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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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BoneyM said:
Most of the Empire's rivers flow through Marienburg. Them closing their gates is effectively a blockade.
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Would it be possible to have the dwarfs build a canal around Marienburg? Depending on the geometry, that could be anything from a few hundred meters to several kilometers.
I just like the irony of solving a problem caused by channels with another channel. It would also really hit Marienburg hard.
 
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Guisarme said:
I say we ask if the ambassador is still from Nagarythe or not. The chamberlain should know, and any way to get an answer out of the elves would be massively helpful. Any thoughts?
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Probably a bad idea. We did the ambassador a solid, but he's already repaid us for that and that depends on the lingering goodwill from that being better than whatever rapport the top diplomat in the Empire created ever since they were appointed.
 
How much money would Barak Varr lose from the new silk trade to Marienburg middlemen?
If the worlds most valuable trade is about to double, and they're going to miss out on half of that because of Marienburg I imagine that the dwarves could divert a lot and still recoup their loss quite quickly.
 
Vebyast said:
It really seems like someone should have figured this out and written it down in the hundreds of years of diplomacy preceding Mathilde's involvement.
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BoneyM said:
The Light Order do their best, but the Colleges have only been around for a fraction of the Empire's length, and before that a hundred tragedies each shaved away a record of history. The Great Library of Mordheim died with the city, the Sieges of Altdorf each resulted in a freezing populace burning books for heat, the Imperial Library suffered attrition every time the capital moved and was stolen back and forth a dozen times during the Age of the Three Emperors, and Dieter IV sold a good deal of what little survived to reach him to anyone willing to pay. And if that wasn't enough of a reason for his soul to be damned, when he sold Marienburg its independence, it took the Great Library of Verena with it, and ever since the self-righteous custodians have delighted in denying entry to citizens of the Empire. The Vaults of the Great Cathedral of Sigmar are purged every time a more conservative Grand Theogonist takes office, and there's Witch Hunters out there who consider literacy to be compelling evidence of witchcraft, and even when some poor scholar escapes the pyre it's not always guaranteed their books will.

A hundred hundred roadblocks between the average human and their past, but since the first founding of Karaz-a-Karak, every single event to ever befall the Dwarves has been carefully recorded and remains right here, carefully preserved by rune and artifice.
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BurnNote said:
I'm kind of sad the the We silk can't make up for the sheer volume of trade going through Marienburg. Otherwise we could solve this in true Mathilde fashion: Throw a superweapon at it.
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...Huh. Isn't the limiting factor on that the shortage of weavers and dyers? And isn't Barak Varr bankrolling K8P specifically for the silk trade that the We would be blowing up?

[] They can make up for the loss in trade
-[] Speaking of making up for trade, there's this thing about spider silk that you might be able to help with...
 
DragonParadox said:
Yes, which is why those deeply anti dwarf Asur have already started an apocalyptic war with Karaz Ankor with all the myriad of excuses they have had over the last 3000 years and we are currently living in the Chaos soaked ruins of that battle... Wait.

This feel to me like protagonist arrogance. Of course we will restart the war between these two age old superpower that have maintained their peace for millennia. We are after all the center of the world.
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While I doubt this will restart the War of the Beard with full intensity, involving dwarven military into a conflict with elven allies does have a noticeable chance of intensifying their "peace" (let's not forget that they are continuing to fight right now, just not very much) into a pretty sizable conflict.
 
If this guy is thinking that non-violence is better, I don't see why he would advocate for immediate violence over the threat of it.

Remember, our actions don't decide what happens immediately. They're still just our advice/recommendation.

So try and think less "end solution if we play an option out to the end" and more the implications and steps involved moving towards a worst case scenario.

Picking reconquest or blockade breaking doesn't start a war then and there (with either Marienburg or Ulthuan)
 
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BurnNote said:
Would it be possible to have the dwarfs build a canal around Marienburg? Depending on the geometry, that could be anything from a few hundred meters to several kilometers.
I just like the irony of solving a problem caused by channels with another channel. It would also really hit Marienburg hard.
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You'd have to channel through one and a half provinces to bypass Marienburg's land.
 
Really, after this is over we need to go to Belegar and give him the full down low on what's happening and talk it over. I think breaking the blockade and doubling down on talking to the Eonir is the way to go.
 
Horologer said:
How long will it take for the canals to be completed?
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BoneyM said:
Dwarves are not what you'd call swift, and there's too many unknowns at this point to give a firm date. If everything goes exactly according to plan and nothing unexpected crops up, perhaps five years.
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@BoneyM, I just realized a slight ambiguity: does "they can make up for the loss in trade" mean "they can [make up for] [the loss in trade]" (i.e. compensating the Empire for its losses), or does it mean "they can [make up for the loss] [in trade]" (i.e. they can trade more heavily with the Empire to provide a market for its goods and a supplier for its needs)? I noticed as I was reading the thread that some people were reading it some way, some another, and I myself was not sure which was correct.
 
Vebyast said:
...Huh. Isn't the limiting factor on that the shortage of weavers and dyers? And isn't Barak Varr bankrolling K8P specifically for the silk trade that the We would be blowing up?

[] They can make up for the loss in trade
-[] Speaking of making up for trade, there's this thing about spider silk that you might be able to help with...
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The We do have limits on how much silk they can produce. I expect that they are growing, but still limits.
 
agumentic said:
While I doubt this will restart the War of the Beard with full intensity, involving dwarven military into a conflict with elven allies does have a noticeable chance of intensifying their "peace" (let's not forget that they are continuing to fight right now, just not very much) into a pretty sizable conflict.
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We are talking about dwarfs, they don't do low intensity wars because the grudge system means they always escalate once war is declared. The reason the War of the Beard ended from the dwarfs perspective is because they technically won. Tensions will get a lot of individual dwarfs fighting a lot of individual elves, but their respective states litterally cannot afford to be at war with one another.
 
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picklepikkl said:
@BoneyM, I just realized a slight ambiguity: does "they can make up for the loss in trade" mean "they can [make up for] [the loss in trade]" (i.e. compensating the Empire for its losses), or does it mean "they can [make up for the loss] [in trade]" (i.e. they can trade more heavily with the Empire to provide a market for its goods and a supplier for its needs)? I noticed as I was reading the thread that some people were reading it some way, some another, and I myself was not sure which was correct.
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The former. I'll clarify it in the post.
 
DragonParadox said:
Yes that is my point, there have been flights small and localized that did not even make it into the history books because anything bigger would kill them both so yes the only real fer here is apocalyptic conflict and that fear has more than its fair share of arrogance to it.
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Why is the only fear is the apocalypse scenario? If the dwarves and elves start having a 'minor' war over the tensions it would cause incredible damage even if later on Finubar would try to deescalate so it won't turn into a Dawi/Asur death-match*. Thinking that involving Elves and Dwarves on different side of the conflict won't tragically escalate isn't arrogance.

*And that's assuming that he does so promptly because he is the High King rather than being obstructed by parts of his court that want an actual chance to kill dwarfs, I don't think that Finubar has anywhere near the supreme power that you associate with him
 
SITB said:
Why is the only fear is the apocalypse scenario? If the dwarves and elves start having a 'minor' war over the tensions it would cause incredible damage even if later on Finubar would try to deescalate so it won't turn into a Dawi/Asur death-match*. Thinking that involving Elves and Dwarves on different side of the conflict won't tragically escalate isn't arrogance.

*And that's assuming that he does so promptly because he is the High King rather than being obstructed by parts of his court that want an actual chance to kill dwarfs, I don't think that Finubar has anywhere near the supreme power that you associate with him
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Because formal war between elves and dwarfs is an apocalypse scenario. Grudges mean that once war is declared the dwarfs can only stop fighting once they have won just like last time. There is no deescalation means.
 
Alright then, I would argue that we can't let Marienburg dictate Empire and dwarven policy while outside the Empire. Setting that as a precedent will only teach the Marienburgers that they can effectively do whatever they want to the Empire. As an admitted logical extreme whats to say they dont next demand cessation of trade through the Empires other northern ports.
 
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On the one hand, war would be pretty terrible potentially, on the other, Karl Franz (PRINCE AND EMPEROR) would want us to UNITE THE PROVINCES. Splitting the difference would be breaking the blockade, I think?
 
BoneyM said:
Most of the Empire's rivers flow through Marienburg. Them closing their gates is effectively a blockade.
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So it's not just an embargo. They aren't just refusing to trade with us. They are also refusing to let anyone else trade with us. Does this blockade also involve preventing trade at the ports of Nordland and Ostland?
 
BoneyM said:
[ ] They can make up for the loss in trade
This would weaken the Karaz Ankor and the Empire until the canals are complete.
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Perhaps, if we're willing to put K8P first for a moment, we can think of this as an opportunity.

Currently, K8P has a lot of money from reclaimed loot. Once the Okral leaves, it will have infinity money from the vaults. Once the We's silk is online, we'll have double infinity money, part of which is coming from a valuable trade good.

Now, over the course of the reclamation and aftermath, Belegar's been racking up IOU's all over the place on the premise that the king of a resurgent Dwarf Hold can certainly make it worth their while, and what better opportunity than a trade crisis - an issue which can be at least partially resolved by the application of money and trade goods - to pay those back and then some?

If Belegar played his cards right, he could use Marienberg's embargo to significantly increase his own soft power and probably even get the We silk through the doors of the more conservative prospective buyers, which could pay back his monetary investment in the long run and further increase reformist pressure and Belegar's personal support in the Karaz Ankor.

As for why we'd want to increase Belegar's soft power? If he does rack up enough influence in the Karaz Ankor, and it becomes clear enough to Thorgrim that he needs to do something about the tension between the holds, that could, maybe, lead to Thorgrim labeling Belegar as his heir at some point. Which would allow the truth about Waystones to come out, hopefully easing the tension, and set up the Karaz Ankor with a future High King who was a little more open-minded.

Buuut that's far out and highly speculative. The potential for repayments of debts, increased trade contracts, and increased soft power for K8P? That's downright likely.

It just comes at the expense of, you know, everyone else. Some provinces will be feeling the pinch in the old military from this, and lord knows Talabecland won't be happy, the peat-smuggling fuckers.
 
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