Roland’s Notes, Observations, and Tentative Plans.

Grayoak

Grayoak

Newbie
Alright. Now that I’ve had time to think more clearly, and considered a variety of facts and theories, I’ve got some ideas.

I’m gonna separate these musings into three categories.

Evaluations for the remaining competitors. Talking about what we know, what we don’t, and educated guesses.

Missions consist of jobs we have available to us at this moment, and I’ll be placing them in a tentative schedule.

Solutions, which will cover our general options as I understand them for going forward with the war. This section is going to be the main talking point for the Town Meeting I’m hoping to set up on Saturday. So we can get outside opinions on the situation, and possibly some additional information or insight on how to handle certain things.

Court Evaluations​

To begin, we now have 7 courts remaining. Below lists each in order of how many mantles each has, and provides the identity of their mantle bearer.

In the lead, with 4 mantles.
  • Conflict: Daerim (Stone, knowledge, lightning)
Second with 3 mantles,
  • Artifice: V (Flame and Ice)
Those with 2.
  • Twilight and Wilderness: Luna (Balance)
  • Monsters: Kormac (Noble Races)
  • Confusion: Fox Wilderkin (Judgement)
Those with only 1.
  • Dawn and Civilization: Dea
  • Peace and Harmony: Elaine
To deconstruct what we know about each, let’s take them from the bottom.

Peace and Harmony:​

This court is headed by Elaine, as we have recently found out this past Market. We don’t have much dealings with them, but what we do know is that the court is powered by Bindomancy and is proficient in its use. Evidenced by the village we lured bears out of a few gathers ago, Peace slowed the movements of any hostile actions.

Dawn and Civilization:​

This court is headed by Dea. Somebody widely agreed to be an *******. The court itself is powered by commerce, but does not seem very driven to fight from what we’ve seen. So their combat capabilities are currently unknown. They are one we’ve had a lot of contact with, the most willing to meet if we have a deal to be struck.

Confusion (Judgement):​

This court is headed by a Fae in the form of a Wilderkin we affectionately call The Fox. It stands to reason that this court would be powered by Alteration effects. Intoxicates, hallucinates, enfeebles, all come to mind when confusion is concerned. His combat capabilities haven’t been fully shown, but he got the power of the court of Judgement somehow. And with that, the power to enforce laws or rules as well as be powered by them breaking. How well these two courts synergize is up in the air sadly.

Monsters (Noble Races):​

Headed by a monstrous Fae called Kormac, who’s voracity is legendary. He literally ate the mantle bearer for Noble Races to get his mantle. The court relies on physical power, and possibly weaponized racism. Remains to be seen the extent, but expect some massive blows coming from this mantle bearer if you ever fight him.

Twilight and Wilderness (Balance):​

Headed by the werewolf Luna, this court is very hands on. Physically powerful, and straightforward with her approach to us adventurers, Luna is still a powerhouse of the competition. Her newfound power over necromancy and earth magic has been relatively wasted as she doesn’t seem to care for the arcane, preferring to tear down buildings with her own claws. Despite her intent to make a world where everyone lives in the wilderness, she has some supporters among the Mistwalkers.

Artifice (Flame and Ice)​

Headed by V, the “Toymaker” as the former mantle bearer for Ice called her, the court of Artifice is the most open to suggestions and influences. Preferring to make inventions and gift magic items to us, V has gained a solid following among the Mistwalkers. Though she has the powers of Ice and Flame now, it takes time for her to create Golems or inventions using those powers. Until then, she’s a very weak physical combatant.

Conflict (Stone, Lightning, and Knowledge):​

Headed by a man with an ornate sword named Daerim. He’s got stone elementals, and not afraid to use them. Now he’s also got the power of Lightning (Heinricht and Faustian surely remember how bad that fight was) and Knowledge. Which, ironically, we know precious little about. However, from what little conversation I heard between Daerim and Syldra, there was a mention of Foresight unique to the Court of Knowledge. He says he’s gonna use it in ways she never would have imagined. I don’t like the sound of that.

(Connected to the court of Lightning, Conflict is now powered by Rituals and Backlashes)

Missions/Schedule:​

Friday night:​

  • First thing we need to do is attack the Font of Jesters given the location Elaine’s assistant gave us. This should hobble Conflict for at least the Market and allow us to act unhindered. Possibly collect a shard or piece of the Font we can use a ritual on to identify other weaknesses we can target. Prepare for a hard fight with much mind altering effects if there are any Jesters there.
  • Raid the Chaperal Vault, as Heinricht has found a means of entering. This should hopefully provide us with some funds, and possibly some magic items to aid our fight. Time will tell.
  • We should focus on helping V expedite her Golem making process if at all possible this night.
  • If we still have time left in the night, setting up a conference with Peace might benefit both parties. We need more information on Conflict and Daerim. If we can find any more of his weaknesses this market the better. This will also give us a chance to settle anyones curious minds, and give us more to speak about Saturday’s town meeting.
  • We should also try to set up a conference with Dea for the next morning.

Saturday:​

  • First off, hopefully a meeting with Dea to discuss the Gnolls. Possibly more depending on what’s coming up.
  • We should continue to prioritize V and golem creation throughout the day if possible.
  • If nothing else can be done for V, then maybe we stop by Bolandr and Bargain with him again. Nothing like getting brutally killed to relieve stress.
  • I’m sure we’ll have to deal with the local population having monster problems so I’m dedicating an open slot to dealing with that.
  • Lunch/Town Meeting, we should have much to discuss around this time. Ideas to bounce, information to gather, plans to be made, and decisions to be considered.
Everything after lunch is up in the air depending on the choices we make on how we want to proceed with the war.


Solutions:​

Now we have our solutions, or ideas on how I can see this situation playing out.

First way:​

Feed Peace and Civilization the mantles of Confusion and Monsters, respectively.

This will level the field out to 3 courts with 3 mantles. Leaving Luna with 2.

Pros:

  • This is making the chances of Conflict eliminating V in the interim between markets about 33% instead of 100% like it would have been without this.
  • This lets us fight and see what the other four mantles can do so we know more about what to expect in a fight going forward.
Cons:
  • Conflict is almost certainly getting to 7 mantles before next market if we do this.
  • This means we’d have to fight and defeat 2 separate mantle bearers of considerable challenge in the same market. Not impossible, but not something we’ve done before.
  • We kill the Fox. Very sad.

Second way:​

We feed Monsters and Noble Races to Luna, bumping her up to 4 mantles and then sicking her on Conflict in an even fight.

Pros:
  • If Luna wins, then we never have to deal with conflict again and don’t have to worry about him getting to far in the competition.
  • Some people like Luna.
Cons:
  • She’s almost guaranteed to lose considering Conflict has shown he’s more than willing to use his magic mantles to aid him. Meanwhile Luna has not at all. Giving Conflict an distinct edge.
  • If Conflict does win, then he now has 8 mantles. Which means he has the majority of mantles in Play, and makes for beating him going forward MUCH harder.
  • If Luna does win, then she has 8 mantles and those of us who don’t like her have the same problem as above.

Third way:​

We actively hunt down Conflict this Market after talking with Peace so she gets the mantles. Putting her at 5.

Pros:
  • No super high change of mantle balance compared to the others.
  • No risk of exponential power growth for Conflict.
  • More peace is always a good thing.
  • Peace might have a means of helping us.
  • Peace might be able to be talked out of their mantles without having to fight them for it. If we win and get peace the mantles.
Cons:
  • We’re gonna die or have a very high chance of dying as we are severely underprepared for a fight like this. Because imagine if Bolandr had stone and lightning elementals helping him, and that’s about how bad I expect this fight to be.
  • That might be an exaggeration, but not too much of one.

I want to clarify that I do believe this is very much possible, and viable to do. But I don’t believe it will be easy, and maybe it’s not worth the risk yet. I have alternatives I’ll present at the Town Meeting.

Conclusion:​

That’s all I have for right now. If any more information reaches me, I’ll try to stay up to date.

Until then, ask questions. Find something I missed in my wired, tired brain. Let me know if I missed anything you believe is important, or you just want more context than I gave.

Opening a dialogue is important to the facilitation of new ideas, and boy do we need new ideas.

~Roland Tolstoy, of HearthGlen.
 
Peace and Civilization are no way strong enough to take Kormac. Kormac will win against either of these two.

I believe the distress at the city of man is being caused by the Fox as the refugees are causing nothing but chaos and confusion among the city of man. I do not think Peace or Civilization will be able to take the Fox.

In this matter I feel that if you push a conflict among these four; Kormac will take Peace and The Fox will take Civilization.

We are no way strong enough to take conflict, even with Peace's help. If we push against conflict we are dead. We dont even know the strengths and capacity of Peace. They are a relative unknown and placing our faith in them against Conflict is going to be a tough sell.

Luna and Kormac would be an interesting fight. Both are powerful and savage and both have shown a kindness to us. Although it would be preferable for Luna to win against Kormac; either merged together would have a chance against Conflict.

Its a tough call. We need to buy time so our allies can get stronger while at the same time trying to weaknes Conflict.
 
With the update from peace and harmony we should look hard at who we would like to champion.

Some adventures would say Luna, others would say V. Depending on which adventurers show up this gather it will be a close call.
 
Heinricht said:
With the update from peace and harmony we should look hard at who we would like to champion.

Some adventures would say Luna, others would say V. Depending on which adventurers show up this gather it will be a close call.
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Syldra was the only other serious backer. Peace was never an option until last market… damn it.

This complicates things. I’ll think things over and have a few options for how to proceed by the first night of market.

~Roland.
 
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