The remainder of your first day is devoted to touring the city itself. You are a person of status of course, but the city is large and cannot stop even for one such as you. It can, however, be made to make way- you and your guards, as well as a few granted by the city, and a pair of guides, proceed around the city, getting shown particular points of interest. Azyra, though warned against it, can't quite help with staring at the sights- Magic used as casually as mortar, and ruins or trinkets of ancient civilizations, either just lying around or being sold as keepsakes of questionable legitimacy. More races than even you have seen in your time- planetouched, drow, duregar, and you even believe you identified an illithid yourself. Though Azyra does look positively unique even here, she does not look quite as exceptional, nor do you consider her guards so painfully outlandish a group, placed among the come-all city that is Morinth.

Your tour concludes at the city's council buildings- structures for use with events of whatever nature. In this case, they are appointed richly for a large and official meal. Their earnest desire to please seems wholly legitimate, and even Scinnari comments to you on the quality of the food. You retire to your quarters afterwards, and the next day begins with several of the individual guilds approaching and begging for your attention- They all want to demonstrate why they are the best, and you schedule visits for each day. In the mean time, your real work commences...

While attention is on you, certain agents you have either planted waiting or that have arrived at similar times to you, though by other means begin with their operations- Personally coordinating things this time, though with the help of the regional spymaster, a rather urban wild elf named Levielle. Again, vicious opposition is encountered, but assuming that whoever is opposing you is watching you as well, you coordinated with Levielle to offer distractions and diversions where possible. As a ruler, individuals hang upon your every word... and properly skilled, you can use that to send them running off on false information.

Things slowly do arise despite the resistance, of course. You do manage to get first one, then a few agents and informers within the various schools of of the wizardly disciplines. First of all, and most importantly; the individual responsible for stirring up Rhasver against you has been tentatively identified as 'Magister Tvana Attor', master of the Morinthian school of enchantment, and supposedly a fairly high-leveled member of the schools of necromancy, conjuration, and divination. She was also, apparently, the individual sent to Mza as the Morinthian ambassador... And from what else you can tell, she is third or fourth in line for archmage of Morinth; Behind the master of the Generalists guild and the magister of the school of Abjuration. Why she opposes you cannot guess. Nor can anyone else- Aside from her immediate inferiors in her guild, it is apparent that almost no one seems to know anything about her than. She appears to have a reputation as somewhat vicious, but hardly more so than many of the other officials of the city.

Secondly, Azyra seems to have sadly forgotten that she was only here to assist you in your espionage- While she has been doing that rather ably, she does seem to have been caught up in the... 'glamour' of the city of mages and the myriad of students premeating the city; she has expressed legitimate interest in attending the schools of transmutation and evocation. The latter you suspect is due to the influence of her sorcerous bodyguard, Tel'yan- While certainly something to be skilled in, you can't say you approve. So far she hasn't actually admitted it, but you suspect she will be attempting to persuade you to let her attend one or the other in the near future.

To the distant east, Nehmaska has declared herself satisfied with the ranges south of Exheln. She has expressed a few passing complaints about the isolation, but that is hardly something you are terribly concerned about it. She acceded to your command, of course, and claims to be awaiting further contact as ordered, but you can't help reflexively checking her location every few hours or so- Though she has given you no reason to be suspicious beyond the inherent.

And currently, you are booked for the rest of the week, being offered tours, invited to receptions, showcases, and so on by the higher society of Morinth. The city as a whole is eager not only to please, but also to demonstrate and make use of what independence it holds from Rhasver. As one amiable professor assures you, whenever Rhasver enters a war, their studies and research are invariably interrupted, not to mention the fact that Morinth becomes a stop for Rhasverian warships... “So unpleasant.”, as he describes it. While unofficially obligated to support Rhasver, Morinth is highly reluctant to do so, and hopes whole-heartedly that as ruler of Mza, you can keep things sorted out.

We're a personage of importance, correct? Touring the guilds?

Let's see if we can arrange a meeting with this mistress of the school of enchantment.

How do the schools Azyra is looking at stack up to our huge library of knowledge and labs and crap, by the way? We have a pretty vast selection of knowledge and estoric lore IIRC.

Finally, come on Azyra. You're a princess and have been raised in both opulence and around vast epic-level powers. Why are you so impressed by the baubles of mortal mages? You had power greater than they around your neck and upon your brow before you could even fly! You were born commanding servants and slaves! Show some of that noble bearing that your mother no doubt taught you.

I think the best thing to do here is to present the 'Jocular fool' front as much as possible - be polite, even Jolly whenever we can stomach it, let the mortals think that we are potentially influencable - a potential wealth of patronage - if we are approached in the right way.

Hopefully this will draw a lot of the mid-level mages/nobles in the city like moths to the flame, creating a fantastic information mining/recruiting ground.

>>14917534
What? No!

That's the farthest thing from the image we have been projecting for the past thirty years! Don't be foolish.

>>14917501
>How do their resources stack up against us?

Quite frankly, they have you based on sheer size. This is a city devoted to magic, and the use and research thereof. Each guild probably has a lab or two about as good as yours, (Admittedly to be shared among far more people,) and their quantity almost certainly beats your quality.

That said, you have been here, and, given that you're willing to pay a few fees, you can access most of the stuff the hold here whenever you want.

Second, Azyra has probably never or only rarely seen things like planetouched, illithids, drow, the occasional extraplanar, or even, hell, half-dragons before. There are at least a few of each living, working, or simply passing through here.

>>14917450
>>14917457

It seems to me that this "Magister Tvana Attor" has a thing against dragons.

In anycase, check our schedule to see if there's any event or function that will bring us face to face with the opposition. Maybe we can have a little chat.

>>14917534
That is ridiculous and you should feel bad for having thought of it. We are the Sorcerer-Lord of the Empire of Mza, and we should act like it.

Of what value would a magical education be to Azyra, being that her talents are sorcery and not wizardry? We're here to find out what's going on with the spies, but if we can ensure that the city is friendly to us, then I'd consider letting her take a class or two.

That said, I think we should definitely figure out what kind of stick Tvana has up her ass, and whether or not we should arrange for a more friendly leader to emerge. Murder is an option, but I would prefer a nonviolent solution. Slander campaign, or something.

We should also look into relieving their dependence on Rhasver. Maybe if we can provide them with whatever R. is, they'll be our buddies instead.

>>14917606
Visiting the Enchanter's guild should bring you face-to-face with her, (or at least, you've met the head of each other guild/school you've visited), and that is on the schedule. Azyra is aware that it's the type of magic you do most often, and did express interest in it, though not as much as in evocation or transmutation.

If she desires to avoid you, though, it's entirely possible she could foist hosting it off on some minion.


>>14917628

While sorcery does let you cast, the basics of wizardry can teach you how to make do where your sorcery doesn't. Additionally, sorcerors and wizards generally benefit from a solid grounding in planar information, arcane mechanics, and sometimes even magical history. Plus, graduates have resources they can call back upon, should they return.

Finally, Rhasver's and Morinths' relationship is based upon protection; Morinth is allowed to do their own thing, and occasionally does favors for Rhasver. In exchange, Rhasver keeps other nations or religious organizations from interfering in Morinth, and is allowed some passive influence- Around a third of the mages in Morinth have served in the Rhasverian armed forces, and almost all of those attended schools under Rhasverian scholarships.

>>14917675
Well then... I guess we just wait then? Not a lot to do here in that case. Gather spy reports, remind Azyra of "what we talked about before we left", give the schools a fair and serious shakedown for how good they are, and meet with Ms. Bitch.

>>14917675
Doesn't look like we'll be able to make any political movements then, at least not overtly.

Azyra understanding her abilities is a good thing, I think. If we could ensure her safety, then I think we could let her take some courses here. Especially planar information, given our Binder problems. In fact, I'm interested if we can gain anything by looking through their libraries while we're here. Surely a font of knowledge like this will have /something/ on the Binder.

>>14917756
>Azyra understanding her abilities is a good thing, I think. If we could ensure her safety, then I think we could let her take some courses here.
Look, Azyra should not be let out of our sphere of direct influence during her formative years. Dragons hit "young adult" at fifty, so I wouldn't trust her to be mature enough to go out and about into other nations on her own until she's at least thirty. When she is grown and we've given her a solid grounding in what we know, which includes just about everything that Morinth teaches if at a somewhat less specialized level, she can come study here for adult education if that catches her interest. But while she's a kid, and relatively easily influenced as her dazzlement by the city's wonders shows- hell no, she's not studying here.

>>14917675
While we're here, we might consider inviting a few people to enter the service of the state of Mza- or at least mentioning that we're looking for skilled mages. While I'm not about to start letting Morinth have a huge measure of influence in our nation, it would be of benefit to us to have more magical prowess and we can't rely upon our sorcerer cult to breed us all the firepower we'll need.

rolled 49 = 49

Hey, sweet,
Dragon Quest!

Since I'm not going to participate this thread and will probably miss future threads (like always) I wanted to leave some suggestion (not concerning current situation) and leave:

this is concerning the kobold problem. I would have thought that lizardmen and kobolds would have good relations, but I guess I was wrong so here is what we could do:
We take our kobold population on the island (150) and teach them.
Teach them a lot of stuff which will increase their overall usefulness and competency, with the main goal to send them back to Freeport so that they re-organize the kobolds living there. The subjects could vary greatly: economy, governing, law, architecture, etc...
We will make the intellectual base necessary to kick-start the advanced kobold civilization in Freeport.
We will use our people to tutor and train them in these subjects.

I was thinking to make this project a long-term one, like 5 years. Basically this will be like going university and getting diplomas for them.

Then we send them to Freeport and be (more or less) sure that they can survive and advance autonomously. We could drop some initial funding if we are too concerned.

How do you like this idea (or is it stupid)


Anyway,
good luck with the Quest. I really love it! Thank you for doing this WD, I never participate but I enjoy reading it from archives.

>>14917675

Alright, let's grace these sycophants and deceivers with our presence!

>>14917793
I don't think you fully grasp the nature of kobolds. Let's just say that's not going to work. They are hard workers and able minions, cunning and quick. But they are not archmages and scholars for the most part. Maybe one out of ten million.

>>14917756
I agree with this. We can say that this is merely a scouting trip as we want to see what our little princess would like to do. Do not commit to any school, as we are just looking. Also since we are at the magic hotspot closest to us, they should have info on the Binder.

>>14917817
I'd say they could be, but they generally have trouble learning sufficiently in the forty odd years of their lives. (Assuming they die safely of old age.)

>>14917817
>>14917859
I blame Kobold Sorcerer Quest for unrealistic portrayal of kobold society.

The Enchanter's Guild is an interesting structure- Much of it is made from solid air somewhat reminiscent of your cloud-castle, parts of it are visible only from certain angles, and so on. Other parts of it glow with mind-effecting auras- your guide explains that there are a few subtler demonstrations of the guild's power; For instance, despite the streamers hanging dead in the air under balcony, it constantly feels like a strong zephyr blows through there, or the way shadows on the doorway feel like warm sunlight. You are unaffected, of course, though some of your guards do express slight surprise or wonderment. Passing in, you are given a tour of the structure- Much larger on the inside than it is on the outside, and one particular staircase gives a view you are certain must be an illusion, of a chasm within the structure, bridged by staircases or crossing pathways up and down as far as you can see.

To your pleasure, Azyra, since your stern talking-too after your arrival, has proven much more impassive, regarding the city as a whole. She still stares, taking in the admittedly rather impressive sights, but does her best to remain unaffected.

Moving on, you are lead through the student domiciles, with the assurance that they can provide better quarters for individuals of suitable personage, and so on. You ignore the usual attempts at flattery and salesmanship, and they carry on through to the labs. Various magical apparatus bubble or trickle mysterious, and the reek of raw energy is strong in the air- even Azyra seems to detect it, and it puts your lizardmen on edge. Your guide notes this and explains apologetically that “You get used to it.”, but does move on to the next item on the agenda.

Eventually you conclude with a official dinner with the school- Something you are both reluctant to attend, and annoyed to do so, considering how long you have waited and still not seen the headmistress. That is mended, though- You are brought in and sit down at the high table of the school, looking down on the hall at students of various ages and ranks, and only a moment after you and your family sit, the headmistress makes her presence known. She doesn't say anything, merely standing up behind the table- but the dining hall goes silent rapidly. Once she has everyone's attention, she sits herself, and everyone else goes back to what their were doing. A pointless event, as far as you can see, but tradition, according to the teacher next to you, who was your guide for the day.

“Ah, Lord- King? Prestor. I had heard you were about, but was regrettably detained. Do tell me, what do you think of my school? I do hope you were impressed.” She says from down the table. Your guide evidently picks up on some unseen sign, and excuses himself, clearing the table between you and her.

>>14917793
Oh, thanks! Nice to have you!

>>14918013
"Impressive. I must admit though, it seemed to have more in common with the School of Illusion than I had expected. Is that common here? Illusory fronts that attempt to change one's view of the world, I mean."

>>14918040
In case I phrased it badly or something:

This comment is intended as a triple entendre. First meaning is exactly as it sounds, asking if illusions are commonplace in the school. Second meaning is subtly questioning if she will try to influence our daughter and "attempt to change her view on the world". Third meaning would of course be referring to how she is attempting to change Rhasaver's view on Mza and be both a subtle warning about doing that and a possible invitation to talk later if she picks up on the hint.

>>14918013
"I am. I am. Only thing that bothered me as the smell in the labs, but that's a very small factor."

Make small talk with the lady and ask to speak in private with her. Meaning you, Scinnari and her. Surely the mother of our child wants to speak plainly to her as she has been helping with our spy networks.

"It certainly seems like a premier institution of learning. I was particularly impressed by the range of races in attendance."

Unrelated note: I was skipping through some archived quests and saw that Cygnis is a descendent of Lorekeeper. Being that Many-Bound told us the Binder could speak to the children of the bound, should we worry about Cygnis being co-opted, mentally reduced as she is?

>>14918013
If this is the same woman who we met at Azyra's party before, then we should have been introduced to her then. Remember her name and comment that it's good to see her again and that we trust she has been well in the last decade, etc. Always smiling pleasantries even if you both ready knives.

And I would comment that we appreciated the creativity in decor, and it certainly displayed the talent and skill of its creators, though personally our application of magic has ever leaned towards the purposeful over the impressive.

While we're talking, try to get a sense of her attitude toward us and figure out what the heck she has against us. I'm honestly not sure how to go about that, aside from obliquely referencing our attempts at spying and seeing if she cares to pass a message or three. Or bringing up Rhasver, which would be crazy blatant.

>>14918175
Even if she is, I'm not sure she could do anything other than depress the Binder. Or impress her.

“Ah, Magister Attor. How nice to meet you again...” you greet. “It is certainly impressive enough, certainly.” you reply. “I am surprised with how much you seem to feature illusion within your school. Is it that common, here? Illusory fronts and attempting to change one's world view, I mean.” you ask in return. She doesn't start, though she does seem to process all intended meanings.

“Some enchantment is often mistaken for illusion. Unwisely so... Illusion can change the appearance, but it is an enchanter's work that is more useful for changing someone's world view, or... mind.” she replies. “Quite handy, considering how many individuals someone well-traveled might run into who have a disappointingly inadequate worldview... Generally, we try to bring our students from ignorance to enlightenment, regarding enchantment, and how to use it to achieve their ends.” she says primly, pausing before adding enigmatically, “Thieves, for instance. It has excellent use in persuading them to mend their ways and return what the stole.”

“Is that, perhaps, what you were attending to in Rhasver?” you dare to ask. She doesn't start, or give off any such tells, but you're fairly certain you did surprise her.

“As it happens... yes. I'm afraid I do tend to ramble... I was attending to someone who took something of mine from me several years back. They have regrettably fled abroad and are shielded by another nation, so I have done what I can to pursue. So far, I am pleased with the results.”

OK, let's not get in a war of words with our hostess. That would be poor form.

"I noticed a great variety of people in attendance, and I even believed I spotted an Illithid. How do you maintain proper operations with such a diverse student base?"

>>14918271

Do we actually knowingly have anything of hers? I've been around since halfway through our freeport days and I honestly have no remote idea what she could be refering to.

>>14918271
"Ah, national politics is so very tiresome, I should know. Still, I've found that there have occasionally been benefits. Why, I've come to an entirely new appreciation of diplomacy since starting become involved first-hand. It seems that with the correct words and incentives you can resolve a great number of otherwise intractable problems.

"Of course, as I'm sure you've heard sometimes diplomacy fails. Last time that happened on a large scale was... oh, thirty years ago or so, wasn't it? A positively dreadful war. And strangely enough nobody came out victorious except those who did not participate."

>>14918370
The only things I can think of are:
>Lady Issa (either as a person or she stole something from this woman)
>Cloud castle/avariel
>Prestige?
>Possibly Cygnis, but I can't even imagine how anyone would find out about that.

Now, all that said: It was mentioned that long ago a mage talked with ManyBound. She could have viewed us going in and talking with him as a threat? I don't know.

Say:
"Well, that's unfortunate. I have a dim view of thieves myself. I am not of insignificant power, perhaps I could aid you in finding whatever it is and seeing it returned?"

>>14918442
The mage who talked to MB happened thousands of years ago and was a male anyway.

>>14918460
>and was a male anyway.

Because that's so important when it comes to telling casters apart.

Not that I think that's why she's pissed, mind.

“Ah, national politics. Tiresome, needless to say. “ you agree. “There are, occasionally, benefits, though.” you admit. “I have come to an /entirely/ new appreciation of diplomacy since I became involved first hand in the matter. It seems that with the correct words and incentives you can resolve a great number of otherwise intractable problems.” you muse.

“Ah, but eventually people do get... impatient with diplomacy.” Attor replies. “It becomes more difficult and less desirable to resolve things peacefully. When things are properly arranged to resolve it through other means, there is very little incentive to return to peaceful methods.”

“Ah... But things become so... unpleasant when things get violent. When diplomacy fails.... Well, I'm sure you've heard of what happens. The last large-scale war in the vicinity was... Oh, thirty years ago, was it not? Positively dreadful affair. And somehow unsurprisingly, the only people to come out victorious were those who did not participate. A strange game, I'm sure you'll agree.” you reply.
[Very sorry, getting pulled away. I'll be back in about forty five minutes (Hey, average post time, right?) so the more you can give me to deal with when I return, the less of a gap this will be. Some people are making noise about another timeskip, so things to do there...]

>>14918627
>Ah
>Ah
>Ah

So are we having sex with her, or do we just suck at starting a sentence?

Humor aside: She's hinting that we have something of hers, and that she's gearing up to fight for it. Obvious move is to press her for information on what was stolen.

Is this conversation in public, or private?

>>14918627
Well that told us... absolutely nothing. We already knew she was agitating for war. Arrange a meeting later with her, us, and Scinnari? I want our devil there too, she's good at crap like this and has a good read on people.

As for timeskip:
1. Binder research. This is a given, though. Let's try to find old labs and archives, maybe re-visit her old underwater palace near Freeport even.

2. Work on increasing our magical powers. Once again, a given.

3. Azyra. We aren't going to send her to school in Morinth with war about to happen and a person who hates us as a guildmistress. We should therefore teach her magic ourselves, it was even suggested that if she gets a familiar we could make a father/daughter project out of creating a unique and powerful one for her.

>>14918721
4. Scinnari. Talk to her about the hells, how she feels about everything now that ten years have passed, her lack of promotion thus far, and the knightly order. I think that it's probably about time to move on the knightly order, too, seeing as we've been infiltrating it for 10 years. By this point we should be just about ready for our objective of killing every member on the same night, yes?

5. Silver. Direct her to finding out ways to take over Exelhen. Don't tell her to actually DO any of those ways, because I for one don't want her taking over and setting herself up as the ruler and then being like; "Lol but u sed take it kk thx ^.^" or anything. She was terribly unsubtle before with the tribes too. Just have her scout vulnerabilities.

6. Continue to combat the Drow. After some time let's try to send another message to them asking to talk and saying that if they don't want to talk /this/ time then we will stop playing around with adventurers and start really going after them. Insist we would like to come to a mutually beneficial agreement.

7. Expand our secret police, army, navy, and spies. We are possibly going to war soon, so a temporary lessening of profits flowing into our hoard is fine. We need to be prepared, and that means counter-spying, counter-insurgency, spying, navy, and military all need to on the top of their game. Start commissioning more ships, too. We want our navy to be in top shape. The passes from Rhasaver into our Angevin territories are easily defensible, but we'll be screwed if Rhasaver gains control of the sea.

>>14918627

Well, thats a veiled threat if ever there was one.

We need to find out what their beef with us is, and if any of their minions or subordinates are in on it. Also put plans into motion to remove the problem if it should become necessary.

It will also be worth boosting our own security. She seems pretty good with HUMINT so its reasonable to expect she has an agent or two in our city. Start with anyone who might have been dissatissfied with our policies of late.

I feel that we should try to undermine the headmistress of Morinth and install one who either answers to us or is sympathetic to us. Pulling an asset like it away from Rhasver will make the inevitable war much easier.

>>14918731
If negotiations with the drow don't work out, should we send Nehmaska after them?
Or bring our military forces to bear and begin offering bigger rewards to send adventurers/sociopaths after the drow?

I have a feeling though, that such a response is what Attor and Rhasver want, so that our conventional military is bogged down with fighting in the north while they open up a new front against Mza.

>>14918808
Install a puppet... in one of the highest positions of Morinth... the place where we can't even get a normal spy into?

Uh...

There's probably still a few bits and bobs to take care of prior to a timeskip, yes?

...Eh, maybe not, other than this. Arright. Well if she doesn't want to tell us what it is we have of hers she wants (for a second I considered it being Scinnari, but that was a male mage) then fug her- and we wouldn't give it over anyway.

She seems on her game well enough to not be able to be toppled by those beneath her, and she's most likely expecting an attack now...but that isn't to say such an attack wouldn't be successful.

Ah, and needless to say, Azyra won't be attending this school.

>>14918731
>>14918721
In addition to this, we should have the Nemeska make a diplomatic trip to that mercenary Bronze that Rhasaver has hired. She will be glad to make the trip to avert war and save the lives of the thousands who would otherwise die, and we would be glad for her to undermine Rhasaver's military ability. Losing the dragon the have on retainer will be a significant hit. I imagine they would be relying on it heavily to counter our naval advantage if they did to go war with us.

Thankfully, dragon-to-dragon politics almost universally outweighs dragon-to-human politics in draconic minds. Especially when it's another metallic asking you "Hey, mind not going to war this time? I'll pay for your neutrality."

>>14918836
>she's most likely expecting an attack now...but that isn't to say such an attack wouldn't be successful.
This gave me the most hilarious image of our drawing on our draconic strength to react across the table and casually tear our her throat while she stares in stupefied shock at what we would dare. Oh, the fallout that would result!

>>14918907

Could always be Plan B if everything else goes tits skywards. With all the political manoeuvring, power games and subterfuge, taking such a direct tac is probably something she wouldn't expect- either for us to do or her to deal with.

>>14918904
That's a fantastic idea and I approve. It'd be even better if she could bring him over to our employ and have him raid competitors' shipping.

Does anyone else find it hilarious that we could end up being the ruler of a nation of dragons?

You know, I just had a thought. Rhasaver was just about to go to war with another nation right?

Maybe we can make some diplomatic overtures to said nation? Get together and invade Rhasaver in a two front war? We've been having problems with finding new territory to expand into lately, after all. This could be /exactly/ what we were looking for. That other nation was almost powerful enough to stand against Rhasaver on it's own, I bet with both of us hitting Rhasaver we could take it down hard.

Okay, there are a few mountain passes that Rhasver can get to us through, be we have weather and forces enough to bottleneck them and prevent entry- similarly, we have druids and such to help deal from forces coming to us through the jungles of Morinth.

We get Nemmy to dissuade the Bronze merc, and we, if it seems inevitable that this conflict will occur, Rayleigh their ships while still in harbour.

On an intelligence front, we should do the following- talk to Aquitaine about a military alliance(lure Rhasver toward us, then have Aquitaine hit them from the side). We should also work on seeing where this Enchantress is sticking her politcal fingers, then monitor them- gather proof of her tweaking people's ears so we can show the Rhasverian government how they're being manipulated. (Seems a difficult thing to do, but we gotta give peace a shot).

Also, see if we can get Seffy onboard for a bit of stomping for a bit of gold in key places- which would also provide cover for *us* to get involved, as a Red's a Red for most people and they wouldn't be able to tell the difference, especially if we illusion ourselves up to look like her.

>>14919173
>(Seems a difficult thing to do, but we gotta give peace a shot).
No, we really don't.

In addition to what was said there, let's also see if Tashz would be amicable to the idea of going to war and slapping Rhasaver around a bit. I bet they are still pissed off at them for the last war 30 years ago, and they likely would be glad to lend support to such a trusted friendly nation like the Kingdom of Mza...

Wait, she thinks we stole something from her?

>>14919190

The Drow're still needling us in the side, do you really want to start stuff when we haven't even taken care of that?

>>14919235
Yes.

>>14918627
Try to figure out what the fuck she thinks we stole before dinner is over.

Plans for war are getting way ahead of ourselves; it would be much better to get this woman to just stop making a pest of herself. Wars with major nations never end cleanly, however nice our planning.

>>14919235

Wonder if there is the off chance any of this having to deal with her plans. Doing the time skip without resolving the Drow problem to any degree isn't a terribly great idea. Why don't we just pay that knight order scinari wants to do in to take care of the problem, then we swoop in and take care of them to regain our money back.

If we start a war with this guys it'll be on our terms, not on prodding from this woman.

Fuck the people buying into the goading. We're not taking on a major player just yet.

>>14919248

This. We aren't even taking our own advice at: >>14918627 here. Lets try and crack this nut without felling the tree, yeah?

>>14919248
I want the war if we can swing it, but I agree that our first objective should be to find out what the fuck kind of angry badger she has stuffed up her cunt.

>>14919260
This is the perfect time to take on a major player and look completely justified in doing it. I say go for it.

>>14919271
Justified how? The only thing they've done that is hostile is eliminate our SPIES.

NOT A GOOD WAR EXCUSE.

War them and get that other country to help and backing from tashz! We need to expand again!

Figure out what we stole first tho

>>14919283
Are you insane? They are about to be attacking US. Defense is always justified. Durr.

>>14919283
Read the last thread, they are trying to go to war with us not the other way around.

Lets make it clear; we're planning this defensively, as in we're setting up to be agrressed upon and to counter-attack from that, rather than being the aggressor.

We'll be up for a fight, and might even be well off for one: but we aren't going to start one.

>>14919345
Right. We hope they attack, and might even try to provoke them into it... but this is going to have to be a defensive war. Both because we don't have any justifiable reason to invade and because their army is probably better than ours. That means we're going to have to set up a defensive line at the mountains and wait until they start moving troops over to invade... then Aquitaine will hit them in the back and we will push forward.

Suggested peace resolution: Morinth and the less valuable eastern half of Rhasaver will be ours, the more valuable and populous western half will be Aquitaine's. Tashz will support us economically and perhaps with "military advisors" or whatever but not actively go to war and therefore not need any territory. For them just being better friends with us as a trading power and getting revenge on Rhasaver for dicking them over 30 years ago will probably be enough. Plus eliminating one of their main rivals in the region.

>>14919385
>military advisors
Hey... I think we just found out a way to counter the advantage Rhasaver will have magically thanks to the mages of Morinth! Ask Tashz to send mages!

>>14919398
>>14919385
>>14919345
+1 to these.

Oh man, this is going to be awesome.

Ask the Silver to investigate the Drow and Exheln, because they're currently screwing with our available territories.

Personally, we're gonna wanna finagle why she dislikes us and generally attempt to prevent the war.

Another thing we could do is "deputize" that dragon protecting shipping in our southern territories, but this idea needs expansion.

>>14919345

Well, if they're planning to invade us by sea they're in trouble if we're withing reach of our orb of storms. Ain't no ship getting through that in one piece. Would also be moderately effective against flying dragons. Just hope they don't have one to counter it.

Aquatics... Blacks and Bronzes we need to worry about, since they are basically living subs. If we can rope in that mercenary Bronze to at least give us an early warning of anything going on that would be dandy.

Get in touch with Seffy and see if she knows anything about this. Play it down though, don't let her know that it worries us.

Move some land forces to protect our mainland assets. Maybe the cloud castle too, for additional support. Work on getting some offensive armaments mounted on that thing.

>>14919483

We'd need some way of reliably moving it first if we wanted to us it (even if just as a deterrent). An engine of sorts, or a 'horse' to pull it, like some vaccuum constantly sucking it toward it, that can they hold it in place.

Also, we don't have an airforce yet, so its use is currently limited. It's a great visual, though.

>>14919558
I'd rather not bring it out in case of war, we don't have many uses for it and it would only represent a massive target. If we were to use it as a distraction of some kind I'd be down for it.

>>14919632

As a big 'OH MAN LOOK AT THAT LETS FUCK IT UP!' target and distraction, it works rather well. Everyone must assume that if we're bringing something like that into play, then the place where it is'll be where we feel it is most needed.

>>14919483
We could, like, ask her out.

No, I'm serious. Call her up and ask whether she wants to go slaughter some dwarves with us. I bet that's a classic boy-dragon+girl-dragon activity.

>>14919483
I think our best activty would be to disguise it as a regular cloudbank, then fly it over something vulnerable/valuable and start raining featherfall'd shocktroopers.

>>14919483
Our navy is better than Rhasaver's anyway, though given a few years they could probably surpass us on full-out war production.

But for a short term war like we are wanting? We should have complete sea dominance, especially if we get that bronze on our side.

A short, victorious war. For us. That's what we want.

>officer's trooker
I wonder what that is?

>>14919718
The problem with actually bringing Seffy in is she will want a cut of the territory afterward. Hiring her for a flat sum to make a single appearance at a minor battle was suggested, then use the fact that humanoids can't tell one red dragon from another to make everyone think it's her when we appear.

We should also, you know, get our armor ready if we are going to be taking the field personally. I want that adamantine armor ON if we fly out to do battle.

>>14919749
Which raises the question of how? I'm inclined to just out with it to the dwarves, or ask it as a favor for a red-dragon friend of ours. (like andone would believe that.

confirmed, though. Armor(smith) away!

>>14919787
Been over this, we could say it was being forged for a dragon friend of ours. Everyone will naturally assume Seffy, but we could technically even have one of our two metallics make a brief appearance in the skies after it is finished and make people think "huh... weird."

But really, just saying it's for a dragon friend of ours should be enough.

>>14918627
WD, where the hell are you? Post something that will make all this war insanity go away so we can go back to our slow, systematic, reasonable expansion plans.

>>14919868
He's writing the war right now, that's why it's taking so long. :3

[Sorry about the gap. (Friends told me it be 45 minutes tops for dinner, ended up being two hours.) And ha-ha, very funny. I'll try to keep better track of what the heck I'm doing over here. (Pounding away on the keyboard with both fists.)]

*****

Dinner concludes leaving you with a very unsettling feeling. Azyra did have the decency to be quiet, and Scinnari did overhear but not join with the conversation. Afterward, you attempt to set up a more private meeting with the magister, but your message is responded to by a very confused courier who reports that she said “the time for such things had passed.”. Even more sinister, though certainly not ambigous. You finish with your visit shortly- Azyra adds 'conjuration' to the list of disciplines she likes- and return to Mza. Work immediately commences: Scinnari departs northward to negotiate with Aquitaine. You accurately guess that Lady Issa has a way to contact her grandfather, and route a message through her. You head east to assign Nehmaska a new task.

Nehmaska resides with an utterly bare lair when you arrive- if you can call it that. The barren cleft, more of an overhang than a true cave, is utterly devoid of detail, appointment, or furnishing. You did tell her you'd see to that later, figuring that she could at least semi-reasonably claim it to be part of your duties. She didn't press the issue, but you suspect you ought to have something for her before she grows impatient.

Which she can't, now, because you have a job for her- She can hardly complain about her lair when she's busy elsewhere.

“Rhasver? And what have they done, my lord, to earn such horrible vengeance on behalf of yourself? Or Lord Prestor's again?” You ignore her.

“Morinth. In the interests of preventing a war that will, undoubtedly claim far too many lives... Or at least making it one-sided enough as to resolve quickly. You are to go to Morinth- you should not have to actually enter the city, and if possible, avoid it- and contact the bronze that lives in the vicinity. The bay, I think. Ask her, if you can, one metalic to another-” you can't help but smiling at the words as you say them, “If she could choose a different side. Offer to pay her, if necessary. In the interests of minimizing casualties and shortening the war, of course...” you reply, wings twitching uncomfortably in the cold air.

“Ah. Of course....” Nehmaska replies, standing and engaging in a languid cat-stretch that could, conceivable, be construed as a bow. “Very well, unless you have other needs..?”

“A reasonable price would be the foremost.” you answer curtly. “I will look most... unfavorably upon wasting my money.”

“I'm sure I would never be so disloyal as to do that.” Nehmaska replies, and you find it difficult to determine whether she is mocking or not.

“See that you don't.” you reply shortly, and depart.

################

>>14919949
>She didn't press the issue, but you suspect you ought to have something for her before she grows impatient.
Send in some kobolds and tell them to make her lair both awesome and an utter deathtrap for anyone who isn't her, them, or us.

Scinnari news is not as pleasant as you'd hoped, but better than you'd feared.

“They are interested in pursuing Rhasver for the dwarve's insolence, but they are unwilling to actually invade...” she begins, pacing agitatedly. “They have severe problems with frost giants to the north. A jarl or three has decided he is terribly offended about something or the other... Suffice to say, I believe I can compel them to exact territorial concessions from Rhasver if they declare war, forcibly, of course, but they are not interested in a drive on the capital.”

“I see. Most unpleasant.” you reply, processing.

“I also pursued what possibilities I could, despite their reluctance. Should you decide you desire Seffestranias- or her aid, they've conceded to allowing troops allied to you to pass through their territory. They're particularly worried about her, but willing as she could pass on her own anyway, and apparently she's been a... 'relatively' good neighbor. They're still quite pleased over the traitor of theirs she turned into them a year back.”

“Ah, the rogue province? Right. She... acted most unexpectedly there.” you muse distracted, “I thought she would go for that gleefully. And get beaten back. She may be a tad more... intelligent than I thought she was...”.

“Intelligent... yes, I suspect she would be eager to assist, but would want compensation, which is exactly the kind of thing you do not want to part with... Perhaps a formal alliance, but only paying her for a single battle?” Scinnari recommends. You catch on quickly.

“Oh... Yes...! That would allow me to participate whenever I desired...”

“...Seeing that humanoids can't tell dragons apart.” Scinnari finishes. “Myself, I think, excepted.”

>>14919982
Sigh. I can't be the only one who read that as, "See, we would love to help... if only someone would get these frost giants off our backs! We can't do anything with them there! If the giants were gone, though...."

Sigh. See if we can pay the white in the northern mountains to go fight the frost giants. Before we do that make sure we send Scinnari back to Aquitaine and say "If your frost giant problems vanished could you be convinced to invade?"

If yes: Send white. If no: Don't bother with white.

While the war is brewing let's see if we can cause droughts and crop failures in Rhasaver. A little early weakening.

>>14919982
Now, normally I'm hesitant about us getting involved in stuff personally. But really, frost giants? We should roast some of them just on principle.

>>14920087
You're used to getting quests dropped in your lap. They want an excuse for staying out, but they're willing to take scavenge from Rhasver while they're occupied with us. (It happens to help us, so we shouldn't really complain.)

I'm tempted to ask Seffy for help. Also, let's see if Nemm can get the bronze on our side, even if unofficially. Offer her, I don't know, ten k extra to doit.

>>14919976
Not kobolds, or any other dragon-worship race. We don't want her diverting them from the Great Red Lord.

Instead... yes, I think I have a great plan. Let's send some of the dwarves from Mza under orders not to speak to the resident of the cave. They will see the silver, see her wounds, and then when we put in a request for dragon-armor... well, naturally they will think it would be for armoring the wounded silver dragon!

>>14920087
>While the war is brewing let's see if we can cause droughts and crop failures in Rhasaver. A little early weakening.
This will give them justifiable cause to attack us; it is quite literally an assault on their people and it will be detectable as soon as they ask a weather god or a good diviner (like the ones in Morinth) about it. Do not do it.

>See if we can pay the white in the northern mountains to go fight the frost giants.
I would prefer to see if we could somehow talk him into attacking them on his own, instead of paying him. Previous money is precious, and we're fairly persuasive. Surely there are tons of nice, icy lairs up where the giants live, and with a simple demonstration of power he could get them to pay him tribute instead of being hemmed in by reds. Taking out a jarl, say, would probably accomplish that nicely...

We can also aid Aquitaine with summoned fire-oriented critters, salamanders and what have you, which would probably be very uncomfortable in the north but more than willing to kill some frost giants.

>>14919982
We need to take care of the drow, utterly decisively, before any war with Rhasver. Stop fucking around and throw the kitchen sink at drow genocide in the region they are plaguing. We've already been scouting out their holes and fencing with them with our summons; throw more resources at the problem, stronger summons backed with troops and our personal attentions. Flood the drow pit with magma or water or something gated from an elemental plane, or otherwise dispose of the fuckers so that we can focus on one war at a time.

>>14920217
I'll second this.

If we can avoid paying the white to attack the frost giants I would prefer it. They... aren't terribly bright anyway. And flooding the drow caverns with a hundred decanters of endless water or something should work wonders too. We just need them off our backs temporarily. Going to war with them active, however, is foolish.

I'm proud to say that I've been in DQ since DQ 5. :D

>>14920192
I'm pretty sure that awesome adamantine dragon-armor would need to be custom fitted. Even normal humanoid armor usually does, if it's decent quality.

WD, can we grab Watcher and ask her what she thinks the item would be that we've stolen? As much the war might go well for us, we still have that issue on the table at the end of any conflict. What I'm really worried about is the enchanter and some mage cronies making a hard push on our lair while we may be preoccupied with any battle. I can see her doing such inconvient timing at our expense, so dealing with such an incursion would cost us one way or the other. We've had adventurers trying to get into our lair for unknown reasons for far too long now directed by someone else.

Needless to say, we need to get a better handle on what the extent of her problem is so we can address it while we're conducting the war or else we end up at square one at the end of it. Going into war that is apparently spawned by petty emotions by some humanoid is beneath us and we really should take some steps to undercut her influence. Especially when we can undertake more overt actions during a war that we otherwise wouldn't be able to.

>>14920192
Orders?

Bro, the dwarves aren't even under our thumb. They're still independent. We just have a good trading deal going.

>>14920275
>spawned by petty emotions by some humanoid
A couple big assumptions there. We don't know either one for sure.

Nemeska's lair is easy, give her a pile of cash and some access to Mza, we should recoup some of our gold. Could throw in some magical artifacts, weak-moderate things for the gesture. As a one-time deal it should go pretty well.

Frost Giants up north, we could free Soulless to take care of them, but I'm fairly certain that would backfire. Could ask Nemeska, but that'd be iffy given resource disparity and frost breath.

Watcher needs a name.

I suggest that we call her Dave.

>>14920287
I suspect he meant orders in the "We won't pay you shit if you break this part of the job description" sense, not the "hear me and obey!" sense.

>>14920300
We should only be freeing Soulless if we can control it to ensure that things don't backfire on us and have the Binder come down on our heads.

And we can't.

For Nem's lair, just give her some money to spend on furbishing, and I guess she could borrow stuff from us from time to time too. It'd be nice to get crafters up there, like the Kobolds, but if they do go up, make sure she's in her humanoid form for the duration of their stay and can't tell them she's a dragon.

I think that'd be best, and it gives our much maligned minions something nice to do.

>>14920300
>we could free Soulless to take care of them
Binder can communicate with Soulless, potentially, and he will mindlessly and fanatically obey her. She'd teach him how to call her back to this plane and not need us anymore if Soulless EVER gets loose.

He stay in prison for as long as we can keep him there.

>>14920362
I honestly do not have a problem with telling some of our kobolds to go live in another dragon's lair. Yes, they'll probably start worshiping her, but really- they're kobolds. Not only are they naturally evil, they're also a dime a dozen.

Yeah, yeah, I know, Nem gets nothing at all from us, etc... I don't think we need to play things quite that cautious with her. If she acts against us she'll have better tools than kobolds to do it with.

>>14920291

Grats for finding my point in there. That's the problem right now, thats the extent of the rationale we know right now for why all these events are taking place.

We need a comparison of armies and navies if we are going to war. Relevant stats are:

Morale: How willing the unit is to stay and fight
Discipline: How orderly, professional, and drilled they are
Skill: How good they are in combat
Equipment: How good their gear is
Manpower: Relative size of our standing forces
Replenishment: How fast we can replenish losses and recruit new units

Discipline and skill are different. A green unit can be extremely well disciplined and good at fighting in formation but still not be too great at sticking the pointy end of the spear in the right place to pierce armor. Skill is the actual combat ability of the soldiers. In war neither is actually more important than the other, but they are different traits and ones that matter. Extremely veteran units destroy green troops after all, even if the green troops fight in proper formation.

>>14920585
We will also need a general comparison of expected magical and special capacity, i.e. unique and powerful things that each side can deploy like our assassin cult or weather control, which are definitely military assets but which are not standard troops of any sort.

A quick summary of what each side is known to have rather than rating different characteristics would be fine there, since those assets are by nature unique.

>>14920585
We might also want loyalty... Probably not too important for most things, but some of our newer acquisitions might be willing to change sides if given sufficient motivation.

Oh, and I would like to see something on the availability of mercenaries and the like to both sides.

>>14920585
Oh, right. And just rate them like... 1-10 or 1-5 or whatever. Or another scale if you want, don't really care. Just need a rough comparison to know how awesome the various sides are and how well we would do roughly.

>>14920626
I figured loyalty was covered under morale. If WD thinks it significantly different he can split it though.

Maybe we should flood Morinth with assassins, just in case of a little accidental support from that bitch Enchantress to Rhasver.

Oh, better idea! Let's just put out a bounty on Rhasverian mages! Collectible where? Why, the drow tunnels, of course. Bring the head there and the drow will pay.

Who knows, maybe someone stupid will fall for it. It can't hurt.

>>14920644
>Maybe we should flood Morinth with assassins, just in case of a little accidental support from that bitch Enchantress to Rhasver.
Our assassin cult isn't numerous enough yet to rampantly squander their lives like that. They're hardly into their third generation.

>>14920585
>skill is different...
I'm going to consider that 'effectiveness'.

Navy
Yours/theirs
Morale: 8/5
Discipline: 6/6
Skill: 9/6
Equipment: 7/6
Manpower: 6/8
Replenishment: 5/5

Army
Yours/theirs
Morale: 6/6
Discipline: 6/7
Skill: 6/10
Equipment: 6/8
Manpower: 5/8
Replenishment: 5/8

I'm open for debate here, but please make it reasonable, not 'milking every advantage you can out of me'.

>>14920695
With our army... uh.

Rhasaver hasn't fought a major war in 30 years and we've been conquering things constantly. I thought you said our dudes were pretty damn elite in general from all the fighting? I understand that Rhasaver is a pretty boss nation, but 6/10? Really? Hoooooow? I mean, if they had amazing training I could see much better discipline, but isn't battle veterancy something you get by fighting wars?

I mean, sure, if the army was mostly 300 year old dwarf elites or something. But IIRC Rhasaver was something like 80% humans right? Most of the vets from the last war would either be old, in command positions (which would improve discipline, I admit), or retired.

Well...I think we're good enough for a defensive engagement, still. Gonna need some weather-aid and good tactics though.

>>14920730
Perhaps down to 6/9, there. I was trying to factor in Dwarves love of fortifications, something Rhasverian forces have the skill to erect with nigh-divine speed and effectiveness.

Nehmaska reports, nine days later, that she has contacted the bronze, a female named Halyiestraka, and convinced her to exit the war, provided Nehmaska can pay the exit fee on her contract- A mere five thousand gold. To actually get her on your side would take far more- in the range of twenty or thirty thousand, but she is available to be bought, should you be willing. You sigh and award Nehmaska thirty five thousand gold, and tell her whatever is left over can be used for appointing her lair. She accepts it without comment, and you find yourself driven to check that lying to you is against her pact- She can't do so unless she's willing to damn her soul, no to mention her oh-so-sacred honor.

Your consort maintains negotiations with Aquitaine, though little progress is made- You do get their oath to take back what is theirs and that they will harry Rhasver where convenient (how wonderfully vague,), but the most important concession Scinnari secures from you is their agreement to refrain from trading with Rhasver for the duration of the conflict. Arms... mercenaries... food. /That/ may be very useful, especially if you can significantly meddle with Rhasver's weather. Naturally, you make sure to make your pleasure well known to your consort.

From Tashz, you receive the condolences of Issa's grandfather. He cannot assist you in the war, nor can Tashz loan you mages despite their eagerness to repay Rhasver's ambition... But he can direct you to some individuals who normally handle their hiring of the Tashz Blues, perhaps even for reduced price, and members of a significant Tashz alchemist's guild have been pressing to get permission to officially expand beyond Tashz... He offers to send them your way. The would undoubtedly be willing to pay handsomely for the privilege of establishing a branch in Mza. Not as much as you expected, honestly, but perhaps enough, cleverly applied...

>>14920806
Fair enough.

Well, I would say tell our forces to start building some serious defenses in the mountains. See if we can hire the dwarves on Mza itself to do the building, because we're going to need both speed and quality. Yes, I imagine they will charge through the nose... but that's what happens when a merchant state goes to war. They pay through the nose if they want to win.

Let's see if we can get our kobolds formed into regiments too. And get the rest of them teleported in from Freeport. I don't want them fighting, no... but I want them to make the mountain passes between us and Rhasaver complete DEATHTRAPS with their innate trapping ability. So many traps that if a mage casts Detect Traps then his head explodes. That level of trapping.

>>14920821
Let's start enslaving and binding earth and stone elementals en-mass and ordering them to obey our forces. We can hand them out to commanders - they can be used to create and tear down fortifications.

>>14920828
I'm reminded of Ankh-Morpork. The kind of city that invading armies enter, and exit the other side with lots less money than they had, and some strange-but-useless trinkets.

"We own all your helmets, we own all your shoes,
We own all your generals, touch us you'll lose!"

>>14920846
Can they be made subservient like the dao? They're obviously going to be weaker, but still.. anything could help.

It really doesn't look like we can win an offensive war but starving them out while screwing with their trade seems to be entirely possible.

As for Nemeska, ask her to investigate the drow raids and Exheln. I doubt we'll be hitting open conflict out of nowhere and they've been fabulously annoying.

>>14920855
"No enemies had ever taken Ankh-Morpork. Well technically they had, quite often; the city welcomed free-spending barbarian invaders, but somehow the puzzled raiders found, after a few days, that they didn't own their horses any more, and within a couple of months they were just another minority group with its own graffiti and food shops."

>>14920821
>Naturally, you make sure to make your pleasure well known to your consort.
Mmmmmhmmm.

Buy her something pretty too. Maybe a new veil.

Oh, I know! Make her a dress out of our shed scales. In secret. Then give it to her as a gift.

>>14920972
>Make her a dress out of our shed scales. In secret. Then give it to her as a gift.
That's adorable. I fully support this. Tell her to only wear it around the lair.

>>14920972
>Oh, I know! Make her a dress out of our shed scales. In secret. Then give it to her as a gift.
There is room for exactly ONE dragonscale dress in this story, and that ain't it.

>>14921011
Now that I think about it, it might be too Cygnis-esque. Maybe something else then, like a dragonscale bracelet.

>>14920846
Can it be done, WD?

>>14921011
She's a warrior-chi- I mean devil. See if we can save up choice scales and give her a set of light dragonscale armor.

And yes, let's buy that bronze. Oh, the precious irony.

>>14920821
How comes our own alchemist guild? Is it developing well enough? Apprentices, etc? Does the old man have any complaints before he retires again or suggestions?

>>14921050
That's actually an even better idea. Practical and protects her. Hell, it even is symbolic... 'we are protecting you even in battle' or whatever.

Light dragonscale armor, go!

>>14921075
>>14921050
+1 for this, give it to her on an anniversary or something.

>>14921115
If we don't have enough, perhaps we can give her some skimpy nigh-wear

Several thoughts strike you. Ideas, rather, force multipliers, things to perhaps make the playing field more equal where it isn't, or more unequal where it's in your favor. Binding lesser earth spirits of various power is most annoying- Not terribly difficult, in most cases, and relatively boring. And expensive in resources, to craft containers to hold them that your soldiers will be able to use.... It becomes more pleasant, however, when Azyra expresses interest in it, and you teach her how to assist you with lesser spirits. She does accidentally let loose a swarm of mephits in your lab on one occasion, and a relatively powerful earth elemental a second, but between yourself and the training Azyra has received from her mother you manage to dispatch all of them handily. Admittedly, they both caused some mischief, but you confess it is satisfying to have your daughter genuinely helping you, and she seems to enjoy assisting you.

Calling on your resources and vassals, quietly, to prepare for the war goes less well. Your alchemists' guild is, under the leadership of the elf you dragged out of retirement, highly reluctant to actually get involved. 'Not at all what he agreed to.', he argues. You counter with the fact that the guild and position owes it's existence to you, and the argument rapidly devolves. You are saved, though, by Scinnari- Calling to report on the Lady Issa's development, who now has a son, reluctantly equipped with the artifacts you prepared for him, she pauses to hear what's going on and points out that that clause was included in the contract she prepared, albeit as a minor point that he probably missed. With such ammunition, you do manage to convince him to start producing more valuable commodities for the effort, such as alchemists fire, acids, blast globes, and some fairly unstable explosives.

Your merchants are more reluctant, but more unwilling to offer you significant opposition. They whine and plead that a blockade and embargo of Rhasver will cut into their profits an unacceptable amount. Your opinion of guild leader's intelligence drops significantly when one object that they could simply go around and ignore your blockade- Until you point out that you will be entering a warzone, and that you are most disappointed if they think your influence only extends to your borders. It is most amusing and satisfying to see them edge away from that particular guild leader, and when you move on to the issue of providing shipping and supplies for your forces, you give him as little opportunity to get involved as possible.

Nehmaska reports her conclusion of the negotiations with Halyiestraka- Eighteen thousand gold, and she will assist Mza forces against the kingdom of Rhasver, and perhaps even look favorably upon a further role in the war, should you decide it necessary. You send your approval to Nehmaska, and allow her to spend the remainder of the funds you gave her securing shelter and appointment for herself. Afterwards, just in case and to preemptively placate any invocation of the contract, you grant her another five thousand, figuring that it might offset some complaints and secure better will, if not good will. The fact that you pay entirely in silver pieces is certainly not lost on her.

>>14921323
How long until his replacement comes up, anyway?

>>14921323
We should also get into touch with those Ashaites we sent to Morinth years back. They can keep us informed of goings-on in the lead up to war and if assigned to military units can tell us about troop movements.

>>14921405
If you're referring to the Dao, when you use his last wish you have to deal with replacing him.

If you're referring to the alchemist, I'd say eight-ish years. I dunno.

>>14920821
>hiring of the Tashz Blues
This would probably be way too expensive, but imagine Rhasver's faces when they declare war on us and suddenly a swarm of dragons is blotting out the sun.

>>14921323
I guess it's time to...

Sigh.

Chat up Seffy. See what her price would be for an appearance or two, maybe some soldiers.

Also, idea. Inspired by Vietnam, even. Let's use Aquitaine as Laos and Cambodia. Aquitaine gave us leave to use their territory, right? And if Rhasaver invades then shit will be /on/ like donkey kong. So let's organize some irregular raiding units and deploy them in Aquitaine as fighting starts. They can do things like enhance our starvation plan by raiding peasant villages and burning crops, hinder recruitment efforts by making peasants afraid to leave their homes for the army, and force the deployment of huge amounts of soldiers to guard a border that is only being attacked by a handful of ours.

>>14921329
Well? Tell Aquitaine it's their turn. Maybe get Seffy in on this, and start ferrying stuff to our troops. We got this. We got this.

Just keep telling ourselves that, and we'll be fine... We'll be fine...

>>14921448
I had forgotten about that.

Let's see if we can get into contact with them. Specifically, let's see if we can get in touch with that blue who is fighting with the gold near Azar. We can promise aid against him in her trade-war for control of the city since we have such massive investments there. That will not only save us the cash of hiring her for gold, but it will probably enable us to sink our claws even DEEPER into the new Azar.

Lastly, I think we should ask Nessh to talk to that crusading gold north of Mornith. He takes up arms against unjust causes correct? Let's see how he feels about an unprovoked war that will leave thousands dead. If the war ends quickly then fewer will die and Rhasaver loses (especially if it loses thanks to him) the countries in the area will think twice about going to war again! Plus it will be prestigious for him to be a defender of the weak trading kingdom of Mza who was attacked by the aggressive and warlike Rhasaver.

>>14921420
Alchemist. Thanks.

That said, can we start lashing Rhasver with massive storms to begin softening them up? Or really start doing some damage to their crops (is it the right season, presently?)? Maybe both? Give the old alchemist some minor trinket from the horde to keep him buttered up. Something he'd find interesting, but of little real value to us.

>>14921329
The dragon turtle from the Ivory Gates- get him on the mercenary rolls as well. He should be far less expensive, and potentially almost as useful as the bronze in naval combat.


Get our military set up with a suite of scrying items to aid in our intelligence-gathering; we can't be scrying all the time, but it would be a waste not to have 24/7 magical eyes on the enemy forces. In particular, it's important to know where their fleets are- when war starts we will want to move to assert immediate naval superiority, preferably in the form of an all-out strike against one of their ports which seizes control of or destroys most of their navy.


Get those dwarves and kobolds on the task of making our lands difficult to invade by land. The Rhasverian combat engineers will make it tough to maintain any kind of defensive works for long without earth elementals and other magical creatures on the task of preventing sappers and tunnelers from getting around them, so be ready for that.

>>14921511
No, that was suggested but we don't need to do that. We want this war to be on THEIR head, not ours.

>>14921582
It's not a confirmed thing that we have the power of weather, it's a suspicion. If they're planning on it anyway, they'll sound insane when they say "It was raining so we went to war."

They know, and we know, but noone else does. Lord Prestor has GREAT POWER.. but over the weather?

>>14921582
We can start planning for it, though. Weather is easier to manipulate if you give it a bit of momentum, as I recall; we can start drawing a bead on them, as it were, with the expectation of firing that particular bullet later. That shouldn't give them casus belli.

>>14921601
No, it's pretty much confirmed. Even random mercs know we sent the hurricane to Azar that one time. Plus other mages with divinations would be able to figure out who did the crop failures.

>>14921323
We should find some targets for our assassins. Individuals who are important, but not important enough that they'll be impossibly well guarded.

>>14921601
We made it a selling point on the port of Mza. That's why the traders and merchants prefer us.

>>14921618
We're covered in magic that ignores that sort of thing. The *leaders* know we did it, not random mercs. Where was it said that we don't need to do that, aside from you?

>>14921666
I think he's going off of that random merc we hired to protect our daughter who knew exactly who caused the storm. Possibly you should read the last couple threads.

>>14921666
Wut? Did you not hear the merc bodyguard when we recruited him for Azyra? He was just a random sellsword in the Azar battle and he commented on how the storm we made was awesome.

Everyone knows. We made a point of it.

The war you have been preparing for finally kicks off towards the fall- A series of harried merchant Mza caravans and some highly improbable claims of bad weather (you did happen to be shunting some ill breezes off towards the north, but they really were not significant enough to be felt) caused by Lord Prestors's arrogance and hostile intent, not to mention a bounty put upon Lady Issana's head by expatriates in Rhasver from kingdoms conquered under her direction... Their ultimate justification is to curb aggressive Mzani expansionism, which, while true, is hardly something that really works. Additionally, they cite ancient treaties which place the island of Mza as part of Rhasver, in antiquity. While likely without any basis, this is accepted as sufficient for dwarves, and the war is on.

You move reinforcements to the front to man defenses, where possible, and Rhasver makes for the pass, a 'preemptive defensive measure'. The war officially kicks off, and despite your efforts, goes poorly at first- While you possess naval domination, and a single Mzani ship is almost on equal terms with two Rhasverian counterparts, their ground troops and siegework makes very short work of your defenses, and by the fall of winter, they have pushed through the pass and into your lands. You are, despite the massive casualties, mostly yours by a moderate majority, quite pleased- You held them for almost an entire season, and they are forced to dig in and hold while the winter snows make the mountains impassible.

>>14921666
We were acknowledged as a relatively significant ally in the victory party in Tashz for sending that hurricane. I don't know that they said "thanks for the storm, man!" but everyone there knew what we'd done. Weather manipulation is one of our most public abilities and everyone will know about it and plan for it.

Also, it is entirely discoverable by gods; Freeport discovered that we sank one of their fleets once when their clerics asked why the storm goddes hated them so much and she answered, "I don't, that was that Prestor dick."

>>14921696
>while the winter snows make the mountains impassible.
Hit them with a Russian-style killer winter, for shits and giggles.

And hire that white to eat them during the blizzards.

>>14921696
Begin the Vietnam Raiding Plan and the Weather Harassment Plan. We should use more than just the orb too, really throw some 'oomph' into the weather casting.

Also, let's see if we can sneak our ~500 kobolds behind the enemy forces and get them to do what they do best -- hide and lay massive numbers of traps. With any luck we will leave the Rhasaverian forces on this side of the mountains starving and weak. The kobolds are masters of irregular warfare, after all, and mountains are their natural territory.

>>14921705
Correct.

>>14921732
Also, they made it into your territory, out of the mountains, and have dug in pretty well. They're cut off, but almost certainly have supplies to last the winter.

>>14921741
Second.

>>14921744
Let's see if we can get Neshy to convince the gold now. This was obvious aggression.

>>14921450
This is the Vietnam Raiding Plan by the way.

We should use the winter to get the troops into position so they can strike in spring, making fields go fallow and beginning the Great Hunger.

>>14921741
The only problem with this is that kobolds don't do well in cold.

>>14921744
>They're cut off, but almost certainly have supplies to last the winter.
They might have supplies to last the winter, but do they have supplies to last the winter... while being pelted by supernaturally nasty blizzards and constantly raided by a white dragon and conjured ice paraelementals, along with the occasional magically enhanced assassin slipping in to poison their supplies and pick them off in the snow?

It's one thing to hunker down and wait out a winter, it's another to be forced into combat readiness throughout it. If we can make them fight even in the bad season, they'll suffer massive casualties and be exhausted by spring.

>>14921757
Might as well try I guess. Hell, all he really has to do is harass forces far away from us and force Rhasaver to split their front even more.

>>14921777
So? As long as they take down a couple of enemies before they freeze, it's a win. They're only kobolds.

>>14921781
Indeed. We need to make as much use of this as we can. The weather should be positively horrific all across Rhasaver this winter. A long, cold, cruel winter that the peasants dread the memory of for decades.

Oh...hell.

Yes, get Neshy to talk to the gold, get the White (or trick the white) to go for the guys who're dug in...

...Bring the cloud fort forth and rain alchemy on their blasted heads!

Simply put, we can't win a land battle without being able to hold a pass and bottleneck them.

And while we're doing this, we better still be looking for that Enchantress' connections to Rhasver.

>>14921796
Then we should start using our assassins, killing key targets, helping with the ice storms, poisoning food supplies........ It'll be lovely.

Remember to try and get the white to eat these troops!

>>14921744
Well then. We should start giving our lizardmen protective enchantments from the cold and snow-camoflague instructions for their armour. We can teleport them next to the outlying outposts and start chewing away at them through the winter.

We should attempt to puzzle out when the most severe storm over their main outpost will be and turn up with our Holy Ones and barbecque everything we can lay hands on. That way, when Seffy gets onto the field we can still give her credit for it.

>>14921819
Yes, use the white. Also contact Seffy, see what she would charge for an appearance or two in the spring.

Snow up that pass for as long as feasibley possible. November 'til March- Or April, even.

We want these guys cut-off and beleaguered.

>>14921825
This. Make the Rhasaverian winter something the bards sing of with dread. That pass should stay frozen solid until goddamned March.

you know in a fit of irony only Attor will get make her lose the war chasing after illusions. Get crazy with miss information. use spells to make scyring attempts give false information. Miss reporting ship numbers, locations.


use illusions to get their army to fight each other. It does wonders to moral when they realize they are killing their own troops.

keep enuf troops in reserve in case the united cites try to take advantage of the conflict.

Gard against similar tactics. Make sure everyone know they started the war.

Nehmaska is also immune to cold as a silver dragon, so we can throw her in as an asset, too. She can attack the enemy during blizzards just like the white can; just use her in different places and times so that they don't run into each other.

Make sure that she, and our assassins if we use them, are well warded magically and have easy evacuation magics. They're too valuable to casually lose.

But definitely make this a hellishly cold winter to remember, and harry the Rhasverian army with utter relentlessness. The ability to inflict nasty weather on them is one of our greatest assets, and we should make the very most of it.

See what we can do in regards to spoiling the spoil in Rhasver with the snows and rains- seed them with acidic compounds or such.

>>14921832
March? Small-time.

Fucking May-June is what we should be aiming for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6RnirpFaZk&feature=related

Wat ho, pip pip! We'll trash these Rhasvinite Huns and be home by Spring!

>>14921907
We are admittedly being a bit optimistic. But still, harsh winters severely hurt morale

we should also watch out for teleporting kill teams.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnmAdudwHzg

Do not worry colonies, we will defend you with our lives!

Get Seffy on the blower and lets warm these peeps up.

I'm not sure if Nehmy'll object to joining in or not, but she can certainly help out in regards to capturing high-profile targets to make Prisoners of War - Indeed, she should go way behind enemy lines and work such kidnapping on the nobles who're backing such an excursion.

>>14921987
Of course, but you know... that was exactly what we designed our lair to prevent. Adventurers are, basically, teleporting (and not) kill teams. Our lair is a fucking deathtrap.

>>14921987

Meaning we should make and send out teleporting kill-teams, right?

>>14921998
If both we AND Seffy get out there and start murdering, that's twice the charcoal briquettes. She can put about the story that it was her, and so can we - she gets some additional infamy and we get to murder the outposts. We could also get some commandos out there to destroy the food stocks and shatter supply lines, which will starve out a lot of troops too. Maybe they'll EAT each other.

A long hard winter with loads of snow. The earth elementals should be sent secretly upslope of their camps to undermine the hillsides.

Next is a snap thaw with lots of rain. Melt the snowpack off in days or even hours. Flash floods. The undermined hillsides collapse into enormous mudslides.

>>14922026
Slow down, hi-speed. We have a plan for this. Seffy makes one or two appearances and then we take over. People keep thinking it's her and we get to dragonfire it up without revealing ourselves.

Your Navy performs admirably in the opening months, though- Several Rhasverian merchants are plundered, and an addition to your income is gained via selling letters of Marque, against Rhasver only of course. Early in the war, a flotilla under one of your lesser admirals Torten Mammano takes the initiative of sacking Rhasver's northernmost port- Heavy casualties on both sides ensue, but Mammano does sail away with a few tons of booty, three surviving ships, and the entirety of the harbor in flames. On the eastern front, the smaller pirate-hunting ships you were reluctant to construct prove another use- Hunting smugglers trying to move men and supplies to Rhasver's isolated forces on your side of the mountains. While you certainly don't get every one, they prove fairly effective at the role. Even more effect is gained with the assistance of Halyiestraka, who has taken to her hired role with zeal and vigor. The pleasure of having a metallic unknowingly doing your will is delightful, and enough to make you seriously consider additional rewards for Nehmaska's efforts in the matter, even if she only did it at your command.

Seffestranias you contact far in advance- you approve of the idea of getting her involved, even if only for a battle. It not only paints her as a larger threat, allows you to take the field if necessary, and might even get her killed, something you somehow feel reluctant to do yourself. She is, however, aware of at least some of this- She expresses her great regret, but sadly believes her duties as a ruler prevent her from doing so. Something you scoff at, of course. She's probably just too afraid of her other neighbors to risk doing it... Disappointing, but perhaps she will change her mind over the winter.

>>14922027
If we keep the winter going long enough, eventually they'll start trying to stop us. We start faking weakness to draw in more opposing forces, then BAM! We switch directions and use their force and our full strength to force the fastest thaw ever seen.

Winter which you are doing your best to prolong. You are hammering Rhasver with as much in the way of conjured weather as you can, attempting to leave them broken and battered. You are failing somewhat in that regard- Though much of your efforts are getting through, very little as actually hitting as you desire. A powerful force of some sort is deflecting and dissipating most of your efforts. Powerful though it might be, it does not match you in skill. You find yourself able to sneak in non-direct weather systems and even manage to trick your opponent into causing problems of his or her own through her attempts to nullify your bait.

Despite your finesse, though, your efforts are not as successful as you had hoped. They have an impact, to be sure, but are not quite what was expected. Still, other methods work as well- Lizardmen equipped with magic to resist cold quite happily engage in raids and sabotage from the pass, and you teleport reinforcements on both sides of the pass in about once a month. Raids do much to wear on the Rhasverian nerves, though they quickly double up their defenses to protect from all sides.

Finally, ravaging earth elementals prove less effective than you had hoped- It's been a classic tactic for years, and Rhasver is a master of magical and mundane ground-related defenses. Still, they are found surprisingly useful in a variety of ways- The strongest you use can create tunnels or simply opening up holes in the earth. Even the weakest that Azyra made, though, can be used to scout or send a message, and they are probably the single most desired item among your officers and troops- Each one seems to be one more safety net a unit has before being severely damaged or destroyed.

>>14922042
If she takes credit, exactly how will people know it was us?

>>14922084
They won't. That's the point.

We can use our dragon form, kick some ass, and Seffi will take the blame because mortals dunno what the difference is.

>>14922044
Mmmm. Smart of her. Drat.

Well, maybe the white will be stupider.

>>14922084
red dragons usually can't be in 2 places at once.

I don;t personally think impersonating her is a good plan, she's got extensive and distinguishing scars.

>>14922100
Reds all look the same to humanoids.

PLEASE tell me we are moving those guerrilla raiders into Aquitaine to get ready for spring? Disrupt planting and harvests and such? Our weather control was not as effective as we had hoped (figured it wouldn't be world-ending) so we need to make sure we doubletime harass the peasants and salt the fields.

would be awesome if we can trick them into creating a category 5 tornado or a hurricane. using our finesse to use their own strength against them.

with a will timed dispel we can flood the city, when the walls come back up the water will remain inside. lets turn their city into a winter globe.

>>14922076
>>14922044
Good to see the Bronze is working out. Let's try for the White and Gold too.

>>14922161
We should reward nesshy well for the gold, too, if she can get it. Hell, send her an advance "in anticipation of her success" to put the pressure on to succeed.

>>14922076
Those passes are altogether too existent. While they're snowed in, have some earth elementals go underneath the snow and fill in the passes so that they are completely unusable once all the snow melts. With any luck, Rhasver won't discover it until spring and we'll have a substantial amount of time bought.

Deploy the white and our silver during the winter. They'll be much, much more effective in the cold than they will be during other seasons.

When we do decide that it's time to end winter, plot out a clever set of patterns so that a massive heat wave hits the battle zone all at once, causing devastating avalanches and flooding all over the mountainside. Have our forces in position to exploit this with an immediate follow-up attack, and try to wipe out those beachheads, then move back into the passes so that they have to fight us back through them again. After clearing them for use in the first place, since they should be sealed during the winter.

Seriously, hire that dragon turtle to come north. If it doesn't like the cold, give it magical protections. We need to starve Rhasver of trade as much as possible, their civilian shipping as well as their military supplies, and more big aquatic monsters can't hurt.

See if we can have additional ships or weaponry constructed in Tashz, which should have the construction capacity to augment us quite nicely and might be willing to give us a discount since they hate Rhasver quite a bit. Got to keep the war materiel flowing.

you know if the traced patterns make a symbol of death that kills all the storm mages it would be Hilarius.

>>14922196
That'd be great if we were fighting anyone but dwarves.

As it stands, I think they'll just carve out new, even more efficient passes rather quickly.

>>14922216
I would rather force them to carve out new passages than to let them march through ones that they already hold. Every bit of time that we can buy is a precious thing.

>>14922196
Seconding this. All good ideas.

We should also keep the winter raids up constantly. If we can, we should see about having the druids move into the area around the camps and when winter ends trying to summon up all those diseased jungle insects that used to plague Mza. At least some variant. They won't last long or anything, but if we can spread disease among the ranks before they get resupplied and start advancing it will be devastating.

>>14922044
>The pleasure of having a metallic unknowingly doing your will is delightful, and enough to make you seriously consider additional rewards for Nehmaska's efforts in the matter
Wat. We gave her 35k and told her to keep the change, she paid the bronze 18k leaving her with 17k and then we gave her a 5k bonus for some reason so we've already paid her more than we paid the bronze. She's our slave, she's not meant to get paid.

My proposed plan, in order to maximize enemy casualties to deter them from fighting and further sap morale.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZm4zseMok0

>>14922311

Baaaaah, what do they know of war?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGJl4vNJRdI

The dragon turtle near the Ivory Gates proves depressingly intractable. He is quite content with his environs, and unwilling to move even for the sake of food, treasure, or protective amulets. Perhaps still bitter over your demonstration of power a few years back, or protective of his personal hoard... Probably a few hundred shiny coins, you decide contemptuously. Either way, he's out.

Likewise, dealing with the White proves... utterly unrewarding. Your attempts to converse with him are cut short as he attacks you- Only receiving a blast of fire for his efforts, as you came immune to the frost he was armed with. Made worse by the fact that Aquitaine still refuses to make it's move, citing the winter as the pinnacle of frost-giant strength! Of course they are correct, but you doubt it's anything more than an excuse, and their betrayal infuriates you. And meanwhile Rhasverian forces mobilize and link up, heading towards your territory. You station squads of kobolds in their path with orders to avoid conflict at all costs, but to put all of their trap-laying skill and ingenuity to use. They prove fairly successful, and due to their good work, a sizable portion of Rhasverian forces only make it through with significant casualties. But make it thourgh they do...

On a more positive note; Nehmaska does prove tractable. With your persuasion that harsher conditions will force Rhasver to end the war earlier, she accepts the task of spying, fighting, and in one case, raiding for you. In a particularly unexpected raid, she attacks Rhasver's easternmost city's famed blast-furnace, freezing it's eternal flame with her breath and destroying the fire elementals that power it. With the forge cold, armor, weapons, and tools are in shorter supply, and while it can be repaired, and probably won't work again, you commend her for her efforts.

To the north, drow attacks slacken for the winter. A small mercy that subterranean types apparently do not know how to deal with snow. You do not consider the problem resolved, though, and decline to move many forces away. A few you gather up and send through southern Aquitaine, extracting what small service you can from their ephemeral agreements, and prepare a force to raid as soon as the artificial winter you enforce lifts.

In other news, success on a southern front- there is, just barely, shoreline passage from the Empire of Mza into Rhasver. Which is not to say that Rhasver did not attempt it, but with naval support and lizardmen skirmishers among the waves, not to mention an emphasis on water magic, you are able to push back through yourself, establishing your own literal beachhead on the opposing side. Immediately under heavy attack, of course, and without much in the way to claim other than empty land, but a significant milestone none the less.

Finally, west of that, now-full-admiral Mammano engages in another brilliant raid, landing and razing significant portions of Rhasver's easternmost port city. A reassuring victory- It seems your navy is losing effectiveness, as Rhasver loses ships and possible targets. A net success, you suppose, but annoying.

As the spring approaches and the days grow longer, sustaining the 'winter' you have enforced becomes harder. Eventually, around the begining of April, the snows start to melt significantly despite your efforts, and you detail Nehmaska to go and attempt to garner support from other metallics, particularly the gold north of you.

>>14922464
>>14922454
It appears we shall need to unleash the old standby: Hire some adventurers. Small kingdom under attack by evil aggressor is a classic situation, after all.

More practically, let's see about the blues. The old sultan said he could hook us up with connections, so we should at least see what they would be willing to charge. Reasonable prices are, of course, required.

Continue tele-raids on supply trains when possible through the mountain passes. The longer we can delay the buildup the better off we will be. How is our airforce doing?

Overall I mean... well we've done everything we can here. We have /litreally/ exhausted every viable option available to us in the lead up to the war. Not sure what you are expecting from us now, WD.

>>14922464
So uh, like, what have our assassins been doing this whole time? They're one of our biggest advantages, right up there with the whole "we are a dragon" thing. Virtually our trump card.

I mean, we don't want to put them in too much danger when their numbers are still growing, but I assume we have been employing them somewhat, yes?

>>14922530
There are two big possible things we have yet to do, both of which are dangerous gambits, truth be told.

One is us, personally, raiding an enemy camp, and the other is freeing Soulless and setting it to destroying the Armies of Rhasver. Both have obvious and huge potential drawbacks.

>>14922561
The second is not an option.

I think we should see why Seffy is not interested. The horrible thought just struck me that she could be chasing another dragon, and therefore be busy. We'd obviously want to prevent a happy union as it would make her establishment both more enduring and more powerful. (Two reds in charge, and all that.)

Why did this come up? Was looking at the map, saw, # 17 hanging around looking innocuous...

Other details: Try to actually force a landing to the west. We have the mobility. Alternately, try and create a volcano in the mountain range causing problems (or defenses here.) Not collapsing passes, not pussyfooting about, make another fucking volcano. A, we get an awesome backup lair, B, that ought to terrify the hell out of them, and C, it would probably be monumental enough they couldn't oppose it... And it would block up the passages.

Time to get more involved.

Invisible ourselves and do recon work- behind the scenes torching, use Watcher to read minds and obtain battle plans.

Hire adventurers. Mudslide as many passes as we can- ALL, if possible, but especially the northermost- we can't let them grow any bigger uncontested like that.

>>14922561
Freeing Soulless is the "endgame Scenario" option. Hell, it would likely be better to lose the war rather than free him. Territory can be regained through the years, can't un-free something on the level of Soulless.

I'm extremely wary about taking the field in dragon form. That would be the absolute end of our humanoid disguise. Once again, it might even be better to lose the war instead.

One possible option is to invisibly go in to some central city in dragon form and light that bitch up while invisible with a huge strafing-run blast of breath across the length of it, then fly off before anyone can cast reveals or dispels. Dragonfire + mostly wooden cities = horrific casualties and massive destruction.

PLAN!

Okay, float the cloud castle over the biggest and most fortified enemy encampment then have it go non-solid and descend. Have our forces waiting just out of bowshot so they can't abandon the fortifications or we'll take them over. Then after we have the non-solid cloud draped over the entire encampment... activate solidification and suffocation measures!

YES!

wondering could we destroy the mountain passes stranding their army with no supplies?

also as they meet up can we use illusions to make elements appear to be enemy forces? get a good amount of their own army to kill each other.

lure them into an area where we can kill them with a flash flood? or breaking a dam and watch their army drown.

>>14922621
Mind you, I preferred it when we were thinking about mounting a doom-laser They can't dispel it either, which is great. We tried dispelling it before and all we could manage were small cubes that re-solidified immediately.

>>14922621
>>14922588
>>14922583
>>14922554


These. All of them. Forever.

Spring arrives, and Nehmaska finally manages to convince the gold near Rhasver to take part in the war- His actions are delayed by a month or two as he insists on attempting diplomatic channels first, but his contribution will be felt, provided the war lasts long enough.

Aquitaine finally does what they said they would do- nibble swathes of Rhasverian territory off of their northern border. Historical battlegrounds and sites of contention, it's actually enough to cause a some consternation within the Rhasverian capital. Perhaps even enough to end the war between it and the Gold's efforts, if you were willing to offer some generous terms.

Their efforts press closer to your major city in the vicinity, and you grow more worried about success- Nehmaska is doing all she can to slow their advances. They have ground almost to a halt, but not quite, and she did take several wounds from ballistas over the course of the past months. You actually consider taking to the field yourself (less overtly than her) or perhaps offering adamantine armor of some form, but it quickly becomes unnecessary. Assisting in expanding the meltwater floods and mudslides, you manage to fill in several passes and swamp sections of their fortification in runoff. The chain of forts they leave behind is not useful to them if it doesn't reach all the way back.

To your surprise, Seffestranias ends up contacts /you/- Apparently something has changed regarding her condition, and she is eager to work with you, provided you are willing to pay her price. Either plunder or land is hers, while the Blues to the south desire a few thousand gold per engagement... You weigh your options and refrain from writing back to her until you have fully considered your options.

The northernmost passage is almost entirely washed out, as is the middle 'set' of passages, leaving them a single one to move troops through. They have already begun fortifying it, though, and it grows more secure with each day, almost immune to magic or aerial attack.

Hey, WD. How close in size are we to our hirelings and Nehemaska? Could we not, say, cast an illusion to LOOK Bronze?

>>14922677
Peace would increase our reputation as a magnanimous emperor among the goody-types. Other nations, golds, silvers, what ahve you. Not strictly necessary, but it could be good if they think twice before going after us.

Quite frankly, I wasn't expecting to get anything from this war, except safety. I'd recommend offering them terms that they will probably refuse, and if they do, we use our cloudcastle as >>14922621 suggested, then ask them again. Ought to be willing to see reason.

In concession, I think we should demand nothing other than Morinth; demand that Rhasver stop dicking around with it, if we can.

>>14922686
You certainly could. You'd look like an older bronze than you do a red, of course, but yeah, you could. I think one of the ideas way back when was to arrive at Mza openly as a dragon, but pretend to be a metallic....

Sorry. Yeah, it's possible. Nehmaska is effectively about your size, but technically a bit smaller. (Noticeable, and it gives (or gave) you a slight advantage in combat with her. Not enough to be reliable all the time, though.)

>>14922677

Ask the Blues how much to have.. say, ten of them all attack the Rhasverian capital at once, with an intent on eating everything they can. There shouldn't be much standing after ten blue dragons turn up to wreck things. If their price is TOO high.. well, maybe our last wish to create a volcano where the capitol used to be.

Give Seffy her battle and take to the field ourselves. Finally. An illusion for her scarring will make us look similar enough, or possibly an illusion to make us look like one of our hirelings.

How 'heavy' is our cloud castle? Can it resist attack? Could we use it as a mobile bombing platform? Load it up with troops and alchemist's fire and explosives? I suspect we could probably take Rhasver with a few decisive attacks, and if not, the cloud castle would make a great platform to rain destruction from - both alchemical and magic.

>>14922699
Hmm.

Let's vary it. We'll keep going into battle as a red in reserve, as an emergency sort of thing. When we do go into battle, let's disguise ourselves are our hirelings - gold, silver and bronze. Maybe blue. How much for that assault on the Rhasverian capitol by 10 blues?

>>14922709
>>14922703

~500,000 gold.

>>14922712
I'm for it, simply because it'll probably be cheaper than continuing the war and should effectively end most of the resistance. No more orders or supply coordination, and we or Seffy can kill the remaining generals in the field who shouldn't be hard to track down.

Expensive, though. I suppose you'll want confirmation.

>>14922712
What do our coffers look like?

Also, if we were to attack, could we put on our newly forged armor

If we take to the field, make sure we are NOWHERE near Sef's last known location. I wouldn't be surprised if we decided to drop out of the sun while we were distracted and try and eat us.

Guys. Let's not pretend to be a metallic or anything like that.

Seffy just said she was willing to participate. I suggest we ask her about this sudden change of heart.

>>14922746
Why not? It lets us take to the field, and if we need to take to the field and don't have time or energy to cast the illusion it allows us to pretend to be Seffy.

>>14922754
Mainly because I would prefer to not fight if at all possible. Not without the armor at least, and we don't have it.

But seriously, let's find out why Seffy did an about-face so quickly. Ask her, dragon to dragon.

i like the idea of offering a peace agreement the invading army leaves. basic and reasonable terms. if they refuse we can continue with full support from our allies.

if they refuse peace we unleash all the things discussed.

we should include a hand her over clause if we can.

>>14922761
No! Christ! The entire point of this war was to take territory remember? That's why we let it start rather than doing more to avert it? As for prestige, we would be much more prestigous if we actually got concessions from Rhasaver.

Let's put Seffy on retainer. I don't know about land, but loot... we can swing some loot for her.

The blue dragon attack is expensive, but pretty much guaranteed to fuck them up. Let's do it. We get a shitload from our empire every day anyway. Make sure they attack anything that looks like a government building. Or just raze the city utterly to the ground.

>>14922712
>>14922735
While I would like to see how this weighs up compared to our coffers, I'm thinking it would be a serious drain. I'm not for that at all.

>>14922768
No. Too expensive, utterly ridiculous amount of money to spend on a war we can win far cheaper.

Well, W-D, with the entire income of the empire of Mza at our disposal, how are our coffers looking? Surely with all the businesses, adamantine, etc, it's pretty impressive. What's our yearly income at this time?

>>14922773
You have around one million five hundred thousand in stable hoard at the moment- Enough to carry out the war for another fifteen years, at least, if you assume stable income and costs so far. Most of the cost was in the buildup and initial preparation.

This is assuming that you wouldn't even consider cashing your non-coinage hoard to fund things. That's about another million or so.

>>14922782
The war itself costs a pretty solid amount of money, and this would likely end it faster when they lose their primary command centre.

>>14922787
Ehh.. expensive, but worth it. We could take ALL of Rhasver without too much trouble and we get a boost in prestige.

>>14922789
See
>>14922787

The cost of that ONE attack would be five /years/ of war! That's not at all worth it!

Mount the attack. Tell them to destroy everything Rhasverian on the way to the city too.

>>14922787
Ugh. No, way too expensive. We could just strafe the city ourselves and light a bunch of it on fire.

Jesus christ they want a third of our hoard for that one attack? screw those guys just hire seffy

'The only other truly significant gift given, in your estimation, was by the Morinthian ambassador; a blank spell book and an invitation to study among the Morinthian guilds, should she be inclined to pursue wizardly professions, and a small and deceptively simple steel puzzlebox that, when activated properly, whisks the user away to an extra-dimensional mansion of princely appointment.'

Is the trinket she gave us on her visit, the Enchantress.


Personally, I'd be happy to beat them back enough so that we restablish our prior borders. We get international prestige for fending off a big nation, we will have lost naught but some gold and some thousands of lives, our military and navy will have learned from the experience, our fort-makes and trap-builders will know what to do..nd the post-war cufuffle of aid and trade will help our merchant guilds out- particularly in regards to expensive food imports going to Rhasver.

And it gives us a shot at the Enchantress, who is our *real* enemy here.

>>14922793
>We could take ALL of Rhasver
I'm pretty sure one attack won't do that.

>>14922808
I'd vote for this. It has many extraneous benefits, and since they almost certainly won't turn up with Tvana, we can put an extradition clause, say that if she ever re-enters Rhasver, she will be arrested and handed over to us.

Serves to deprive her of her largest pawn. Ends the war quickly and cheaply. Serves many side-purposes (I suspect if we'd been being a jackass to her, Nehmmy would be less helpful. As is, it might make her like or at least tolerate us more.)

Hmmm... on the map there, those rivers...

I say we go Viking on them. Build some flat-bottomed boats that can traverse rivers, load them up with lizard men and use them to improve raiding on the enemy supply convoys. An army marches on its stomach....

>>14922712
How do Dwarves fare in the open field? Obviously they have us when it comes to siege warfare and breaking down fortifications, but in a pitched battle our lizardmen should be tearing holes through them. We should try to draw them out... maybe assemble a large conventional force nere somewhere stratigically sensitive, or expand the front to make them spread more thinly.

I'm going to say no to paying the blues.
It's simply too expensive.

Okay:

Do cloud fortress idea.
See if we can cut off their supply lines now that they've lost their defensive fortifications along them. A broken supply line and glacial pace should hold them until winter again... which will mean they will stall even worse and probably starve to death this time.

Hire Seffy to do the raids. Burn the SHIT out of those motherfuckers in our lands.

I assume we've been utterly destroying the peasantry with our Viet-Cong attacks from Aquitaine? Keep it up. Also keep ruining crops with weather magic.

No blues: way too expensive. We can wait for the gold.

>>14922841
>>14922830

I like all of these ideas. Especially if we synchronize them all to happen at exactly the same time.

>>14922828
Wut? Dude, no. We are just starting to win the war and you want to throw in the towel? Press the attack. Bust out with some epic magic like Dragon Strike on the enemy's main force and then unleash Seffy and that Gold on them, plus us.

>>14922850
Me too.

Thirding
>>14922830
>>14922841

If we cant suffocate people with our cloud fortress see if we can land it into that last pass and solidify it, completely cutting it off.

>>14922841

If we've cut their supply lines we need to stop a relief effort getting through. I like the Viking idea here >>14922830 of reinforcing our skirmishers. We need to OWN the countryside here. Every inch they move must be paid for in blood.

We also need to stop them securing any of OUR supplies or raiding the countryside. Evacuate any civilians in the area, instigate a scorched earth policy and have some Druids on standby to repair the damage to the land once this is over.

>>14922871
I like this. Good idea.

Hell, it could even literally be a scorched earth policy since we have dragons to burn the terrain.

What about those druids using swarms of diseased insects? If the Rhasaver forces are slowed to a crawl then they will be extremely vulnerable to disease and parasites in their water and such.

>>14922850
Forgot to mention that I am of the opinion that we should save hiring the Blues for use on an assault on their capital city as a last ditch effort if other plans go poorly.

No mercy. We will crush our enemies, see them driven before us, and hear the lamentations of their women. This war was for territory, and territory we shall /take/ from these Rhasaverian bastards. Plus an apology.

And we will have them give us the guildmistress.

>>14922890
Fuck yeah, dragon conan!

>>14922879

We'd have to be careful, we don't want to plague our own citizens.

Look into diseases that Dwarves are succeptable to, but that humans and lizardmen are immune to.

>>14922897
Fuck dragon conan.

DRAGON GHENGIS KHAN! WE SHALL BUILD A TOWER OF THEIR SKULLS!

Or a throne. Maybe add in a nice Brass skull on the top...

Just checking in to say no to the blues. We can't give a third of our hoard away just for one attack.

From the IRC, there are a number of Epic spells that could be useful.

One is Rain of Fire, which will seriously fuck up a city, though Nemy probably won't like it and there are much stronger spells that can be cast (though they all take longer to develop).
Pestilence and Dragon Strike are both good for destroying the shit out of everything in their path.
Dire Winter can be attached to something like the cloud castle and moved around, seriously fucking up anything in the vicinity, plus keeping troops stationary, huddled for shelter and fatigued, ready for an attack when the effect ends (similar to using an infantry charge when the shelling ceases, I guess). Plus, troops with protection from cold can use it to really fuck shit up.
Animus Blizzard and Verdigris Tsunami are both useful things to cast on stuff moving through the pass, since they both damage whatever you cast them at, and create a blockade that has to be dealt with (undead and very think vegetation, respectively).

There are others, and someone may be able to create a custom one that would be very effective.

>>14922956

We want to be careful about doing too much damage- both to them and us. Our civilians have crops to grow, and there is no point capturing desolate territory. I'm against using spells of mass destruction unless something goes seriously amiss. Surgical strikes all the way.

>>14922956
Honestly I think Dragon Strike would be pretty thematic and good for destroying their main force. The others I am much more iffy on. I don't think we should do something that would set Neshy against us yet, (at least not that can be traced back to us) considering how valuable she was in this war.

That gold would /never/ have listened to a red, for instance.

you know by just casting one of these spells any we may get the mages to collectively shit their pants.

>>14922981
And that, sir would be an excellent thing. If we can make Morinth never EVER want to go to war against us again then I would say that's an extra benefit.

I hope they feel the backlash of our magics so hard that some of their apprentice's heads explode.

>>14922975
Pretty sure casting stuff up in a mountain pass would do a total of zilch damage to the peasants and their crop growing, especially if it was Verdigris Tsunami.

Regarding peace, we need to play that carefully, and make Rhasver look as unreasonable as possible regarding terms (not that hard to do, I imagine) for the next two months or so.

Lets start on preparing the Dragon Strike spell to be used on the enemy army- there'll be so many Red's around they aren't even going to bat an eye on one more (us) or two more (us and Seffy) who are just going to go postal and toasty on their asses.

This will end up happening around the same time as the Gold gets into gear, having seen diplomacy hasn't worked.

Thirdly, get Operation Cloud-hammer ago- if we have the resources to prepare the stuff needed for a second Epic Spell then lets do it- Verdigris sounds good- Tsunami's a bit overkill. And we'll deploy that along with this to wreck the non-maintain-pass fortifications.

>>14923102

*non-mountain, sorry- though if there aren't any of those left, by all means we should use it on the ones in the mountain pass.

>>14923102
Ah, the main difference between Verdigris and Tsunami is that Tsunami is permenant, ie the plants don't evaporate after 20 hours. Meaning that the Rhasverians hav to actually clear it themselves. Which is the main point of casting Verdigris.

why hasn't this therad been archived?

>>14923134

True, I was thinking of which locale it'd be on- if non mountainous, that land might be used by the peasantry, and they'd want it as-was. If mountainous, then go nuts.

Negotiations with blues you deem too costly, and so turn to other methods. With the arrival of spring and meltwater, you begin shipping raiding parties up the rivers- They're a far cry from rough seas, but your sailor's skills carry over anyway. Your reach spreads inwards, and no village so much as /near/ a body of water is safe from the depradations of your minions.

You push the Rhasverian invasion force into full retreat after annihilating a few groups of their defenses with Lorekeeper's cloud castle. A defense is devoloped surprisingly fast- An semi-permeable force-dome that succeeds in preventing repetition, but cannot prevent bombardment. Chasing from above and on foot, you pursue them into and through the passes, annihilating them where you can with elemental forces, though even in all out retreat, that is incredibly difficult. You imagine your cloudbank appears on the horizon, and only is verified as something to fear when the retreating Rhasverian forces below you become visible...

You receive an increasing number of adventurers, spies, and mercenaries, both at home and upon the cloud-castle. They are annoying, but more easily dealt with via the castle's defenses, which you keep fully armed, except for the sections near your minions. Your ability to bombard your opponents from above is something they literally cannot match, and you actually convince several outlying Rhasverian towns to surrender after a demonstration of your powers.

The city is something more difficult. It does buckle down for a siege, and raises a force dome over the city capable of repelling both your castle and boulders, or other bombardment materials. They also reinforce heavily, bringing soldiers in via tunnel, teleport, and road. Your forces grind to a halt around the city, digging in for siege, and you prepare a short visit to an old friend.

Seffestranias is surprisingly free of scars as you approach her, with a few major ones being prominent, but the majority having faded to near-invisibility. She dismisses her guards, and invites you to revert yourself, should you desire. You politely decline.

“I assume this is about your war?” she asks sociably, staring down at your polymorphed form. Draconic, of course, is the language of the meeting.

“Indeed it is. While I'm happy that you are willing to assist me, I am somewhat paranoid about the reasons for your sudden willingness to assist...” you reply.

“Ah, but... Azaladon, I believe?” she pauses and you nod reluctantly, wondering where she got your real name. “I am always eager to enter a good fight, on one side or another...” she replies, pacing slowly. “I was, as mentioned, occupied in the fall with a neighbor.”

“Really? Do tell.” you reply, interested. You carefully keep the skepticism out of your voice.

“Why, I would have thought your spies would have heard? I guess not.” Seffestranias replies with a delighted grin at the words. Evidently she's run into some of your agents in her territory, but either it was only a few, or she has something more than simple murder planned. You refrain from giving sign, and again, politely gesture for her to continue.

“I discussed certain things with a peer to the west. Resides within Rhasver, actually, or just on the edge...” Seffestranias says contentedly. “There were, sadly, disagreements.” she gestures at the fairly large scars, her shoulders, her flank, and a rather ugly looking scar on her tail where it looks like something attempted to take a chunk out. “I do not think he will be flying again any time soon. Seeing as I am no longer pursuing possibilities with him, and am recovered enough, I am quite willing to assist you with your pesky... dwarf-problem.” she answers.

>>14923181

For some reason, her forwardness perturbs me. She doesn't even bother pretending that she's not helping us because she wants to get in our pants.

>>14923181
> chews guo-tie
Sounds fine.

>>14923176
Also, which city is that? Can't be Rhasver capital, could it?

>>14923181
"Ah, greens can prove so short-sighted and troublesome, can't they? I myself ran into a similar problem with a white near both of our territories, and if you are feeling up to it after the fight in Rhasaver I believe that I left him rather... Ah, I think "badly singed" would be putting it lightly. I was otherwise occupied and did not feel the need to pursue him to his lair, so his hoard will be intact as far as I know.

If you do not wish to trouble yourself, I will likely be removing him in the future anyway. However, I thought you might enjoy such easy prey from time to time, in contrast to your usual dangerous pursuits."

After that, well, let's hire her on. I'd rather pay her in loot than land. Also, I think some people were saying we should ask her for any information she might know about the guildmistress-bitch. Probably nothing, but you never know...

>>14923181

I think she likes us. She's certainly done her research. We could work this to our advantage by keeping her interested.

Definitely need to tighten our counter-intelligence net on the home turf.

Compliment her on her dealing with the other, and on her perceptiveness. We underestimated her and she knows it; we can't afford to do that again. Find out what price she wants from us for her assistance. Hopefully it won't be anything too horrendous.

>>14923181
>>14923176
"Oh, and don't mind the spies. I was simply ensuring that you were single." Dragon wink.

No, not really, but it would be smooth as hell.

>>14923227
Second.

I say we be good natured about it. Smile and raise our hands in defeat, then congratulate her on her perceptiveness. If we've caught any spys from her we should retort with them and a grin. Overall be friendly and just shrug it off as something we do, not hostile.

>>14923215

'Red' you mean.

As for how to progress...hmm. Even though I don't think we're going to let her mongle our cock, no reason to let her know that. Lets play it cool, maybe drop some casual compliments, but stick to stern negotiating.

For some reason I think she likes that we're not scared of her, even in widdle elfie form. I guess she likes confidence.

>>14923227
Maybe something alike to the mentorship Az have with Firelady?

>>14923232
Part of me go 'ew'. But then again, that's Azaladon's species there, and she does have a rather substantial hoard and power, so I am not sure how it translate to an ordinary Red's sexual/greed glands.

>>14923261
>Maybe something alike to the mentorship Az have with Firelady?
No. She's not at all in need of mentoring.

Also, no, we're not considering for a mate either. Been over this so many times, ugh. It's fine to have a dragon friend, though... Seffy is actually pretty cool.

We should put the offer out there that we'll be around to help her if she ever feels like it. Point out the spies she caught and say that we have quite a few assets all over... if she would like to avail herself of our information gathering we could negotiate a reasonable price, much like she negotiates a reasonable price for her combat services.

>>14923260
>I guess she likes confidence.
Even dragon-bitches like the confidence. Hell, /especially/ the dragon bitches.

Alright, sorry, for the moment this thread must be cut off unexpectedly. I may be around to continue it later today, if autosage does not happen. Apologies.

Haha, this makes me wonder if leads in harem anime's aren't actually ignorant and that they willfully ignore overt interest due to how awkward and inappropriate it is.

>>14923261

From what we know she doesn't have a partner and never has. My guess is that she is looking for at least her equal in a mate and probably an ally also. I'm also guessing that the red she just fucked up was a potential who didn't meet her standards.

From what we know, we're pretty much on equal footing. She can extract from her population with presence and force what we do with cunning and guile. She's also making it amply clear that she is capable of more than just lolevil bullying. The name drop is a big hint. She's definitely trying to impress us.

>>14923261
Azaladon is in no way an ordinary Red.

>>14923271
This is a good idea. It could help us get seffy as an even more reliable ally and if she depends on our spy network then that means we will have information control. Also it helps us get some of the money we pay her back if she pays us for spying.

>>14923299
Let's not start leading her on or anything. The last thing I want to deal with is a woman (dragoness?) scorned. We should be friendly but make it clear we're already involved.

Didn't expect this to still be here when I woke up. Thanks for the good reading as always WD.

>>14923432
Agreed. Possible dragon-broette and ally (until she dies, fighting as much as she does it's probably inevitable) but we've got our wonderful devil-waifu already.

I always hate to stir this up, but since it's come up in discussion....

Last time our Devil became unbearable about this sort of thing was due to a gold making romantic passes at us and other such follow-ups. I don't know if the idea of a "business" relationship would bother her quite as much. Anything further than that would be quite unwelcomed both by us and our family however, so that's an option that can't be explored.

>>Kung-Phin istsion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToQTmUl_6XA&feature=related

Come on lads, not long to go now, eh? Chip up!

>>14923432

Whilst I'm not for actively chasing after her, flirtation and seduction are just further tools in our arsenal to get what we want, something we made clear to Scinnari. If thats the price she asks, I say go for it so long as it doesn't risk anything with regards to our kingdom or family. I doubt Seffy would want another ambitious Red tied so close to her holdings and person in any case, though she probably will want heirs.

>>14923498
Meh, she hardly objects to us doing business with other females. Our devil is practical after all, she knows that sending Seffy out to burn shit isn't some sort of romantic overture. And really, that's all we really should (or want to) do with Seffy. Political alliance and possibly frendship if she somehow survives the next century or two. Anything more? Nope. Plus, she's obviously checking into other red potentials anyway. She knows we're taken. Hell, she even came to our daughter's debutante party.

>>14923516
Our wife is obviously not comfortable with us screwing around. If we don't need to do it I don't think we should. We're a family-man-dragon.

I know I'm slowpoking ...... but why are we fighting with Rhasver again?

And can someone post the world map with the territories and nations outlined?

>>14923271
Regarding that, I was actually suggesting that Seffy's interest in Az is in the mentee-mentor type, with her as the mentor, not in the reverse.

But seems like the majority of people claim that Az is at least as powerful as her, at least in terms of accumulated strength/hoard.

That she is interested is a given. I am just not sure that it is lust-fueled. Perhaps she is just interested in that Az is not acting like the common Chaotic Evil Reds, and still manages to garner lots of power. Az is almost like Blues in some regard, though without the clan... Well, with Firelady coming up, that might be rectified in some manner of Red Guild, instead of Red Clan...

Well, that kind of interest from Seffy might turn into some interest to turn Az into a mate, or at the very least, an ally.

On a more paranoid note... How does TIamat feel about Binder... And her agents?

>>14923533

I agree for the most part, but I think we should keep our options open from a purely political point of view.

If those are the overtures that Seffy is making then we're on thin ice if we refuse; whilst we aren't an ordinary Red, Seffy certainly is and a rebuttal would probably be taken as an offense, or at least to imply that we see her as an unworthy inferior.

I'd rather have to deal with a huffy Devil than an insensed Dragon who we completely underestimated, and who just made it clear she has agents very close to us.

>>14923559

We're being attacked by them by pseudo-rationales that they gave to justify the start of the war. Real reason as far as we can tell for why this all started? No idea. We apparently pissed off some higher end mage in Morinth for unknown reasons and she apparently wants revenge so she egged on a full on war. Combining that timing with our gradual expansion over the last decade probably set the stage for what happened.

Its just, you know, we still have no idea what originally prompted this finger pointing towards us at all and that will still remain unresolved by the end of the war.

.....I'm so terribly tempted to have us put Rhasver in bad position for ending the war and us give them an easier way out with one of the conditions being able to help us get our hands on that mage. It's just that damn mage is too far up the heirarchy in Morinth to actually reasonably do anything about without us causing more problems for ourselves down the line. She'd have to be severely discredited in the city before such a thing would go well for us if we went for such a overt route when dealing with her.

>>14923653
Heh, and then it turned out that the very thing that Az supposedly 'stole', is Scinnari. Killed the mage that owned her in the end, didn't he?

Wait, or was it someone else?

Regardless, my point is that whether or not someone has a grudge for Az' many, many evil deeds, from his adventuring days to his empire building decades, or this was a complex and intricate international politics in motion, in the end, some things cannot be done any other way.

A dragon keeps his hoard.

>>14923653
Ah, I see

I thought that we had orchestrated the start of the war for some reason.

Could be sweet if we were to annex Rhashver... but I think that is too much to hope for..

I think if she invites us to revert, we should take her up on it. Speaking dragon to dragon would only make her feel more comfortable around us, and more likely to agree to help us, I think.

As was mentioned previously, I'm all up for joint kill+loot the green and white. They've pissed us both off, and we can split their hoards. I'm sure she'd be amenable to that. And it'd be a good chance to show off our sorcery.

>>14923741

While true, I dislike leaving those you have a concentrated grudge against us and the ability to interrupt our plans alone. We've remained pretty good at keeping out of the spotlight so far, but this mage is what...three or fourth down the line to become the head of all the mages in the city? That's just one or two power struggles away from happening potentially.

It's bad enough when an individual has the apparent ability to power a larger power into action, it's even worse if the poker actually gains control of one of those powers.

Hell at the very worst this mage's actions have cost our hoard more than any other endeavor to date.

Bumping in preparation for the glorious return of WD.

>>14923837
>I think if she invites us to revert, we should take her up on it.
Definitely. Acting as a dragon when dealing with Seffy is a statement that we see ourselves as on par; acting in human form implies that we either don't trust any of her minions who might see us to hold their silence, or that we don't want to deal with her in our capacity as a dragon. Kind of rude.