Feudal Quest

Not really: Our aunt believes that Chesna has had no influence on Dita, for example, when she clearly had a lot. Likewise, Dita's awe of a Khersian potential Saint goes against what our Aunt believes.

Given Nikolai actually curtailed the efforts to see what was happening with Dita (refused tests) while our Aunt believe/say the opposite it telling.

It shows Nikolai has no qualm lying and acting against the family.

EDIT:

the whole point of the thing is not to try to convince Gavrilla that Dita is perfectly innocent or sane or whatever, but to try to convince Gavrilla to give us a chance to redeem her- to convince her that she might have been lied to by the people supposed to be looking after Dita, and that things might not be, as dire, for Dita, as she believed.

 

You don't know. You never got around to spending time trying to get her to open up to you, so you don't have a good feel for how she'll react. The training action you have scheduled for this turn should help some with that, but it hasn't happened yet.

Well, in order to make sure the family doesn't lose Verzi she'd need to marry someone trustworthy first. But once that's done it would actually be a nice solution. As long as she's out of the kingdom she isn't going to embarass the family, and as long as you can plausibly claim that she's still alive and in contact with you her relatives can't try to claim the barony. You could easily keep that going for 5-10 years before the question of children becomes urgent, and by then the king will be dead and your family will have either won or lost the fight for the crown.

If it was that easy Pavel and Baron Kiscun would have done it. Unfortunately the tradition is that blood heirs come before adopted children, so Dita's relatives would have a stronger claim in that case.

According to Kat, Inovia isn't worshipped in Egypt at all. She's known to scholars as an elven goddess of valorous womanhood, or something along those lines - elven culture is so complex it would take more than a human lifetime of study to really understand it. But while elves are strange and alien people, they're generally considered inscrutabe and wise rather than crazy.

In her personal opinion Inovia herself is probably quite sane, The stress of such an intense empowerment effect probably does warp the minds of her Chosen a bit, but she thinks cavalierly dismissing them as 'crazy' the way the Khersian church does is the height of arrogance. As she puts it, "an Oracle who's a bit unhinged by the intensity of her own visions is someone you should listen to carefully, not dismiss out of hand."

Well, the fact that Dita ran off is certainly evidence that whatever influence Chesna may have had on her wasn't enough.

I'm going to assume that Dominic is considerably more delicate in his phrasing than you were here, which is a good thing because the picture isn't nearly so clear-cut. Your grandfather has been paying the witch hunters to "take care of" Dita for several years, which basically translates to "try to get rid of that nasty magic and make her a normal girl". About a year ago Ezti tried to convince them to consult with a priestess of Inovia about Dita's condition, but of course they couldn't find one. Not that they would be likely to actually trust one in any event.

As for the business with Chesna's debut, Gavrilla suspects that Pavel had given Nikolai orders to delay that for some reason. She just doesn't have any patience for her brother's 'stupid overcomplicated schemes', especially when they interfere with her own alliance-building efforts. Whether that's true or not, she doesn't seem inclined to actually suspect him of any wrongdoing.

Gavrilla is a bit dubious about this at first, but she becomes considerably more open to the idea once you finish discussing your various adventures and magical resources with her. She is rather impressed with the level of sorcery that you have mastered, and even more impressed that you have an actual Egyptian wizard working for you. It's always better to have an expert on magic in the family rather than relying on outsiders (who have an unfortunate tendency to talk about things you'd rather they keep quiet about).

Of course, the final decision would be your grandfather's. But you get the feeling that Gavrilla isn't happy with the current situation, and if you can come up with a proposal that she thinks is likely to work she may very well back it. The question is, what exactly do you want to propose?

You haven't actually spoken with him about this topic, so you don't know exactly how hard it would be. But you're getting the impression that it would be possible to establish yourself as the new family expert on magic. If you can accomplish that, then he might very well listen to your proposals as long as it looks like they're going to get him what he wants.

If you were going to go that route, the smart move would be to marry Dita yourself and become the baron of Verzi. Then you marry Kat (as a second wife) while you're down in Egypt crusading, and harem route is a go…

 

There are other ways to get a harem as a feudal lord, right?

 

Yeah, marry an very weak noblewoman and gather up a bunch of peasants and you're good to go. If you actually want to marry more than one person though, feudal lord is not the choice for you.

Anyway in regards to marriage I've a question, is there any magical significance to the act like there is to claiming your lands?

Also considering the king has extremely strong regency magic is the fact he's gone senile like he has suspicious at all, or is that just something regency can't really counter?

Finally, it seems like the families position may be somewhat less hardened against Dita than I was originally thinking, so I'm a bit more ambivalent bout what course of action to take. I'm not sure we could sell a marriage to Dita considering she's a lesbian and she has the whole destined bond thing going on. Perhaps if it doesn't have to be consummated she wouldn't mind as much? Either way the tone being taken now makes it seem more possible for us to put things into a holding pattern for a few months and trying to push some version of a plan to Dita while greeting her to open up to us, while also buffing up our knowledge of magic to seem more impressive for a future meeting with our grandfather.

 

Pretty much. With enough Charm you might convince a group of noblewomen to share you, but you wouldn't be able to marry more than one.

Yes. Spouses can share regency (and regency powers). It also creates a connection that could theoretically be used for things like sharing magical buffs or casting spells on each other from a distance, although doing anything with that would take some significant research.

He's old enough that it's probably just age. Regency doesn't increase your lifespan unless you put the buff into Body, and even then the effect isn't very big. For real life extension you need something high-end wizardry or sophisticated flesh sorcery.

 

Huh... How was our families relationship with the crown before this sequence of events? Because if we could manage to swing a recovery, even if it's only temporary, to the king that seems like it could end up being rather lucrative indeed. Obviously it would mean we'd lose out on the chance to become regents but that's not even certain right now anyway.

 

This does seem like the most interesting choice, and would greatly help with the Sorcerer Lord route and having our own coterie, if we were the family's expert on magic.

[X] Tell her about your magic and your dealings with the Chosen, and see what she has to say about.
[X] Trying to con your way into becoming a co-conspirator in whatever is going on here.
[X]Sorcerer-Lord Route.
By that, i mean the Feudal Lord Route while also being our Family's expert on magic, having our own coterie, all of this.

Are we supposed to be answer that right now, or do we have a couple months/years worth of updates to try and come up with a proposal?

 

Screw it might as well change my vote to:

[X] Hero route

Just to get that harem.

 

[X] Hero route

 

You are aware that when it comes down to it, having a wife and a few mistresses is very much the same thing, except that Berjorian don't hate you, your childen don't kill each others, and you don't presumably get witch-hunts sent after you by the church?

The most effective 'harem' route is to marry only one woman and have a posse of loyal mistresses.

 

True but leveling up skills might be easier in this route. Then again feudal lord route seems winning here.

 

[X] Tell her about your magic and your dealings with the Chosen, and see what she has to say about.
[X] Trying to con your way into becoming a co-conspirator in whatever is going on here.
[X]Sorcerer-Lord Route.
By that, i mean the Feudal Lord Route while also being our Family's expert on magic, having our own coterie, all of this.

 

Actually... have we mentioned to Gavrilla that the Chosen is calling Dita their Priestess? Cause this might be a rather big thing as far as religious problems go.

 

Damn it.

I am now seriously tempted to go with Dominic marrying Dita, going crusading and snagging Kat

 

Why are we voting on routes, a vote wasn't called for.
That kind of thing is decided by the actions you take, not some arbitrary routelock.

anyway
[] Tell her about your magic and your dealings with the Chosen, and see what she has to say about.
[] Trying to con your way into becoming a co-conspirator in whatever is going on here.
[] Fedual

Better use that charm and +1 Soul from land magic for something. Family magic expert HO

 

Same here... But I'll still stay on the Feudal Lord /w several mistresses role...

 

Certain plans are so much easier with mistresses than actual wives-harem, too.
Not that i endorse them or anything.
But who doesn't want scores of wizard/hero bastards for our glorious eugenics programs dynasty?

 

[X] Tell her about your magic and your dealings with the Chosen, and see what she has to say about.
[X] Trying to con your way into becoming a co-conspirator in whatever is going on here.
[X]Sorcerer-Lord Route.
By that, i mean the Feudal Lord Route while also being our Family's expert on magic, having our own coterie, all of this

 

Point, make that [X]Plan Sorceror-Lord.
It's not as if I cared about marriages in here.

Btw, is there a quote notification system around here?

 

@ShaperV

Given the 3-4 topics being voted on maybe a post with Dominic listing both known facts and also reasonable assumptions he can run with under the 3 main paths he can take (Hero, Feudal, Sorcerer) Lord

Aka under Hero: Quite possible to marry Dita then marry Kat in Egypt

Also

How does Dita being a Priestess run into typical expectations in country (mostly thinking of how the priesthood are not ruling nobles)

 

[X] Tell her about your magic and your dealings with the Chosen, and see what she has to say about.
[X] Trying to con your way into becoming a co-conspirator in whatever is going on here.


The rest of your three-day visit to Castle Pisch will be spent in a series of discussions, mostly with Gavrilla but some with Nikolai. You cover a lot of ground, and find it surprisingly easy to collect the information you want and stake out a firm position for yourself. Gee, it’s almost like they think you’re an ally or family member or something.

Dita
For the last several years Nikolai's orders from the Duke have been to keep Dita out of trouble, pay the witch hunters to do whatever they can think of to try to de-magic her, try to browbeat her into cooperating, and be prepared to hand her over when the proper time comes. But Nikolai is also required to continue treating her as befits her station, which means no locking her in a dungeon.

Unfortunately for him Dita is much too strong-willed to be cowed by lectures, and preventing her from escaping without actually locking her up is nearly impossible. Since the witch hunters failed to accomplish much of anything he was just about at his wit’s end, and is quite happy to turn the problem over to someone else.

So he's quite intrigued when you explain to him that your plan is to give Dita training and help while acting as a sympathetic mentor figure in order to develop some influence over her. Hopefully you can make her come to her senses, and if not at least you'll be in a position to keep track of the girl and hand her over to the Duke when he's ready. Nikolai will agree that this is worth a try, as long as you're willing to take responsibility for making sure she doesn't disappear.

This agreement probably gives you a year or so to do whatever you like about the Dita situation. But at that point the duke is going to put the forced marriage plan into effect unless you’ve convinced him you have a better option, and you already know Dita will run off with the Chosen before she consents to that.

The Mage Lord Route
Gavrilla is fascinated by your magical exploits, and tells you quite a bit you didn't know about how such things are done in the kingdom.

It seems that Borjeria is embroiled in a constant low-level war against witches, vampires, haunts and other manifestations of evil. The Church has several teams of witch hunters, paladins, and other monster hunters active in the region, but there are never enough of them to go around. So it's a major advantage to a noble family to have a member who has the ability to deal with such threats.

You notice, however, that Gavrilla seems to automatically assume that you're never going to have a sorcery level higher than two or maybe three. She doesn't really take the idea of shaping someone to look like Dita seriously, for example, because that's a much higher level of magic that she's used to thinking about.

If you want to become the family's resident hero/monster Hunter/expert on magic it doesn't sound like that would be terribly difficult. Gavrilla is already the one who keeps track of monsters and magical threats involving the family lands, your allies, and your enemies. She'll be happy to pass on information about the situations that she thinks it would be advantageous to deal with, if you want a chance to show the family what you can do.

The ability to call in Chosen is an interesting option, but it’s definitely a two-edged sword. Gavrilla cautions you against letting it become general knowledge that you associate with such dangerous, unpredictable characters, and she certainly doesn’t want the family to start relying on them.

Do you:
[ ] Ask Gavrilla to start feeding you adventure leads
[ ] Decline. You have too many other irons in the fire right now.

Note that if you take the first option you’ll need to actually act on a decent number of the leads she gives you, or you’ll end up hurting your reputation instead of improving it.

Marriage Alliances
You agree to meet this girl from Balzar, and Gavrilla makes arrangements for her to visit next month. Gavrilla has met her before, and is going to hang around Pischia for a few weeks so she can make introductions. Once you’ve formed an impression of the girl you can have another meeting to decide on alliance options. Then she’s going to head for the capital with Lala and Chesna, who should be ready to go by then, and make sure your cousin’s debut goes well.

That gives you a little more time to consider your options, but you get the feeling she’s going to start pressing you for a decision within a couple of months.

Refugees
This is a critical turning point, because you can’t put off the decision and some of the options will severely limit what route you can take in the future. Getting refugees settled in and producing is going to take a lot of money and personal actions, so the more of them you take the more time you’ll have to spend in Corzu personally running things rather than traveling around on adventures.

With that in mind, you:

[ ] Don’t take any refugees
[ ] Take a mix of craftsmen and ‘odd’ (i.e. magical or physically altered) refugees, up to a few dozen total. This will give you some benefits without tying you down completely.
[ ] Take as many refugees as you can afford (~600), including a lot of farmers in addition to the craftsmen and oddities, intending to use them to launch a major effort to develop Corzu into a populous and prosperous fief.

 

For now, i am tentatively thinking of going like this:
[X] Ask Gavrilla to start feeding you adventure leads
[X] Take a mix of craftsmen and ‘odd’ (i.e. magical or physically altered) refugees, up to a few dozen total. This will give you some benefits without tying you down completely.

I might be convinced to go and take much more refugees, but in that case we will probably need to have more capable administrators. In that route, the Balzar girl marriage could actually be pretty interesting. Or even Ezti. It would enable to both have a lot of refugees as well as go on adventure leads with a certain amount of regularity.

 

[X] Take as many refugees as you can afford (~600), including a lot of farmers in addition to the craftsmen and oddities, intending to use them to launch a major effort to develop Corzu into a populous and prosperous fief.

We have a year, so we should be able to deal with them by then.

 

While it appears to be true given that they are only coming in a year, the problem is that we need thorough preparations by then (redone roads, blessed fields for more food, rebuild village where the cursed well was...).

OTOH, thinking about it those preparations aren't things Dominic will do all by himself.

Ok, tentatively changing to:
[X] Ask Gavrilla to start feeding you adventure leads
[] Take as many refugees as you can afford (~600), including a lot of farmers in addition to the craftsmen and oddities, intending to use them to launch a major effort to develop Corzu into a populous and prosperous fief.

EDIT:
Changing again, because it's good to have a first year with only a reasonable numbers of refugees to get into a stride. We basically have a LOT of things unfinished as Graig said, and i prefer having a margin of error instead of needing -everything- to be done perfectly.

[X] Take a mix of craftsmen and ‘odd’ (i.e. magical or physically altered) refugees, up to a few dozen total. This will give you some benefits without tying you down completely.

 

[X] Ask Gavrilla to start feeding you adventure leads
[X] Take as many refugees as you can afford (~600), including a lot of farmers in addition to the craftsmen and oddities, intending to use them to launch a major effort to develop Corzu into a populous and prosperous fief.


[X] Take a mix of craftsmen and 'odd' refugees
-> This year.

 

[X] Ask Gavrilla to start feeding you adventure leads
[X] Take a mix of craftsmen and ‘odd’ (i.e. magical or physically altered) refugees, up to a few dozen total. This will give you some benefits without tying you down completely.

We have a lot of other things to do. Getting a barony is much more important than 600 more farmers. We will get adventure leads for Gavrilla. We need to deal with the Rogatica situation and we have 1 year to convince our grandfather to change his plans for Dita. The only way taking 600 refuges would make sense is if we marry Ezti before they arrive so that we can place some of them in her barony.

 

Upon further thought, you are right: Shit WILL happen, and having to answer to adventure calls from the family to prove ourself + Rogatica + Nikolai + Dita + Refugees is already very tight. It doesn't allow for anything unplanned, and we all know that there needs to be a "Shit happens here" in any timetable.

Edit: Hell, Pavel's coming back next year too.

 

[X] Ask Gavrilla to start feeding you adventure leads
[X] Take as many refugees as you can afford (~600), including a lot of farmers in addition to the craftsmen and oddities, intending to use them to launch a major effort to develop Corzu into a populous and prosperous fief.

 

X] Ask Gavrilla to start feeding you adventure leads.

[X] Take a mix of craftsmen and ‘odd’ (i.e. magical or physically altered) refugees, up to a few dozen total. This will give you some benefits without tying you down completely.

 

[X] Ask Gavrilla to start feeding you adventure leads
[X] Take a mix of craftsmen and ‘odd’ (i.e. magical or physically altered) refugees, up to a few dozen total. This will give you some benefits without tying you down completely.