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[Taricus]

Don't we have the elf druid still? We can always use them as the teacher for the sphinx if that's the case.

At any rate I'd support handing Zit over for Titan. Between titan being friggen 13 foot tall, encased in steel and coming with his own mount (Which is likely to be pretty damn large too.) makes him a VERY potent addition to the pack. Add in the fact that he practically dooms any competition for the position of alpha male thus making the pack that little bit more stable.

[Chevaleresse]

We. . . really can't use the druid as a teacher. She's vehemently not on our side and doesn't seem to be showing any inclination toward changing her mind.

[Taricus]

Oh, well. Ah we can get another teacher later, there's a lot more druids that 13 foot tall gnolls after all.

[hachnslay]

On Elvish Druids

We. . . really can't use the druid as a teacher. She's vehemently not on our side and doesn't seem to be showing any inclination toward changing her mind.

You mean the one that was:

Glowshine explains that she noticed the bride had looked curious, so she gave her mate permission to seduce the elf, and the pair had wandered up the canyon thirty minutes ago.

Maybe we CAN talk her into joining the Pack.
Simply give her a choice - either she joins or she gets sold for experimentation, which might be a fate worse than death.
Right now tell Hyena that it would depend on being able to talk to an other druid, currently being kept drugged - female - and her willingness to join a gnoll pack, which you expect to be uncharacteristically high.
I recall that there is a brew that can keep her powers down - for negotiating. If she can teach our writhewomb and swears allegiance to the pack (can elves and gnoll breed? if so discuss her becoming an exotic gamma with the other betas), given that we are weeks away underground and her chances of survival without the pack are low, she is in. (edit - even if she doesn't teach writhewomb having some outlet for the hyenas, while all three betas will be tired from childbirth is really useful.)


On Breeding Partners
How do souls influence the breeding potential and could we use the same spell he used to possess the next alpha female we nurse - far beyond what would be reasonable? Potential immortality right there, with incrementally more powerful generations...
Also - the wizard probably speaks human and at least some other languages.

[Taricus]

I'd argue against picking the other two as an alpha due to the possible likelyhood as to challenges for the position; Titan basically renders all those moot and we could likely purchase the others (At high cost) at a later date.

[IronyOwl]

While you and the rest of the gnolls gorge yourselves on and roll around in the corpse

STILL CUTE

dinosaur riding paladin

Wow, this guy does not fuck around on his seduction checks.


Route
Euuuuuggghhh. Now I want to stay at Dinofang even more. I'll leave it to others to decide how we're getting home, if we're still getting home.

Offer
I'm against it, but in favor of counteroffering to link us with Brontosaur some other way.

For starters, we need Zit to train Writhewomb. Yes, it is physically possible to find a druid elsewhere, but not likely or easy. Remember, Zit is a druid because he's an alpha (or vice versa); if we're replacing our alpha, now our druid has to be a beta or common gnoll. Neither of those is likely to happen in the first place, and it's even less likely that we'll convince them to join our pack. Even if we can, it's likely to take a while, which means Writhewomb will be without a teacher for a long while. And if they're of lower quality than Zit, Writhewomb's training might suffer proportionately; we really don't want our unnatural hybrid generator to be second rate.

Titan is super, super tempting, but remember that Zit and the elf druid are supposedly on par with each other, and the elf druid is massively valuable and dangerous. The odds of the elf druid turning are there, but low; at a bare minimum, we'd want to wait until she did to agree. Even then, the jump in power from Zit to one of the others would not be nearly as severe as you might think.

Finally, there's the issue of selling a pack member for gain. That seems like a bad habit to get into, especially so soon after they joined up.

Counteroffer
Okay, so. Lord Hyena wants to get in buddy-buddy with us, we want to get in buddy-buddy with him. This looks like the start of a beautiful relationship, but he understandably wants a way to make it more intimate than "we both probably want the same thing."

So I say we accept his offer to sleep on it a bit; we're going to be here a while waiting for Silentkiss to return, so we should have a bit to come up with a way to intertwine ourselves with House Brontosaur without giving up an essential packmate. It'll also be a while before we make any major moves, so we've got plenty of time before it becomes super important.

For initial ideas:

The most obvious solution is interbreeding, but all of our females are spoken for, goblins are male only, and most of them have no sex drive. Crap. We should at least ask if that'd suffice in case a particularly randy specimen is available when our betas are less busy.

Silentkiss has a lot of daughters and at least one of them is a chimeric nightmare. She might be able to spawn things blended well enough between Wicked Song and Brontosaur to bring us together. And throw in some chitinous horror while she's at it. _{sorceror scorpion gnollblins yes yes yes}

Writhewomb, if she counts as one of us, might be able to create goblish sphinxes once she comes online. While not my first choice of "pick any two life forms", it would probably be a fairly unique gift/binding agent.

Unorthodox: Brontosaur is a military house and has interest in taking over a place famous for its ravenous ants. They probably have some mount/war animal potential already. If it's not too saturated, and if we could get Silentkiss on board, we might be able to engineer some sort of horrifyingly dangerous beast _{sorceror scorpion anythings yes yes yes} for Wicked Song and Brontosaur to become the source and only known keepers of. Bonus if we're the one who trains them how to handle said beasties, as we're likely quite a bit more talented in that field than any but their finest beastmasters, if that.

How do souls influence the breeding potential

This is a good question.

could we use the same spell he used to possess the next alpha female we nurse - far beyond what would be reasonable? Potential immortality right there, with incrementally more powerful generations...

Bear in mind that the spell "drained his vast human fortune." We'd probably need a truly excessive amount of material wealth to pull it off once, let alone as an infinite cycle.

[10ebbor10]

Well, this certainly is a hard and interesting decision.

[hachnslay]

Well, this certainly is a hard and interesting decision.

Most of all it is a decision we don't need to make yet. Drug the Elvish Druid with the drug that would render her powers useless. Interview her.
Just getting rid of the git zit should be possible after all:

Inbreeding is a technique used in selective breeding. In livestock breeding, breeders may use inbreeding when, for example, trying to establish a new and desirable trait in the stock, but will need to watch for undesirable characteristics in offspring, which can then be eliminated through further selective breeding or culling.

how wrong would it be to use gorgtooth as an emergency alpha? are alphas irreplaceable unless beaten in battle?
Right now he looks like the most valuable male, unless druidism is genetic. if he is calling for a girlchild and sending him off  at a later point would be useful.

[Eric Blank]

I vote for keeping Zit. We can offer Hyena other victims for his seeders, such as our elf, who Cra-Crawlers' prophecy told us was approximately equal in power to Zit. If he'll accept her as tribute, that's an equally fine way to win favor with the House. Getting three captive elves together with Writhewomb, one of them a powerful druid and potential bad influence and leaving only Glowshine able to communicate with her, could create a situation where the elves and Writhewomb can overpower and kill or enslave us. No matter how much they swear allegiance, we captured them, ruined the wedding, sold half their friends into slavery and killed two more. That's bad blood enough.

If Hyena is willing to trade strong druids for strong alphas, we can potentially capture another.

However, gaining some more pack members and equipment sounds like an excellent proposition.

[Weirdsound]

Alright. Have an Infodump/Mini Turn:

Keeping your head around all the hideous males being offered is a rough task, but you are eventually able to clear your thoughts, and ask if he might be willing to trade one of the three gnolls for the elfish bride, who is also a druid. Hyena agrees to that deal, druidism is one of several skills required to become a seeder, so your prisoner would meet his practical needs. He notes, however, that this deal would not build the strong bond he wants between House Brontosaur and The Wicked Song. Hyena seems intent on securing this sort of relationship sooner rather than later, and quickly offers a few ideas on how this can be accomplished.

He has a few ideas that come with no material cost, but each has their downsides. The quickest method would be to adopt you directly into House Brontosaur, as goblin high society is open to members of other races. You would be given some autonomous position in Hyena's court, but Hyena admits that while he would let you do as you please so long as it serves his interests, there are people in the family above you who could pull rank and order you around if you join. You would also be an official citizen of the Rebel Goblin nation, and expected to pay taxes and follow what few laws they have.

In a similar vein, Hyena could make you his concubine, an arrangement that would secure an intimate bond between your pack and his family, while subjecting you to none of the responsibilities of citizenship. This deal however might reflect poorly on you in the eyes of other gnolls, however, as the Alpha Female is a living goddess, not some bugbear's bitch.

If you are not interested in personally involving yourself with House Brontosaur, Hyena has a few other ideas. The Bugbear informs you that he would take the famed Cra-Crawler in your place for either of the above arrangements, although in that case he would like to send her to one of the academies in town for a year or so to ensure that she favors the 'proper' rebel gods.

While on the topic of your beta-females, Hyena also proposes an arrangement where you might leave one of them with him to mate with the slaves at his plantation until a Girlchild, that you would likely otherwise be expected to cull, is produced. Infants are typically useless for seeding, but he could mix a girlchild or two into a future batch of goblins for House Brontosaur just for the sake of gaining a blood connection to The Wicked Song.

Lastly your host offers to trade two of impressive males for the bride and a notable pack member of your choice. He wants to commission the creation of a seeder for Mastiff Nest soon as they will take five or six years to grow and train, and informs you that adding your pack to that particular seeding is the best way to ensure its connection to your childhood home, but he doesn't want to put some scrawny insignificant gnoll into such an important batch of offspring.

You, of course, have still not completely ruled out the idea of selling Zit, and allow yourself to consider the possibility making Gorgtooth your alpha. A gift sibling is not a blood relative, but a gnoll born specifically so that the Alpha might nurse a chosen girlchild. You suspect at least half of the alpha females out there with living gift brothers use one as their alpha, and some packs even split the duties of Alpha Male among all the cheiftesses gift brothers. Gorgtooth has the skills and attributes to fill the role nicely, but you would be a bit weary of giving the title to somebody with obligations outside the pack (and Gorgtooth is now a rebel officers), as although you trust him, others might question the call. The thought of Gorgtooth in power is also scary in some ways; He is stubborn as he is devoted and stupid. Once Gorgtooth gets it in his head that something is in your best interests, convincing him otherwise is like trying to explain to a furry cave beast that you would prefer not to have your leg humped.

Your mind also drifts off on the tangent of using body-swapping magic to become immortal and gain stronger and stronger bodies as the generations go by. You don't know enough about magic to determine how feasible it is, but you suspect that the nature of gnollish magic resistance means the ritual would be much harder to preform between two gnolls than it would be between a gnoll and a human.

[IronyOwl]

I'm still in favor of waiting until we've interviewed the druid to decide anything. We have at least until Silentkiss gets back for that, and she might have additional insight/offers that could color our future decisions.


For the offers as they stand, getting adopted into House Brontosaur sounds like the cleanest. It might subject us to the occasional fetch quest, but probably nothing we couldn't/wouldn't be willing to handle. Following goblin laws sounds easy, though paying taxes would be unfortunate. I think I'd still prefer to remain an entirely free agent, however.

I'm opposed to becoming a concubine for status reasons. We are indeed a living goddess, not some bugbear's bitch. Even if he is one of the ugliest and most charming abominations in the city.

I dislike most of the offers to part with a pack member. Like I said earlier, selling off packmates strikes me as poor practice, even if it's for reeducation to gods she doesn't like rather than being broken down into goblings.

The one exception is girlchilds. Hyena doesn't know our pack is knocked up already (or will be before we've left the city), so in another few months we'll have some dogelings to work with. If some of those are observably low-quality females, we could part with them on the spot or after a fairly short nursing period.

[Arcvasti]

I'm still in favor of waiting until we've interviewed the druid to decide anything. We have at least until Silentkiss gets back for that, and she might have additional insight/offers that could color our future decisions.


For the offers as they stand, getting adopted into House Brontosaur sounds like the cleanest. It might subject us to the occasional fetch quest, but probably nothing we couldn't/wouldn't be willing to handle. Following goblin laws sounds easy, though paying taxes would be unfortunate. I think I'd still prefer to remain an entirely free agent, however.

I'm opposed to becoming a concubine for status reasons. We are indeed a living goddess, not some bugbear's bitch. Even if he is one of the ugliest and most charming abominations in the city.

I dislike most of the offers to part with a pack member. Like I said earlier, selling off packmates strikes me as poor practice, even if it's for reeducation to gods she doesn't like rather than being broken down into goblings.

The one exception is girlchilds. Hyena doesn't know our pack is knocked up already (or will be before we've left the city), so in another few months we'll have some dogelings to work with. If some of those are observably low-quality females, we could part with them on the spot or after a fairly short nursing period.

+1 to this. No selling pack members. Especially not Cra-Crawly, who is terrifying.

[Taricus]

Trading off a packmate for a political or material advantage I'd presume is at least acceptable in gnollish culture. And gien that it means we aren't beholden to pay taxes or anything like that makes it effectively the best option we have.

[Eric Blank]

Offer a girl child or three. Being a member of the house doesn't sound like a good way to stay in business, and selling one of our most valuable assets or ourselves does not sound appealing either. There will be kids running amok soon enough, though.

[hachnslay]

Ok, while i dislike the git's attitude having one Druid in the Pack is really useful.
If the elf can become that she might be easily controllable as a beta. Are there roles below the betas, like gammas, to make sure none of the current betas are offended, or would a druid be of high enough status to be called a beta?
The Elf was interested in a gnoll. Maybe she even has distant gnoll blood?

 Ask glowshine and cra-craw if it is possible and how to best approach adding her to the pack.

Interrogate the elf first before making a decision about the future of any druid. If she is easier to handle than git by all means let her join the pack. She might argue that the two elves should not be kept as pets, so we need to reinforce her sense of belonging with the pack before that.

Maybe tell her " You might have distant gnoll relatives, your instincts kicked in when you saw the one you went to the cliffs with. Why not join, you will not forget the gnolls, and this might be where you belong." Maybe slip her a little aphrodisiac through the food and let her have some fun with our gnolls after that?

Also - defining the roles of each beta.
Echo - she is our scout and our cook. Let her feel more valuable by managing food supplies with glowshine - to raise morale even further?
Glowshine - Medic, Drugdealer and merchant / negotiator - many roles for the one that really desires praise.
Cra-Crawler - Local Priestess and Oracle - ask about necromancy talent for some potential cheap guards. Bones of the enemies turned to skeleton guards maybe? We need to stop eating bones as soon as we arrive at the home, though.