Dawi Politics and Us, or, Can I Offer You an Effortpost in These Trying Times?
So, I've been meaning to write up an effortpost on my ideas re: dawi politics since that's quite relevant to what I'd like Mathilde to be doing going forward. The premise is very similar to what Mathilde and her good buddy Egrimm van Horstmann (hell of a guy) were talking about
a couple updates ago: what the dawi need to prosper, more than any other single thing, is
hope.
To which one might ask, well, what has that got to do with us, though? As is noted in that selfsame update, Mathilde can't take every dwarf in the Karaz Ankor by their beard and shake them until they start looking at the future instead of the past. They can't be forced to hope... but they might be able to be led to. It's unlikely Mathilde could lead them like that herself, but Mathilde is an advisor, and her specialty is thus supporting the leadership of another. And Belegar is perhaps
uniquely well-suited to this task. He is the first King EVER to effect a stable reclamation of an Old Hold. He is personally open to new ideas and unorthodox strategies to a remarkable extent for a dwarven king. He has, in fact, already staked out something of a political position that the future is more important than the past when he made his case that the future of K8P mattered more than crossing out old Grudges (thus starting the rift with Thorgrim, but so it goes). He has strong ties to a number of other powerful and influential Holds,
ties which could potentially be strengthened and expanded with marriage.
He could absolutely do something like argue publicly for and campaign for a focus on the
future of the Karaz Ankor based on the credible hope that the dawi can actually rebuild if they embrace that as a possibility that can actually be within their grasp with the right approach and attitude. An Age of Renewal rather than only an Age of Vengeance. That's a broad goal. But there's a specific goal that aligns with and complements this.
Namely, getting Thorgrim to name Belegar as the heir to the High Kingship. Given their personal relationship, that would be an uphill task, but I don't believe it to be impossible. Belegar just making a personal petition for it or something would presumably not get far, but if other Holds are backing him in this then that instantly makes it far more credible. A High King's task is to lead the Karaz Ankor as a whole after all, and a leader who
already has the backing of other Holds surely has a leg up when it comes to being named heir to the position. With enough backing, it actually becomes awkward NOT to name him as heir.
Even setting aside OOC concerns like the heir getting told about the HUD on the Throne of Power since we shouldn't be making decisions based on OOC knowledge, that would be an outcome that would do a LOT to advance the potential of an Age of Renewal. Naming a King who's associated with those ideas to officially be the heir is a huge political statement, the kind of thing that will get the attention of even the most hidebound Longbeard. It's an extremely powerful tacit statement that yes, this IS the future direction of the Karaz Ankor. That's the kind of thing that can truly inspire and change minds. It can also at least be reasonably assumed IC that the heir should get to know what the hell the deal is with Karaz-a-Karak drawing in all that Waystone power, which is very much a concern of Belegar's as well.
Belegar doesn't seem to be an innately power-hungry guy by any means. He seems to be truly motivated by concern for the well-being of his people for the most part. As such I don't think he'd go after this just for the sake of a shinier hat by any means. But I genuinely do believe that he has a vision and a leadership style that the Karaz Ankor as a whole could benefit from tremendously. And THAT seems like something worth fighting for, and hopefully he'd think so too.
Belegar taking this as a conscious goal would be relevant to us in a few ways. Per Boney, one of the possible directions for Mathilde if she stays on the council of K8P is that she can
pivot to weird shit troubleshooter for the Karaz Ankor at large. That on its own is still less interesting to me than a more focused project like the Waystones, so if it was just that I'd still be in favor of just focusing on the Waystones project with the Eonir instead. But if Belegar is assigning us to troubleshooting jobs
strategically to build bridges for K8P and/or use our skills to demonstrate to other Kings in person how valuable embracing new ideas and allies can be, it becomes a role with more direction and one that's contributing to a larger project I care about a lot (namely, the future of the Karaz Ankor). At that point I'd be MUCH more interested in staying in that role as at-large troubleshooter for the Karaz Ankor on Belegar's behalf, and maybe relegating Waystones to personal actions when we can spare the attention or something. It would also be a strong additional impetus for us to boost our Diplomacy, though I'd like to do that anyway. Even if we're not the one playing the role of the actual Diplomat from the Diplo Advisor role, Diplomacy would still be HIGHLY relevant to working with other Kings and being the initial icebreaker/bridge-builder, to effectively pave the way for more formalized diplomatic efforts to follow from another, and to make the case that yes the possible risks from accepting new ideas and allies is worth it.
As such, I'd very much like it if one of the first things we did back in K8P was to discuss this idea with Belegar and find out what his take on it actually is. If he's just not feeling it even with our encouragement, then so be it, I wouldn't try to force this role on him if he doesn't want it, so we can do the Waystones project or something instead in that case as far as I'm concerned. But if he's interested in trying, then "support Belegar's push to be named heir to the High Kingship as his Weird Shit Troubleshooting Ambassador" is a direction I'd be VERY interested in.
