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[Powder Miner]

Actually, I'd say we just marry Tsunamia and keep Itializa around as a mistress, ensuring that both are informed of the arrangement. Less hassle that way. And means that we can practically dominate maritime trade to the point of monopoly.

Yeah, Taricus is thinking along the lines I am. Make a whoooole bunch of maritime cash.
(and also fulfill the thing karses and tsunamia have for each other hue hue ue)
I'll vote for bringing up that arrangement.

We could make money and friends as a pharaoh, but with smart usage of our provinces' resources and navy, we could make a hell of a killing as a maritime rulership, and I suspect we could make more since we wouldn't have a governor stepping on our feet. If we lose our title it could present secondary problems and prestige problems anyway.

[micelus]

Vote for team 'marry our sister'

[S34N1C]

I'm for marrying the sea witch/demon

[Weirdsound]

(Note: Everybody after IronyOwl was a ninja, so it was still a tie when I wrote this.)

Karses II, Friend of Caesar, Heir to the Loam Coast, and Descendant of the Divine Clay Elf Bloodline:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Condition: Fine

Holdings:
Cash Reserves (Aproximately 4.7% of Imperial Coin in Circulation)
29% of Total Shares in 'Sons of Caesar Trading Company'
45% of Voting Shares in 'Sons of Caesar Trading Company'

Mansion in the Heartland City of Portum
4 Docks in the City of Portum
Luxurious Apartment with the Imperial Palace
Country Home along the Imperial Highway
x19 Shops and Workshops (Scattered Across the Imperial Heartland)
x17 Vineyards and Plantations (Scattered Across the Known World)
x14 Mines (Mainly Precious Metals and Gems, Scattered Across the Known World)
x30 Imperial Merchantmen (Divided into two fleets)
'Wayward Clay' (Personal Flagship made from Enchanted Ceramic. Armed with two ballista and a crew of trained soldiers. Coming of age present from your father)

Traits:
Businesself
Networker
Negoiater
Public Speaker
Wealthy
Well Traveled
Greedy
Ambitious
Empathetic
Self Controlled
Living Legend (Civil Rights Icon, God Incarnate)

With a grin, you remind Tsunamia that most elves, including Acid Elves, hold you with high reguard, and inform her that you could likely get her into the shrine without bloodshed, or by turning another nearby clan against the one occupying it. "Of course, I need to know the details, before I can offer help..."

The Blue Witch licks her finger seductively, shakes her head, and sighs before deciding she trusts you enough to lay all her cards out on the table. The Shrine was actually discovered in the catacombs of Sandwalls, the capital city of Clearsun, the small 'independent' elfish civilization just south of the Loam Coast. You know a bit about the place. Like most inland civilization on the Southern Continent, Clearsun is devoted to producing luxury goods, in this case glass, for its Acid Elf 'protectors'. The King of Clearsun, Afrott the Demon Hunter, is an acquaintance of yours via correspondence and a fan of your good work, but you have never met him personally. Like most neighbors of the Loam Coast, he is considered an enemy of your people.

According Tsunamia, Afrott believes the shrine is being used to seal away some sort of monster, likely a demon or dragon from when the world was young. As such, the King of Clearsun adamantly refuses to let anybody even approach it for fear of releasing a great evil onto the world. Tsunamia tells you that if Afrott is correct, and the shrine is sealing something, the runes on it should yield a means of controlling, destroying, or at least resealing that creature with some study. Even if said sealed being doesn't exist, or is far to dangerous to consider releasing, Tsunamia says other runes on the shrine will be worth exploring.

"A rune is as much a scar on reality itself, usually created by the birth, death, or containment of a mighty being, as it is a form of language. Some are of little use, but others can reshape reality in one's favor when worn or spoken by somebody of the right blood or training." She laughs, and rubs a glowing tattoo on her right breast with her left index finger. "This one, given to the world by my father's birth, ensures that I can never be killed aboard a seaborne vessel that I command. The one I'm receiving right now will allow me to assume the form of an Orca. Most divine magic, including that of both the imperial humans and clay elves, consists mainly of runes given by the gods, so old that their written form is forgotten."

The Blue Witch offers a demonic grin. "So clearly a whole shrine of as-of-yet undiscovered runes presents an amazing opprotunity. The lives of every sailor in my fleet, acid elf protector of the city, and citizen of Sandwalls would be a small price to pay for somebody of my skills to gain access... Of course, I would be more than happy to not dash my men against the acid mist and city walls if I could win the shrine another way..."

You nod and frown. You know what horrors Tsunamia and her men are capable of, and the thought of them even marching through your province to reach Clearsun frightens you a bit. You probably should not leave her to her own devices on this matter. After a bit of thought you decide to lay your cards on the table as well. You inform her that Caesar intends to make you both Pharaoh and Governor of the Loam Coast, that Xamut the younger will be safe if you find him before Caesar does, that before you take up your new office you intend to break up Kailine's cloth monopoly, and that you wish to forge some sort of alliance with the Blue Witch, perhaps even marriage, as you both respect her talents and desire her beauty.

Tsunamia falls silent for a good long moment, taking in all you have said. She agrees to contact your brother for you, as a favor to a friend, and asks you to return to your ship for about an hour so that she may finish getting her tattoo and prepare herself for negotiations.

---

Negotiations between yourself and Tsunamia always take place over a nice meal and rousing evening of lovemaking. You are sort of glad that stakes are so high tonight, as this causes the negotiations last longer. Eventually the two of you come up with a few ideas on how both of you may profit from the situation, which you begin to discuss and refine under the stars and over a glass of fine wine on the deck of Wayward Clay.

Tsunamia has been looking to make your her husband for years, and there are some clear advantages to that arrangement. Such a union would likely diffuse tensions up north between her father and Caesar Menas who raised you. The Blue Witch suggests the dowery from her father and wedding gifts from his vassals would likely take the form of warships, and would go a long way toward mending the Navy of the Loam Coast. Tsunamia suggests arranging for your investors and her fleet to tackle the monopoly, before setting off for the north seas as soon as possible to reunite you with your brother and ask her father to give his blessing to the union. Once the pair of you come into power, you can look into ways to gain Tsunamia access to the shrine, and she in turn, as your queen, will employ the fruit of her research to benefit your shared interests. Tsunamia covets your property, so she would have to be your wife under imperial law, but she would not object to you marrying a sister as well, per the customs of the Loam Coast.

The other way Tsunamia could see herself aligning with you is through a marriage to your brother Xamut V, who has been seeking her hand as well. Tsunamia suspects the younger Xamut is more interested in her father's support and protection than he is in her, but she doubts either party would mind being married to the other. Her marriage to the disgraced son of a defeated Pharaoh would be less significant than a union with Caesar's filthy rich, world famous, godking stepchild, so there would be a much smaller dowry and bounty of gifts, but the basic idea of alliance would still remain. In this situation, Tsunamia would likely give her ships to her husband for at least a time, and would serve as your court mage until she has gained access to the runes and studied them to her satisfaction. You have no doubt Xamut V would break up the monopoly with the ruthless efficiency of a career seadog.

Even if you do not formalize some sort of long term alliance, Tsunamia still trusts you deeply as a friend and client. If you give your word that you will help her gain access to the shrine once you establish yourself as Pharaoh, she will cancel her campaign and handle the monopoly at once, charging only her usual raiding price.

Tsunamia also observes that now might be a good time to just cash out on your investments and not even worry about the monopoly. She points out that your big advantage of being the only merchant whose fleets Pharaoh Xamut would not attack is now gone, and that as a governor you might not have time to manage your business empire. The Blue Witch offers to secure a loan from her father, and buy all your stock in the Sons of Caesar Trading Company in exchange for enough raw materials, food, medicine, and tools to rebuild your small wartorn province, as well as enough coin to give your treasury a head start. You would of course be allowed to keep your personal ships, plantations, mines, and the shops you own in the Heartland. Tsunamia would then spend some time asserting herself as leader of the company, you would establish yourself as Pharaoh, and the pair of you would revisit the issue of the Shrine at some point down the road.

You are struck by a sudden bout of inspiration, and lean in close to whisper something in the Sea Witch's ear. Perhaps you just got a better idea... or perhaps you just want to settle the matter by agreeing to one of the above arrangements, and celebrate the new deal with another trip to the bedchamber.

[Powder Miner]

Giving up the business empire isn't nearly as fun -- and since I wanted to anyway, let's marry Tsunamia.
This has the secondary benefit of letting her step in and help manage the business as needed.

[micelus]

Well, as much as I like Egyptian elven incest, marrying Tsunamia might be a good idea right now...But I'd rather not decide until we get our governorship. Voting for no marriage just yet.

Tempted to just slaughter the Acid Elves. Sandwalls is directly south of our holdings and with a little show of force, we could march and prop up ourselves as 'liberators'. Now, Clay Elf masters instead of Acid Elf isn't too much of a change nor would it be practical since our country is in ruins.

What I suggest is that we open up negotiations with the Acid Elves with a standard offering of luxury goods, courtesy of our trading company. We could spin this as part of our goodwill tour of the Eastern Provinces and simply ask that we be allowed to see the shrine. Its simply a matter of curiosity. Just a thing Imperials do. We should request that Tsunamia also teach us about these runes.

After we get whatever info we can get from the shrine, and after we rebuild our country, we could begin plotting with Afrott to relieve his country of the Acid Elves, on the condition that Afrott opens up  their country for trade, as well as a preferential trading relationship with us. 'Us' referring to our trading company, rather than the nation as a whole.

For now however, we should really just send off Tsunamia to find our brother and ask him to meet up in the Loam Coast so that we can begin rebuilding the nation. We ourselves should go and deal with the monopoly. As useful as Tsunamia's aid would be, its best not to sully our reputation so soon. Best not be seen as another Pirate Pharaoh like our father.

Also. regardless if we marry them, we should consider making Itializa and Xami stewards for our trading company. With Xami's theoretical knowledge and Itializa's on-hand knowledge, they should be able to manage the company while we're busy pharaohing. Of course, we'll have to help them through it.

Question: How rare/expensive is glass in the empire? Is Sandwall's glass any better than glass found elsewhere? How much clay do they have?

[Taricus]

Yeah, honestly Tsunamia is the best bet. Let's marry Tsunamia. While we may be seen as going a little piratical, given that it's not likely directed at the empire they aren't gonna be too caring of it.

[Lord_lemonpie]

+1 for Tsunamia

[Weirdsound]

Question: How rare/expensive is glass in the empire? Is Sandwall's glass any better than glass found elsewhere? How much clay do they have?

Loam Coast sits near the northeast corner of the Southern Continent, which lacks deposits of militarily useful metals. Aside from the coastal areas (which can trade for metal gear), the remote Demonic Jungle (controlled by demons and monsters), and the mineral rich Continental Kingdoms on and around the southern cape, the continent is controlled by the Acid Elves, a warrior race with amazing biology which allows them to dominate with primitive weapons.

Acid Elves require an amazingly small amount of food and water to survive, and can sustain large nomadic populations with primitive hunting and fishing. They usually fight amoungst themselves for control of small, mineral deficient, but otherwise advanced civilizations such as Clearsun. They can be a serious threat to well armed places in large numbers, but the clans get along poorly most of the time unless united against outside aggressors, so they are usually just ignored by the neighbors who are too strong to be intimidated by a small handful of clans.

Most glass in the empire is made in Acid Elf Territory, but not necessarily Clearsun. To get their hands on luxury goods made by Acid Elf 'Vassals', merchants must usually visit the trade ports on the central east coast of the continent. These towns, crawling with imperial outlaws, pirates, and petty demon lords, are crazy enough to legalize the act of selling metal gear to the Acid Elf Savages in exchange for their various treasures. The journey to reach these ports and bring back their luxury goods is called the Port Pluto Trade Route. Said Route is infested with pirates and other such scum, so few captains are entrusted enough by investors to make the journey. Needless to say, such goods are not sold at a low price once they arrive safely.

Your company has a handful Captains skilled enough to make the Port Pluto run, including your sister Itializa, and last year accounted for about twenty percent of successful Port Pluto runs completed under the imperial flag. If the Loam Coast started obtaining and exporting large amounts of luxury goods directly to the Imperial Heartland, said goods would go down in price, and that could hurt Sons of Caesar Trading Company if proper precautions are not taken.

[IronyOwl]

I agree that giving up the business empire, while arguably a good idea, isn't nearly as fun. It also risks bottling us up into our own province, which can be less useful than having a weak grip in a variety of areas.

I'll throw in for the losing no marriage yet option. Tsunamia's tempting, but I'm still concerned about our affairs at home. Notably, if we Imperial Marry Tsunamia and Clay Elf Marry Xami, we'd be setting up half of our children to stand for Governorship and the other to become Pharaoh. This is hardly catastrophic, but slightly less good than maintaining both positions in the same individual.


For Clearsun, I think we should plan for a lengthy trip to talk things over with the king. I don't doubt his resolve to keeping the world from harm, but with our sterling pro-elf reputation, he might be willing to believe that we'd never allow the elves of the world to come to harm. As micelus mentioned, we might also be able to orchestrate a changing of hands regarding Clearsun's Acid Elf masters, which could sweeten the deal. And, of course, meeting with our Acid Elf neighbors might be beneficial.

This is all probably long term, though. We'll likely want to deal with the monopoly first, if only so we'll have a more secure economic base to barter with the King (or accomplish whatever vile things we'd need to do if he won't play ball).


I'm fine with promising to help Tsunamia once we become Pharaoh, and to be honest we probably should (if we're not marrying her outright) so she has something to do other than turn Sandwalls into a demonic abattoir. I mean, that'd be super cool, don't get me wrong, but it might look better if we talk it over with the king instead.

I'd rather handle the monopoly peacefully, but a bored demonic witch is a dangerous demonic witch, and our investors will almost assuredly nod vigorously when we suggest "just stabbing them?" anyway.

[crazyabe]

+1 for Tsunamia

^

[micelus]

While we may be seen as going a little piratical, given that it's not likely directed at the empire they aren't gonna be too caring of it.

I was thinking more about what the other elven city states would think about it, seeing as they've been on the receiving end of the Loam Coast's aggressive tendencies.

[Powder Miner]

I think they're likely to be fine with it as long as we're not actually attacking any other nations. Piracy doesn't strike me as overly uncommon here.

[VoidSlayer]

If we marry Tsunamia we can have our twin brother marry one of our sisters, then our heir could marry one of his daughters or something?

If Tsunamia is in charge of the trading company, our brother is in charge of our navy and we are married to Tsunamia we can still use some influence in the trading company I guess.

We should promise Tsunamia that we will help her get to study the temple and either marry us or our brother once we assume the Pharaoh/governorship.  Keeps options open while tying us to her.  We should see about the other options we have before making a final decision.

Either way we will still have some influence through the trading company even if she owns it, so I think getting enough stuff to rebuild the wartorn nation would be the best idea.

Cash out, as long as Tsunamia is the new owner of the trading company for the foreseeable future.

[micelus]

I think they're likely to be fine with it as long as we're not actually attacking any other nations. Piracy doesn't strike me as overly uncommon here.

...But that's exactly what we're planning to do with Tsunamia?

Tsunamia is offering to go and break up Kailine's monopoly violently. Keep in mind that many of her employees will likely be connected to the Bronzespear government in some way, just as ours is related to the empire. Violently ending her monopoly will rile up bad blood between us and Bronzespear. Keep in mind that the other elves hated the Loam Hills due to their raids/piracy. That said, I don't fear fighting them at all because we have the backing of the empire with us and we could easily defeat them.

Its the repercussions of such an action that make me pause. We'd be seen as a pampered imperial governor who is willing to make use of imperial power to further their own gains. This is tolerable only if we allow the empire to invade Bronzespear so that they cannot pose a further threat. Simply leaving Kailine to recover her strength will lead to problems later on, especially with her status as a royal.

Which is why I recommend we defeat her peacefully without raiding. This way we can at least maintain our reputation and maintain the goodwill of Bronzespear.

Also I really don't see the difference between our dad's raids and our planned raids. Care to enlighten me :?

If we marry Tsunamia we can have our twin brother marry one of our sisters, then our heir could marry one of his daughters or something?

If Tsunamia is in charge of the trading company, our brother is in charge of our navy and we are married to Tsunamia we can still use some influence in the trading company I guess.

We should promise Tsunamia that we will help her get to study the temple and either marry us or our brother once we assume the Pharaoh/governorship.  Keeps options open while tying us to her.  We should see about the other options we have before making a final decision.

Either way we will still have some influence through the trading company even if she owns it, so I think getting enough stuff to rebuild the wartorn nation would be the best idea.

Cash out, as long as Tsunamia is the new owner of the trading company for the foreseeable future.

We must definitely NOT let our brother marry our sister. We're basically asking him to dethrone us if we do. Think about it. To a Clay Elf, Divine+Divine=REALLY Divine. He (or his kid) will have a waaaay better traditional claim to the Pharaohship than us and I doubt Xamut is going to be all nice to us just because we're related. I mean, we were raised/appointed by Ceaser himself. Sure, the heir by birth is us, but I doubt that would matter much if Xamut is able to do the 'right thing' by Clay Elf standards in contrast to their wayward brother.

Also, a wee bit suspicious about Tsunamia offering to buy our company. She raises a good point, but she is also just as greedy/ambitious as us and she clearly sees a profit in our trading company. I wouldn't put it above her to lie or make the situation seem worse than it is so that she can get empower herself.