don't do anything too out of line, and we've more or less pratfalled into fulfilling that exact purpose.

Just gotta make sure we keep checking in and nudging her in directions that won't end in tears for everyone and it'll be fiiiine!

DragonParadox said:
And will they always listen to that mythical dwarf expert whose loyalties we do not know and competence can only assume?
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If I had to decide who I thought was more competent on diplomatic matters out of the Grey College's hypothetical Dwarf expert and us voters, I'd pick that hypothetical expert every time. Assuming that we, a bunch of randos idling away our time playing games on the internet, match or beat the expertise of in-universe diplomatic hero units, when Mathilde's own diplomacy is completely insufficient to serve as a crutch for us, is the height of arrogance.
 
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