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[Askot Bokbondeler]

if youthfangs proof of treason by ashlan family is sound, she can have boneclang. we can also support tumuks favoured heir in the ensuing sucession dispute, if youthfangs doesnt have a better idea

we should send cornius ahead to fort glacier, he should convince dreg dreg to dramatically increase the toll for banditry and recruit more experienced bandits. cornius should return with whatever mercenaries he deems worthy and can convince to come

we should upgrade the wurms equipment and levy some troops to garrison fort three roads, then head out to elven lands to recruit some sneaky ambushers and spellcrafters, stopping to have a chat with youthfangs contact

then we wait for cornius at righteousroot, with experienced bandits we go doin some banditry of our own on rebel lands, for the sake of recon, sabotage, and fun

[TheBiggerFish]

Specifically, if Youthfangs has indisputable proof of the Ashland family's treason, she and her guest can have the person who ordered it done?

[Askot Bokbondeler]

i wouldnt use such a strong word as indisputable, frankly i would be okay if all they were guilty of is lookin tasty. this ashlan guys sound boring, and their family legacy is a history of sore losers

[TheBiggerFish]

This is kind of a thing that needs more than one person to decide, but I really think we need some proof.  And we really shouldn't take out an innocent, unless that's Orc-y to kill off the entire clan because of a hypothetical fraction of their members.
Then again, if it reaches as high up as that wording implies it may very well be all of them.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

This is kind of a thing that needs more than one person to decide, but I really think we need some proof.  And we really shouldn't take out an innocent, unless that's Orc-y to kill off the entire clan because of a hypothetical fraction of their members.
Then again, if it reaches as high up as that wording implies it may very well be all of them.

im not sugesting we kill of the entire family, just enough as to deter further treasonous treasons, and enough for an intimate vampire dinner party.
if we were doing it the orc-y way we'd probably have to eviscerate the guy in ritual duel to prove his guilt, but we're civilized now, we mostly just do that to impress the ladies

[IronyOwl]

Does the Vampire Goblin accept criminals? I"m sure no one missies five finger discount doug right? Just sayin.

If you mean Fort Glacier's boss, I'm not sure he's highborn.

Also we should probably keep the feeding of our garrison commanders to terrors of the night to a minimum. It uh, usually isn't a sign of a good ruler.

A possible solution for the envoy guard problem would be to dedicate 20 of our own soldiers as additional guards for each envoy. They'd then have 25 soldiers each for protection, and they'd know the other envoy would only have five who'd be willing to act aggressively. Whilst we're losing 40 soldiers this way, we're still losing less than we would if we were to let them have their pissing contest.

Ooh, good call. I like this.

Problem is, if they don't trust us (or can get away with claiming as such) they can use that as an excuse instead. It is true that we may be taking sides; indeed, our advisors all strongly suggest it. Our knowledge of (pinkskin) court manners is also crap, unfortunately, which means we should turn both of them into vampires to make them easier to seduce and more likely to eat their own retinues might have difficulty getting them to budge even if they don't have any substantial objections.

Indeed.  The envoys should not find it necessary to bring an entire platoon or whatever.  We can provide for that.
But raise the cap to 10 guards.  Give some ground.
In addition, magi count twice.

Or just disbar mages entirely. Assuming there's some way to tell. Alternatively, try to figure out some mage/elite fighter ratio, assume the elf will keep nothing but mages, and bloat the human's guard to compensate.

I don't see any particular reason to give ground, though, other than in an attempt to compensate for our abysmal surface court manners.

if youthfangs proof of treason by ashlan family is sound, she can have boneclang. we can also support tumuks favoured heir in the ensuing sucession dispute, if youthfangs doesnt have a better idea

Specifically, if Youthfangs has indisputable proof of the Ashland family's treason, she and her guest can have the person who ordered it done?

I like this idea for buttering up Youthfangs, but bear in mind that this doesn't actually gain us anything other than disposing of a traitor and making our vampire feel fancy. Since it'd cost a favor to find out about it, and then we'd gain a favor from fulfilling her request.

So I mean, I'm still for it, but it's not especially profitable.

Other problem: Suppose the treason is taking out our weak predecessor or smuggling elves. That'd be a little more ambiguous than funding the rebels or plotting our demise.

we should send cornius ahead to fort glacier, he should convince dreg dreg to dramatically increase the toll for banditry and recruit more experienced bandits. cornius should return with whatever mercenaries he deems worthy and can convince to come

we should upgrade the wurms equipment and levy some troops to garrison fort three roads, then head out to elven lands to recruit some sneaky ambushers and spellcrafters, stopping to have a chat with youthfangs contact

then we wait for cornius at righteousroot, with experienced bandits we go doin some banditry of our own on rebel lands, for the sake of recon, sabotage, and fun

Too much faff for my tastes. I'm still concerned with securing our lands and then gathering intel on how to defeat the rebels; wandering around rebel lands with a gaggle of elven mercenaries doesn't do much for the former and feels pretty lukewarm for the latter.

I'm on the fence about sending Cornius to Glacier. It'd be a good way to delegate, but I'm wary of sending a pragmatic bandit to bring around a pragmatic bandit. It'd also be nice to meet all of our commanders in person, although technically sending Cornius counts as such.

I like the idea of ending up at Righteousroot. I feel like I underestimated the value of a vampiric spy ring, so grabbing that favor and poking around our elven lands sounds nice.

[High tyrol]

Ptw

[Askot Bokbondeler]

i did suggest levyin some troops for fort three roads, disposing of treasonous underlings, and hirin mercenaries, you have a better suggestion to secure the kingdom that would preclude us from doin that?
doin some banditry on enemy lands, especially if we can do it without revealin ourselves, mite take the enemies mind off of an attack and get im preocupied with securin the land. it might also delay the work on the scary things they be buildin, but perhaps we shouldn't be doin it ourselves, sounds like somethin cornius would excel at.
still it's a plan we can discuss at righteousroot, when we meet up with cornius after his visit to fort glacier, then we'll be halfway to the fort as well if you still want to visit dreg dreg's, equiped with whatever intel cornius manages to bring back, and if he dont get good bandit mercenaries i'll vote to scrap me plan.

on our bargain with youthfangs:
disposin of a traitor is a big deal, don't forget we're dealin with a rebelion here, we should go the extra lenght to guarantee loyalty from our underlings. we oughta create a reputation of omniscience for ourselves, claim it as a mutation if possible, since no one knows of our relationship with the vampires.
plus we oughta value youthfangs advice, and not slight her by refusing her offers, though i dont mind haglin a bit. fo examlpe convincin youthfangs to give us the *proof* before we arrest anybody, before we actually have to do live up to our end of the bargain, so we can complain if this *treason* is something we don't really care about.

i don't trust tumuk very much either so i'd like to keep him close and butter im up with some simbolic rewards, like a prestigious position in his favoured family. i also would like to see how he reacts to our seductress(and iirc we have some potions to help with that), especially since she's aligned with the bluesheen it might help us deal with the feud.


also, i think turning the diplomats into vampires sounds like a great idea, we should ask youthfangs about the mechanics of the thing

[Kashyyk]

Problem is, if they don't trust us (or can get away with claiming as such) they can use that as an excuse instead. It is true that we may be taking sides; indeed, our advisors all strongly suggest it. Our knowledge of (pinkskin) court manners is also crap, unfortunately, which means we should turn both of them into vampires to make them easier to seduce and more likely to eat their own retinues might have difficulty getting them to budge even if they don't have any substantial objections.

If they are of the opinion we might kill them, or our soldiers would not be able to defend them with a 4:1 advantage, then they can go back home and explain to their master why they just persuaded the Orcs to ally with the enemy.

Or just disbar mages entirely. Assuming there's some way to tell. Alternatively, try to figure out some mage/elite fighter ratio, assume the elf will keep nothing but mages, and bloat the human's guard to compensate.

I don't see any particular reason to give ground, though, other than in an attempt to compensate for our abysmal surface court manners.

I'm not sure how powerful mages are in comparison to warriors, but if 5 mages can overpower 25 warriors that's even more reason to cut down on the number of highly strung elf mages running around our castle.

I like this idea for buttering up Youthfangs, but bear in mind that this doesn't actually gain us anything other than disposing of a traitor and making our vampire feel fancy. Since it'd cost a favor to find out about it, and then we'd gain a favor from fulfilling her request.

So I mean, I'm still for it, but it's not especially profitable.

Other problem: Suppose the treason is taking out our weak predecessor or smuggling elves. That'd be a little more ambiguous than funding the rebels or plotting our demise.

Maybe put the caveat that if the treason is worth the death penalty, she can have the pick of any Ashland noble, otherwise it's not really worth the favour.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

or dont put a caveat and renegotiate after the fact. a favour is not really a favour if its not really a favour, were not bound to comply if we dont like the deal, especially if we argue we need said proof to condemn youthfangs snack, and get it *before* we do anything we might regret. if youthfangs reveals herself to be an unereliable aly, we might as well find that out now rather than in a tighter situation

[Weirdsound]

Alright. Still not seeing much of a consensus on what the travel plans are. I've heard no mention of Fort Three-Roads, are we just skipping that and visiting the elves this turn?

[VoidSlayer]

We should get the evidence, we can use it for an arrest or blackmail.  The elf vampire is sure to listen to a skilled cave explorer so we should look into going to Righteousroot.

While we have Balk-Ma try and arrange weddings between the heirs of the feuding clans, with a promise to supply humans or elves in the upcoming war with weapons to get the feuding clans back into the green, we can go to Crossroads Pass, Growngold then on to Righteousroot and send Cornius to the fort of Upper Titan Pass.

Inform the diplomats that for now you will remain neutral in the dispute between the two empires until the rebellion is resolved.  This is a delicate balancing act between two empires...

For the bodyguard dispute, ask each side to reduce their forces by 20 soldiers to be replaced by an honor guard of your own orcish soldiers.  This way we don't back down from our desire to reduce their soldiers while keeping some of our own near them.  In time we can replace most of their guards with our own.

I wonder if we should see if we can recruit animal men to our cause, with lots of extra food we might be able to use them to supplement our garrisons.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

Alright. Still not seeing much of a consensus on what the travel plans are. I've heard no mention of Fort Three-Roads, are we just skipping that and visiting the elves this turn?

for imediate actions, my suggestiont would be to settle the matter of the treasonosus family with youthfangs, telling her she can have whoever goes down for it
send cornius to dreg dreg to tell him to keep bandits in a tighter leash and raise the toll on banditry, then cornius shall recruit some good ones and bring them to righteousroot where well meet up later.
in the mean time we recruit locals to garrisson three roads then set off to the fort