Arkeus said:
Does this mean that Dita has enough hatred for our grandfather that she would endanger herself and her ability to save Tavi before 'whatever happens on their 18th birthday' just to spite him? It's not like she currently believes she can keep the Baronny, after all.
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.
Arkeus said:
1°) If Dita were to be like Pavel, in the sense of being constantly away on crusades far from Berjoria, would the family still consider the need to kill her off, even if there are loyal family retainers taking care of Verzi?
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.
Arkeus said:
2°) Would it be possible for Dita to officially adopt a child in the family- say, our second son, or whatever- so that even if she is constantly away crusading/etc there will be a clear line of succession for the barony for our Family?
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.
Arkeus said:
3°)What are the Egyptians' views on Inovia? are they also "she is a crazy goddess that attack mostly evil things", or is it different?
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."
Arkeus said:
4°)The Family seems pretty damn sure that Dita can't be trusted at all, or at least you (Gavrilla) are. However, you also talked about how she was hoping Chesna could have changed her. How do you know that no such changes have happened? We have heard that the priests looking after her had been saying multiple times that no such taint existed before suddenly changing theirs mind after possible bribes. Given Nikolai has also been lying about Lala and Chesna not wanting to go for their Debut, such knowledge coming from him seems highly suspect. In fact, especially so if Nikolai is in the list of possible husbands for Dita.
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.
Arkeus said:
5°) Given you have had some hope about Dita being changed, what about me keeping up my mnetoring efforts? Especially if i marry Ezti, a known Devout whom Khersis sometimes directly answer to, we might be able to exert some change.
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?
Arkeus said:
The way things are, it does seem VERY much harder to help Dita out with the Feudal Lord route. Not impossible- unless ShaperV mentioning changing our Grandfather's mind being possible was a lie half a dozen pages back- but very much harder.
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.
Arkeus said:
This is a case of 'This would be so much easier with the Hero route', as then we could just go crusading/adventuring with her for a few years until we get to India, and as she is already a Baroness she could totally comes back with the riches, alliances and armies we would both build ourself and prove herself to be worthy of her own Barony.
Of course, in such a case it would pretty much alienate us from the rest of the family unless we are ridiculously lucky, and as such we can say goodbye to having our own Barony unless we get one from Marriage or conquest.
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…
