The Gossip Board

[Carthrat]

It's more that Tam said 'it will take days to prepare the portal', which means we have a few days to kill, which might as well be used touching base with Stratusberg.

Of course Hardsoil people could go do that, we have no obligation to hold their hands through everything. I mean, if they're asking for military aid we'd need them to give us like a letter and, um, discretionary funds. Yes.

[Dracos]

Yeah, that's just it.  I do think that they can do the whole message to stratusberg easily enough.  And if we go we're really going as messengers of Granny Tam, no better than any other with our lack of strong ties to the city.  Does that mean we shouldn't be?  I dunno, I don't personally have much interest in it, but if we really want to do it, we can.

If we go it could be used to provide real character to those who we might be fighting with as well, I guess.

Oddly I think our overall goal is that both sides lose, with the obvious min win being Hardsoil survives and is safe, largely because if either side wins, they'll likely conquer the entire area up to the opposing sides territory in order to recoup their war expenses.

Overall, I see we have these groups around/possible:
A)Hardsoil - involved, no further action needed.

B)The Dao - not involved, but close.  Unknown element.  May decide to take a side.  May decide to revenge on hardsoil during the chaos.  May be convinced TO take a side.  Difficult, interesting, etc.

C)The Xorn - The nebulous bad guys number one...BUT they don't dislike or hate us.  It may oddly be in our interest to contact them now because of the two groups, I think this is the less bad one to win.  Either way it may be in our interest to flare them up early in exchange for amnesty for the city of hardsoil.

D)Ogremoch flunkies - the clear bad guys number two.  I don't think there's a lot of room to play ball with them, and at least a few PCs IC won't want to play ball with them.  They know a war is planned and are getting ready for that now.

E)Devil City - uninvolved, but may GET involved if celestials are involved OR if ogremoch bribes them to.  In other words, I expect if things went badly but not terribly early for ogremoch we would see them bribed to get involved.  If things went well, but celestials showed up, they might get involved anyway to ruin them.

F)Stratusberg - uninvolved, but close.  I think we generally have been overstating the case of how very much it matters to them.  It really depends on the level of their trade ties as neither evil group is particularly well suited for invading the air plane and less for having interest in it at all.  Really, if their trade ties are good (or can become good) then they'll probably throw in with us.  If they aren't, then we're going to hit a diplomatic wall as we convince them to send their folks to a place where they are not very suited for to die for a battle that doesn't involve them at all and doesn't offer profit potential.  The kind of thing only adventurers and good guys do.

G)Knights of Arbor - uninvolved.  I think it's a given that they will join up if adail asks, or at least some portion of the White knights will.  May be able to fix kam's curse.

H)Court of the Stars - uninvolved.  possible but not great likelihood of getting involved.  They do totally make it their business to do that sort of thing, but that doesn't mean they'll even notice us to hear us out.  Contact details are not particularly well defined in the BoED.  Can fix kam's curse.

I)Elven cities - uninvolved, but they are clearly idiot do-gooders for the sake of doing good AND easy to find.  May well be worth the ask.  Kam has traveled along in that area before.  Likely can fix Kam's curse.

J)Other small/midsized settlements in the area - There probably are some.  Granny Tam though is probably better suited for calling in those favors and organizing them and I don't believe this will visibly enter the game space as something for us to do.

K)Other?  Did I miss anyone?

alright, I think that's a reasonably robust detail of the sides involved.

As I said, I don't see too much interest in stratusberg, but hey we might want to talk to them.  If we do, I think we're talking to their leaders or merchant guild, and possibly just a few adventuring groups in the area.  I won't stand in our way if we really go there.

  If I was to think of who I'd want to talk to with Arborea banned (boo), It'd be the Xorn...and the Devils.

alright plan coming here that a chaotic good person could never give.

I'd want to let the xorn know that the ogremoch guys have decided they need exterminating.  That we, in hardsoil, have no grudge against them would like to consider ourselves friends of the xorn nation.  We don't really want to get in the middle and are glad to offer trade relations.  I am assuming there are enough of them to prove a real threat to Ogremoch's forces and at the same time if they don't both lose, this is the side we would rather have on top and ideally with a friendly treaty not to eat hardsoil up.  And hey, they might need weapons or magic or things and we're glad to take some gold in exchange.

Then I would talk with the devils.  There's a war that's going to be happening.  Opportunity for misery.  For profit.  Whatever.  I don't really want the whole of the city involved.  I want one or two devils.  I want to hire them.  I want to hire them to convince the dao that the ogremoch group is really coming for them, not for the xorn, that the xorn is simply being used as an excuse and that they are going to sack the dao city for every bit of coin that they can get.  I'll encourage said hired individual to charge the dao as much as they want for the information, give them freely as much information as we can divine on ogremoch group movements, and pay them decently well.  I don't really care the details aside from that: A group unrelated to us and unrelated to hardsoil has provided the dao with the information to enter them into the war and make it very costly for ogremoch to make progress on attacking this front.

Bonus: Hire a small merc group to fly dao colors and attack an ogremoch bit.  Just to help fuel the fires.

Alternate?  We convince a stratusberg merchant to leak the information.  Possibly the same outcome.

If these went off well, they'd provide that we won't be fighting the xorn directly anytime soon, the xorn would be ready to make the fight as fierce as possible between them and ogremoch's goons, the dao already hate the xorn, but now won't be able to properly consider allying with ogremoch's side and in the best of cases might even start attacking both sides.

Not a bad start for possibly a day or three's work.  Of course, I dunno.  I'm wavering over whether large scale war strategy would be a thing for kam to know well.  I think that's really a better thing for Knight IC to be the expert on as Kam's experience and learning would be in tribal conflicts which involve armies of a few hundred tops probably.

From there we'd be well suited to be then bolstering hardsoil with allies so that it is difficult to take.  Most likely the highest value is actually resources and food so that the village can generally hunker down and try and avoid direct skirmishes.

[Dracos]

How big is hardsoil?  has it just been possibly protected by proximity of the dao before from ogremoch's group taking over the area?  Or is there some large neutral force that generally provides the encouragement for the dao or ogremoch groups to not simply just declare all the little towns in the area are theirs and should pay them tribute lest they sit an army of earth elementals on their doorstep?  I know the existence of the xorn technically provide the sort of storm of powers that would allow for small neutral gaps to exist, but I'm just wondering are there some other interesting players that might be riled by the changes?

Or is it possible that it's just that ogremoch and the dao do already maintain large territories and while they do grow in fits occassionally, they are largely at their present natural limits of just what they can easily control or at least in that comfortable range that empires sit at before they decide to devour additional territory.

It's a curiosity that I wonder if Granny Tam has an opinion on.  I suppose it might not be known information why certain empires move as they do, but if a local has a good feel for why their village isn't invaded and paying taxes to the dao and/or others regularly, I'd be ears to it.

[Dracos]

Also I apologize to Kotono for spamming with questions and campaign shaping curiosity on monday of a tuesday game.  Sorry Ko, I be slow.

[Anastasia]

If you guys wanna dig up more information on Hardsoil, possible Earth allies or anything Drac raised in his post, toss K:P checks and post them? Thanks. Alternately you can start next session gabbing awhile with Tam, up to you if you wanna spend some game time on that.

[Dracos]

<Dracos> roll 1d20+6 K:PA for 'local powers, villages, terrain of hardsoil surroundings'.  Includes hopefully just straight out asking Granny Tam for that information because lay of the land is important.
<Hatbot>
ACTION --> "Dracos rolls 1d20+6 K:PA for 'local powers, villages, terrain of hardsoil surroundings'. Includes hopefully just straight out asking Granny Tam for that information because lay of the land is important. and gets 8." [1d20=2]
<Dracos> Look, I have 20 numbers on my dice.
<Dracos> :)

[Anastasia]

I'm surprised you didn't roll a 1.

[Carthrat]

Mmm. Man, I should've thought of this. I'll, um, ape your format.

Dao: I think these guys would squarely be in Ogremoch's camp without some intervention. We've got to remember that the Xorns are probably really bad for the Dao, since they like to eat gems and hey look who has gems! The way they prey on merchant caravans is also quite likely to cause the Dao to take a dip in toll profits, and because the Xorns can earth glide there's not a lot they can do about it. However, I think they wouldn't want to see Hardsoil tanked or anything. Remember, the first time we entered, we had to show the guards tickets we bought from one of the Dao. They clearly have some kind of protection racket going that's probably easier than, say, outright conquering the place.

Xorns: First up, these guys really are a lesser evil. Second, it is extremely likely that everyone hates them (they're a racially motivated empire that eats precious things and preys on random travelers. They surely have few->no friends.) Third... well. I'm going to get to whether they should win or lose later, since I don't actually have a simple answer.

Ogremoch: His guys are basically assholes- but they're organized assholes. One thing that seems clear is that Ogremoch hasn't conquered that segment of the plane yet- obviously he has his reasons. He's not going there to take over, he's going there to crush a nascent empire before it becomes a threat. Evidently, he hasn't thought Hardsoil and the Dao and whatnot are a threat yet. He may team up with devils- or he may want nothing to do with them. I think he will win if he starts duking it out with the Xorns; they've had more presence, they've probably actually gone to war a few times, they have the experience, numbers, weapons, magic, etc, they're not racially motivated so they'll have an easier time picking up allies, etc. This assumes no interference, of course.

Devils: I'm not sure these guys won't get involved on their own if they hear about what's going on. I won't be suggesting dealing with them either- they're fundamentally dicks who are extremely likely to just screw us over. Naturally opposed to the following...

Various Good Expatriates: Hardsoil is essentially a storm in a teacup as far as the big picture goes, I'll bet. I'm sure they'd be willing to offer some aid, possibly even something really significant given our ties with them. The problem here is that bringing in a large contingent will escalate the conflict dramatically from a dispute between various neutral going on evil parties... to good versus evil, in an area where good looks to be on the minority.

Stratusburg: The antipathy is noted. It will really come down to this; is Stratusburg confident that no matter who wins on the other side of the portal, it won't affect them? If the Xorns do, it probably wouldn't, and if Hardsoil comes out on top, they're good. If Ogremoch comes out on top, then what is presently a mild antipathy between earth and air could become a full-blown hatred, depending on the disposition of Ogremoch's church.

Hardsoil: Hardsoil isn't actually at the center of this conflict. But it could be; we don't know all that much about it's policy. We aren't official agents of the town; we're simply friends with Granny Tam, who appears to have some clout. Since this is partially our fault (ok, it's entirely our fault), we do feel obligated to do something for the place. What that something is depends on what we/leadership thinks is best!

Drac's general plans there seem to mostly involve false flag operations; stirring up the kettle, so to speak, and getting everyone good and angry at each other. Additionally, it involves making overtures to the Xorns, which... basically means throwing Hardsoil's hat in the ring with them. We should keep in mind that if we do end up taking any actions like this, they will probably be figured out eventually, and be prepared for when they do.

<--->

Okay, overview done. The way I see it, we/Hardsoil have a few options.

Hardsoil, the new Belgium: Hardsoil is neutral and behaves as such, intending to weather out the war and preserve what it has, then pick up the pieces once it's over. We'd probably follow Knight's original suggestions and basically make the place look like a really hard target so nobody tried to fight, and any extra measures we take will be designed to get it all over and done with as quickly as possible. Celestial help would be at a minimum, but likely present; a few holy knights would probably actually dissuade other forces from getting involved, especially if it seems as though they'll just leave once the war is over.

Hardsoil, the new Rome: Hardsoil aggressively seeks to expand it's interests, viewing the war as an opportunity to be exploited. In this scenario, it really is trying to make key alliances now and play various other factions against each other, hoping in the end to come out on top with a strong grip on the area around it. Drac's methods would be used here; the aim would be to make sure all sides involved are severely weakened by the war and then to essentially take over the region around it. An alliance with the Xorn empire could be made, but we want to end up in a strong position where we hold more cards at the treaty table than them. Good... doesn't really factor into this. It's expansionism and will be perceived as such. If we take aggressive actions, I feel we have no choice but to follow up on them, or eventually the time will come when someone tries to get revenge and we won't be in a good spot to handle it. Ideally, the conflict would not endure forever.

Hardsoil, the new Bastion of Light: We go and get as many celestial allies as we can and park them in Hardsoil, collapse the portal to the magma plane, and then seek to take the fight to the evildoers! The Xorns would be put under control, the devils taken out of the equation, and hopefully we can weaken Nixale's power overall in general. Any sort of large-scale intervention is sure to drag in all sorts of other parties, and I suspect Kam and Adail couldn't easily back out of this if it happened (unlikely Knight and Mari, whom I suspect would leave as soon as it looked like this may take years.)

I very much want to discuss our options with Tam tomorrow.

[Carthrat]

I said it before, but.

We can toss out these options and give them to other people! We don't need to do it all ourselves, presuming Hardsoil has some interest in it's own affairs.

[Sierra]

Team BELGIUM gets my vote. I thought we were more about setting the place up so that it's too much trouble for either side to take than in running a full-blown war ourselves anyway. Mari would indeed not have patience for something that kept her tied down for too long.

I'll pop into #e when I get home to roll K:P. It would be useful to know who actually runs Hardsoil and local environs when we go asking people to help it, after all.

[Carthrat]

Well, it's technically up to whoever's the boss of hardsoil.

Belgium gets my vote too though.

[Carthrat]

(we can of course just wash our hands of the whole thing, I mean our advice and offering to bring friends *might* not be accepted and then well we don't have to care, right?)

[VySaika]

Yeah, I'm down with the Belgium option. So is Adail ic as well. Trying to make Hardsoil the New Bastion Of Light would...frankly endanger it's people far more then just trying to keep it neutral/alive during the conflict. Our goal here, as Adail understands it, is just making sure that Hardsoil doesn't get flattened in the conflict, and just let the Xorn and Ogremoch duke it out.

[Anastasia]

Team BELGIUM gets my vote. I thought we were more about setting the place up so that it's too much trouble for either side to take than in running a full-blown war ourselves anyway. Mari would indeed not have patience for something that kept her tied down for too long.

I'll pop into #e when I get home to roll K:P. It would be useful to know who actually runs Hardsoil and local environs when we go asking people to help it, after all.

Cid: You can do this, but by the time you do it's about time for me to leave for work. I won't have a chance to deal with it until gametime, so if you guys are going to go see Granny Tam it may better to just do it as an infodump at the session start.

[Anastasia]

Guys, I'm thrilled you're interested in what's going on and debating courses of action! Could we just do it earlier in the week so I have more prep time? Thanks!

Seriously, I don't always do my prep late in the week or have time to adjust it. Maalox-fueled DMing ahoy!