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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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veekie said:
Keeping in mind that Mathilde is wealthy by the standards of individuals, but she barely registers on the organizational level. And she does already have an organization under her dominion that requires investment.

If we're so conflicted with having spare money, we can invest into the quality of life and security of cactus fief. A few small improvements, to add some mills or recruiting some low end craftsmen, or cutting decent roads through the place would wipe the spare money out quite quickly to tangibly improve the quality of life of people who are legally speaking, our responsibility.
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We already did improve their road. Added cheese to their diet, attracted a smith and raised some walls.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
Can we actually visit the cactus farm this turn?

I like the Tradition of visiting it between the big arcs.
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I'm not willing to commit to a particular social option until we see what all the choices are.

Given that Mathilde has been in hell for the past for months, the potential war with Marienburg, and Mathilde leaving her job to start a grand project, I suspect there's going to be a lot of competition.

EDIT:

Valmond said:
We should go see the salamanders.
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Well, the last time we did:

BoneyM said:
As you watch, he lowers a ladder into the enclosure and walks among the lizards, who eye him thoughtfully but make no attempt to make a meal of him. He tries to encourage you to come down and give them a pat, demonstrating on one that ruffles its frill in either enjoyment or agitation at his attentions, but you're quite happy to leave him to it. Perhaps in a decade or so there'll be teams goading these creatures into battle, or riders atop their backs, or their saliva or something derived from it will be burning the enemies of the Empire at sea, but for now it's one curious creature amongst many.
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I think it was made pretty clear that there wasn't really anything else for us to do on the matter.
 
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For the fief, I think Mathilde were last there 4 and a half year ago, and at that point it was decided to leave the tax income there. We don't really know what is being done with it, might be that the steward just leaves it in a chest, might be that he reinvests it into the fief, or he might be living the high life. They had invested in a smokehouse, a bailey, and a flint mine last time, so if the steward is reinvesting then there might be interesting developments after so much time.
 
GrimTheMad said:
I think it was made pretty clear that there wasn't really anything else for us to do on the matter.
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It showed up in our last social turn options:
BoneyM said:
Following Up
[ ] The Amber College, to check in on the salamanders.
[ ] The Gold College, to see what's become of their research into Skaven technology.
[ ] Follow up on your donation of the Skaven organ-vat, and see what has been made of it.
[ ] Pay a visit to your fief, to see if anything has changed. It probably hasn't.
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So probably there is some kind of followup that Boney has an idea to write about.

I do agree that it's a good time to visit the fief, since it's been about five years, and I will probably vote for it.
 
-[*] DUCK: Continue to work with Panoramia with implementing the Waaaghsoak Mushrooms as an aid to spellcasting.
-[*] EIC: Insert agents into a particular province, cult, company, or institution to start gathering their secrets. (Cult of Karnos, Talabecland)
-[*] Branulhune's ability to disappear and reappear at a thought allows entirely new forms of combat. Continue to work on them.
-[*] SERENITY: Write a paper: Daemonic Concealment of Karak Vlag
-[*] PENTHOUSE: Build a basic tower of single-Wind environments for each of the 'missing' Winds: Light, Amber, Amethyst, and Gold

So, with Eike... mostly sorted for now.

that just leaves Swording and Writing a paper for the 'short' actions

Waaghsoak with Pan. for a long action

and EIC first official-unofficial mission, with the opening of a Bugman's to go with it.

add the Wizard dual (no way that one is losing) and the interrupt, and that's all the 'set' actions right now.
 
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I do think we need to make a due diligence follow up, not only to cactus fief, but also the Hochlander. Scare the crap out of him and look through his books/operations. We've never checked his work over. It's time to do it, at least one. He's probably loyal and competent, but if he isn't, boy is Mathilde going to have egg on her face for never checking.
 
primemountain said:
I do think we need to make a due diligence follow up, not only to cactus fief, but also the Hochlander. Scare the crap out of him and look through his books/operations. We've never checked his work over. It's time to do it, at least one. He's probably loyal and competent, but if he isn't, boy is Mathilde going to have egg on her face for never checking.
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That'd be more on the Grey College as a whole, I think. The entire reason we got someone from the college to do this job is cause they were already vetted and we wouldn't have to worry about their loyalty.

Hochlander wouldn't have been offered for the job if he wasn't trusted to do it.

BoneyM said:
Like many Hochlanders, he has spent a significant portion of his life hunting the forests of eastern Drakwald with a long rifle, a hobby he was able to maintain through his education at the College of Sorcery in Hergig, and since his 'graduation' to Apprentice-in-Perpetuity due to his relative lack of magical power, he has been acting as a messenger for the Grey College, and has proven his loyalty, tenaciousness, and adaptability by getting messages quickly and safely to some of the most dangerous places in the Old World.
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The Grey College considers his loyalty already 'proven', and considering this is the Grey College I'm pretty content to trust them on that. We don't have nearly enough free time to spend it double checking their work.

(I wouldn't necessarily say no to a social action with the Hochlander, but not a regular action checking loyalty.)
 
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@BoneyM What should be the "official" Warhammer name for the Shadowkeep? I have a list of suggestions:
  • Schattenburg
  • Schatteburg
  • Schattigburg
  • Schattichburg
  • Dämmerburg
  • Schattenturm
  • Schatteturm
  • Schattigturm
  • Schattichturm
  • Dämmerturm
  • Schattenfried
  • Schattenfried
  • Schattigfried
  • Schattichfried
  • Dämmerfried
German doesn't actually have a direct translation for "keep" that is different from castle or tower. The closest they get is using the French word Donjon, or the compound words Hauptturm (main tower) or Wohnturm (home tower). They also have the Bergfried, but that's both a mouth full and not quite the same.

But because Warhammer Reikspiel is not quite correct German and how it sounds to an anglophone ear matters more than linguistic accuracy I gave various not quite correct versions to choose from.

Personally I'm not quite sure yet, but something like Schattigfried has a nice parallel to Sonnigwiese by having the same grammatic weirdness.
 
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primemountain said:
I do think we need to make a due diligence follow up, not only to cactus fief, but also the Hochlander. Scare the crap out of him and look through his books/operations. We've never checked his work over. It's time to do it, at least one. He's probably loyal and competent, but if he isn't, boy is Mathilde going to have egg on her face for never checking.
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That sounds like a normal action and not a social action, and good luck getting us to spend a regular AP on "verifying the trustworthiness and security of an already-vetted agent" instead of, like, anything else we could be doing. I can think of no better way to convince the thread that the EIC intel apparatus is a millstone around our neck preventing us from doing cool things rather than an asset allowing us to do cool things.
 
Yeah, we should really trust the man with 100% no proven complications to his loyalties in a quest called "Divided Loyalties".

Nah, I'm kidding. At worst, he's loyal to another Grey Lord Magister passing information onto them about us and the EIC, and honestly, the only thing we have to hide is something I'm fairly sure he can't find or prove or even suspect.

Hell, the other candidates didn't have any noticeable divisions in loyalty—one was looking for purpose, and could have been very loyal if we'd helped her, and the other was looking to mold the EIC in her image, and would only be loyal to herself, and instead we went for the careful, methodical guy from the School of Inept Sorcerers.
 
picklepikkl said:
That sounds like a normal action and not a social action, and good luck getting us to spend a regular AP on "verifying the trustworthiness and security of an already-vetted agent" instead of, like, anything else we could be doing. I can think of no better way to convince the thread that the EIC intel apparatus is a millstone around our neck preventing us from doing cool things rather than an asset allowing us to do cool things.
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It's a one time action that, frankly, kind of needs to be done at some point. And it needs to be done even more if we ever wanted to completely hand the responsibility for the EIC intelligence apparatus over to him.
 
veekie said:
If we're so conflicted with having spare money, we can invest into the quality of life and security of cactus fief.
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It's impossible to spend money to improve the security of the cactus fief. The fief's security is based on how unimportant and easily ignored it is, and spending money improving its economy and constructing walls would make it a much more strategically relevant location and target. This is the reason why we haven't spent more money on it, not because we wanted to save money.
 
10ebbor10 said:
The vow of poverty incurs no practical restrictions whatsoever.

I know people say that it "must be for direct and practical use to her cause", but Mathilde certainly owns massive amounts stuff that are at best only tangentially relevant to what she's doing.
So, feel free to buy an entire table made of solid gold, as long as you use it for conversation in a business diner sometimes, you can write it of as a business expense.
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The majority of Mathilde's wealth is used on things of direct and practical use to her cause at the time they're acquired. Much of the rest is stuff looted from the enemies of the Empire which makes them fair game to keep.

As a quest protagonist without a stress mechanic she pretty much only spends "below the abstraction layer" amounts of wealth on things like luxury living conditions, food etc.

The table made of solid gold would only be acceptable - and likewise would only be acquired - if either A) It increased her standing with those she invited for business dinners or B) she stole it from an enemy of the Empire
 
Rafin said:
It's a one time action that, frankly, kind of needs to be done at some point. And it needs to be done even more if we ever wanted to completely hand the responsibility for the EIC intelligence apparatus over to him.
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Not really? It's not like Mathilde thinks she might need to do it. We can tell because it has never shown up on her action list as a possibility. It is a wholly thread-invented problem. If the EIC intel apparatus has a serious fuckup, then sure, yeah, it would make sense. But the whole point of hiring from the Grey Order and putting Ranald's Coin on that action was "so we can get a low-maintenance assistant who we don't need to be paranoid about." It defeats the purpose of picking him up in such a costly way in the first place if we then end up spending the AP on paranoia about him anyway.
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Nah, I'm kidding. At worst, he's loyal to another Grey Lord Magister passing information onto them about us and the EIC, and honestly, the only thing we have to hide is something I'm fairly sure he can't find or prove or even suspect.

Hell, the other candidates didn't have any noticeable divisions in loyalty—one was looking for purpose, and could have been very loyal if we'd helped her, and the other was looking to mold the EIC in her image, and would only be loyal to herself, and instead we went for the careful, methodical guy from the School of Inept Sorcerers.
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Exactly this.
 
picklepikkl said:
Not really? It's not like Mathilde thinks she might need to do it. We can tell because it has never shown up on her action list as a possibility. It is a wholly thread-invented problem. If the EIC intel apparatus has a serious fuckup, then sure, yeah, it would make sense. But the whole point of hiring from the Grey Order and putting Ranald's Coin on that action was "so we can get a low-maintenance assistant who we don't need to be paranoid about." It defeats the purpose of picking him up in such a costly way in the first place if we then end up spending the AP on paranoia about him anyway.

Exactly this.
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I guess what makes me paranoid is how perfect the Hochlander seems. Both of the other two options had a clear drawback. The Hochlander's drawback, as first presented, seems both overly mild and irrelevant in comparison.
 
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