Inactive [LP CYOA] Overlord

A1 > C

 

Hm. Interesting. I see there is support for the A1 option. Now that I consider it again, it does not look too bad.

Can anyone give me a rationale for it? I might be willing to flop, or at least put it as a secondary vote.

 

It is a chance to gain more minions. We can always destroy them if they betray us later on. Note, this should go hand in hand with revealing our "angelic" (interestingly, we do not smell like an angel, assuming the smell-samples Zayan had were genuine) nature.

 

It is a good option to see the general loyalty of Dijehian rank and file. It also lets us know what level of crazy Talal has for Zayan. If he can convince his men of their own free will to come along then we get ourselves some good soldiers without much effort. If it doesn't work it defaults to C anyway.

 

Apart from getting some professional soldiers, they could tell us more about Dijeh army than our resident crazy scientist.
Zayan seems to be the type of person, who is only interested in her research than politic or anything else...That's okay in my books, we didn't excactly pick her up for her political knowledge.

We might lose our surprise attack status, but why the hell not A1

 

Convincing, but it hardly goes far enough and imputes innocent and naïve trustworthiness to us. Why even let it get that far that they might betray us? We can easily betray them long before they have a chance to betray us. Use them as front-line fodder to get a near-term goal done. Use them as a bait or as a forlorn hope into a meat-grinder situation.

Talal and company have zero reason to say no until we take up arms against their actual country, until then they'll basically regard their status as jolly knight-errants off on a foreign adventure. We can make sure they get ground up before they realise we aren't just thinking locally.

 

Well, for one, where do we keep them and how do we get them to comply with our orders? Both we and Rin are absent from the village, with Zayan being the closest thing to a senior officer. And we will be leaving her with the people who were tasked with (and therefore capable of) dragging her off to Dijeh.

Talal's infatuation with Zayan has a lot to do with him completely misjudging her character, which might not last if Zayan continues to show her other side (she approves of killing the ones that do not want to come with us, after all). I can see him being oblivious to it if he thinks it were us who corrupted 'his precious', in which case I am not very enthusiastic about having him around.

Oh, and it will work. The question is, what happens next and how do we keep them.

The result is that we bring a group of somewhat hostile soldiers under command of a somewhat hostile captain in the middle of the gobbo village while we are out adventuring. These people would know about our monster nature and potentially about the whole affair that happened in Ontoglia. A single escapee, and we are looking at a major disaster, as suddenly both Dijeh and Methuss are baying for our blood - one because we killed their soldiers and stole their assets, the other because we tried to fuck the Crown Prince over.

I don't know, that seems to be a lot of risks involved in it.

 

That's why we kill those, who refuses us.
These guys seem to be more honest guys, who simply refuses when we ask them nicely do they want to serve us.
Maybe soldiers in dijeh are more loyal to their commander than to their state. I am no history buff, but didn't fight for your country came much later than fight for your chieftain/commander type of loyalty?

 

Well, it's high time we stopped going out adventuring and started sending out minions, like any Overlord worth the title. And if we *really* have to, we should absolutely leave Rin behind as a governor.

Come to think of it... treave ! Is it possible to imbue and item with magic so as to convert it into some sort of a teleportation beacon for us to home on? Let someone else do all the tedious traveling, and we'd just be porting in when necessary, and then porting back to our Lair of Doom.

 

If you are so worried about possible betrayals later on, the solution is simple: make the captain execute his own men for these sweet Renegade Grimdark Overlord Points. After that, we can always recruit mercenaries/soldiers from Dijeh to fill up the ranks. Of course, it would be a good idea to dispose of these guys first before attempting to conquer that particular place (once we have taken over the rest of the world).

PS: Storyfag, your idea is good, but I believe an artifact that lets us see through our minions' eyes would be better. Rin can already teleport to other people's location, solving that problem.

 

That's why I say it would work.

We kill those who openly refuse us. The captain concedes to preserve the lives of the rest of his men. The men surrender.

You don't suppose that they would suddenly love us for killing their comrades, do you?

Then we kind of turn our back to them and leave them to do whatever they want. Do you really take their word for it that they won't think of betraying you? Is it even betrayal when there are with you against their will in the first place?

I don't know, it sounds like wishful thinking to me. I'd like to keep them, but I just don't see anything positive to motivate them with.

That's not A1, which we are currently discussing.

And the renegade captain might be prone to strangling Zayan after she does not reciprocate his advances, and going out with a bang. You never go full renegade.

 

I see one thing that could really be a fun meat-grinder to throw these clowns into right away, using them up to our own advantage instead of takng them on bluntly and directly as opponents. Details are pending an info dump on politics, but...

Tentatively, as an example, we could imply that Zayan has learned off some horrible superweapon that Barzam can construct with that much magnetite heading toward its secret laboratories and Zayan must gallantly save all of humanity with only us and Talal's merry crew. They've come this far thinking she shits roses, so why not stretch it a few more useful inches toward our own goals?

Rin and us, the gobbos, Talal and his crew, Fortunio and his bandits, Zayan's gizmos and scientifimatic gimcracks and a healthy dose of traps in a good spot for an ambuscade... that's a potent force. That shipment won't be stalled forever awaiting our return. Whatever reason Barzam needs it is probably a huge plot twist.

Needless to say, in the attack we "accidentally" mistime our own appearance in the encounter to weaken Talal and crew.

 

We have probably missed our chance to assault the caravan by not researching the option when it was available and aiming to get a scientist instead.

Not that I mind.

 

treave, if we go C, can we go B1C? I.e., we tell him to kill his men and then if he does, we kill him anyway. If he refuses, we kill them all quickly.

The old "I hate traitors." Approach to villainy. Yes, the villain would have killed everyone anyway, but he gives people the opportunity to show their true colors first.

 

I am sure that Erd is patient enough to listen every guards option, if they want to serve us or join us.
Besides I am sure there is somekind of punishment, if they fail to deliver Zayan back to Dijeh like execution for losing most brilliant mind in the whole continent? OR maybe some whipping?

Yes, they won't like us when we kill those who refuses, but we also offer them opportunity.
A oppurtunity to be part of something legendary! Some of those guys must have that dark side of their soul whispering that they can win big, if they become one of very first soldiers of angel overlord!
Surely they sense that window of opportunity to fame, riches, bitches and land should they start serving a angel who at that point had nothing.
Surely we can spare some land to loyal minions when we become big time overlord?

In short version, I am gambling on their greed and boldness to join our fray....And maybe some part of loyalto towards Zayan.

 

That... is an interesting take. I mean, it'd be great if we could genuinely convince them to join.

I just suspect that they would do so grudgingly, to preserve their lives.

 

Don't forget the ancient "do as I say, not as I do" rule. It works every time.

 

That's making assumptions. We didn't gather intel on the caravan, but it is probably still there loading and preparing for the long journey. A large caravan carrying a unheard-of amount of heavy ore would hardly have managed to set out so quickly, and would move slowly.

It's pretty clear by now that Zayan needs a large amount of the ore to do anything really spectacular in her field. And all you got was a measly little lump of it. Not enough for anything ambitious. No overlording material here.

Regardless of caravan status... Anything cunning at all, however, is far better than brutishly trying to wipe out these guys head-on and without guile. At least Lambchop can make C more interesting.

A1 > B1C

 

We've covered this. Hypocrisy is innate to the best of villains. They'll lie, cheat, steal, betray and then assume the moral high-ground and critique the hero when he makes the slightest fall. Maybe it helps them live with themselves or maybe they are just assholes. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Your idea sounds good, but we could improve it by making said soldiers wear uniforms from the Methuss/Galbaldy Kingdom to spread chaos between the two regions. At best they start a war, weakening each other in the process. The Barzam guys did it first, so it's fair we pay back with the same trick.

 

Results man, results.
Sure, they first bitch and whine, but once we get some results they cheer for us.

Besides we went to place of burly bearded men and we shall leave with burly bearded men.
Did you seriously think we would leave that place with only women?

 

Meh. That would just be sadism. The only pointless dickery I approve of is the one that has the titties at stake. Which, incidentally, does not make it pointless at all.

Yes. We must wear the Galbaldy uniform. And a hat on top of it. That will confuse everyone who lives to tell the tale.

I kinda hoped for it.

I'll switch to A1>C to give it a fighting chance.

 

Poster reported for delaying update.

 

I suppose... if we get the captain to believe that returning to Dijeh would really be a fate worse than death for Zayan, he would stick with her as a true whiteknight would, and police his men for us. That's a possibility... and pretty much the only way I can see it working.

However, that doesn't sound too far-fetched.

 

This is just wearing out the "funny hat meme" unnecessarily. The hat is a disguise, not a battle-helm.

You act as if we are a melee fighter, or possibly as if we are not even an overlord with proper minions to expend. And I suppose we don't have any minions, per se, because every one of our companions is a close friend that we cherish and we've no pawns to use. Here finally are pawns to use.

We don't need to show our hand in the ambush at all, because we want the very people taking the primary brunt of our damage to actually die or be badly degraded in strength. We let the merry band charge in and take the hardest hits as the traps spring, then rush our bandits and gobbos in from behind when Talal and Co. have got mauled up a bit, then summon some electric dragons or wolves from off stage for good measure, and Rin swoops in to clean up.

And if you still want to wade into combat at that point, then here's an alternative...

Take off the damned hat when it no longer serves a purpose disguising us in a town. Then no one recognizes Mr Halo Dude as Mr Hat Dude.

I also switched.