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Also, dabbling with murder cults which worship outlawed death gods is an excellent reason to be secretive. The politics of the Elder Council sometimes descend into ruthlessness but they do have standards and appearance to keep. Even without morals of your own, denouncing a rival's immorality is not a bad way to tear him down.

Right, I should've written that there would be no reason that the Emperor, or someone such as Maro wouldn't be involved, even in secret, to this plan of assassinating an enemy monarch via peculiar means.

EDIT: and yes, the hard part will be proving the Breton's deception to other people, including the Emperor. It doesn't help that we put big E in the shitty position of choosing between his favorite and someone who is actually important and influential. I think ultimately he will trust us but our relationship might be strained.
 
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Grimgravy

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire
Hopefully the Occulatus will turn up something so that it isn't the emperor choosing his favorite over the important guy.
 
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Hmm.

If the old man was strong, I'd go with 1. We would show him that we know our place whereas Motierre doesn't.

But he is weak so this is some Wormtongue-tier shit.

Tentatively voting 2C

Although 2b has potential as some 8D backgammon shit but I am struggling to think of what the point of that would be.
 
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He is not mad, though, he is clearly very intelligent and pushing the Emperor where he is vulnerable, which is his difficult relationship with his own faith. I think.

The question is, would you trust the Emperor not to fall for his speech? If yes, then it would be best to keep silent and let big E to speak for himself.

But I don't trust him because it seems that he is an exhausted old man. Even if Motierre doesn't entirely compromise him with his words, he could cloud his judgement.

Remember that we are supposed to be here to be judged by the Emperor, not have a debate about the ethics of rulers and theology.

You are letting Motierre control the conversation.
 

Grimgravy

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Big E seems confident that stirring up the old gods is a bad idea. I'm not sure what the Breton is on about with meditating on a mountain. As such, I am loathe to agree or disagree with him.
 
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Big E seems confident that stirring up the old gods is a bad idea. I'm not sure what the Breton is on about with meditating on a mountain. As such, I am loathe to agree or disagree with him.

I could be 100% wrong but I think the argument is actually broader than the old gods.

Motierre is saying that rulers are allowed to, even obligated to, transcend the morality of the common men. That rules that are meant to be followed by commoners can lead to failure in rulers. Basically, realpolitik, ends justify the means, whatever - rulers need to be able to do whatever they need to hold on to their power.

Emperor is arguing that the divine right of kings (meaning that a ruler is justified to have power by a divine authority above them) is necessary because otherwise there is no justification for the power of rulers. As such, rulers should be beholden to rules and responsibilities set by the divines. In our previous conversation together, Emperor seemed to have suggested that he doesn't really believe in the Divines, but simultaneously feels compelled to because the concept of faith kept the Empire together this whole time. So his own belief is very shaky, but simultaneously could be quite strong. In the mind of a troubled believer, typically doubt begets the strengthening of faith and not the weakening of it.

Motierre is bringing up Jurgen Windcaller in order to, I think, make the following point: here is a great man that threw away everything and was reduced by to an idle failure due to a religious calling. Like you. The conversation already feels like the "Rhaegar was righteous and Rhaegar died" monologue from ASoIaF.

Essentially, to justify his own crimes of trying to summon the daedra, Motierre is trying say that everything should be permissible to men like us while simultaneously tearing down the Emperor's sole support, which is his faith.

I don't think we should let it happen, my dudes.
 
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MercantileInterest

If it is not too much to ask and doesn't spoil anything, can you give an explanation as to what just happened? I get the sense that this was the wrong choice to make but I am not sure why or what the correct course of action was in this situation.

Gauldur's Bait you need to get in here to offset my terrible suggestions, my dude.
 

Grimgravy

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That was disagreeing without attacking personally? Definitely didn't attack the Breton, but we didn't disagree with any conviction at all.
 
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Yeah that is kind of why I am confused. We chose a general approach that depended on the main character's established skill as a rhetoritician but Decius seemed very passive and it also didn't feel like he used his uncanny eye for lies and intentions to see through Motierre's argument.

I would understand if, for example, the protagonist's pride came into play and fucked us over. Previous failures also made sense because they were a result of miscalculation or bad planning (like being arrested by the Occulati because I foolishly thought they trusted Decius more than they did). But here we picked a general strategy based on the initial premise of Motierre's argument and Decius didn't really adjust to the argument as it developed. I guess maybe Motierre is just supposed to be more persuasive than us and we fell into a rhetorical trap (as in, he bated a disagreement out of us which contributed to his larger point and Decius didn't really adapt to that in any way because he was caught off-guard?)

EDIT: Not to mention, Decius disagreed with the very surface level of Motierre's argument which wasn't even really his main point (it seemed to me at least that Motierre wasn't really doubting faith but rather he was trying to justify his actions while simultaneously trying to manipulate the Emperor into the whole "Rulers transcend ethics" meme). It just feels weird that Decius with his uncanny insight didn't pick up on the latter.

Keep in mind I could be wrong, whoever runs a CYOA/tabletop RPG/anything has a very different perspective from the players that might very well be the correct one. I am not trying to shit on you MI. As a GM I know how frustrating it is when your players don't give you the benefit of the doubt and automatically assumed you are bullshitting.
 
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Sure, the trap makes sense now. Thanks for clarifying BrocantileInterest.

EDIT: Still, maybe the choices could have been more clear. Like "Disagree with Motierre's assertion that faith is unimportant to monarchs." That way there is no confusion between reacting to a specific statement Motierre made and reacting to his argument as a whole.

Well fuck. Its not even like we made the wrong choice, its more like Motierre is just a fucking God.

Unless we can turn a failure into a opportunity somehow, we lose and we cannot afford to lose. The Emperor is basically everything to us and we are 100% fucked if he gets compromised, it has been established that we are nothing without him. So we either try to strengthen Emperor's position or we GTFO. I see two ways forward at this point:

1. Take hold of Emperor's newly...inspired religiosity but turn it inward instead of outward. Push him towards thrusting religion into politics. Go diehard theocracy mode complete with purges of heretics and political dissidents (like, you know, Motierre although undermining him in big E's eyes will probably be immensely difficult) and strengthen the Emperor's power and therefore your own.
2. Fuck off to High Rock like Vaerys suggested (essentially switch patrons so that when E goes down we don't go down with him.)

Either way it seems that we cannot do this on our own. We never felt our lack of connections as strongly as we do now. We need allies and we didn't really progress much to secure Vitellius so far which is irritating. Varys could make a powerful ally but he is damn scary. At least we know that he is probably not in league with the most probable coupists (Motierre, Domitian) on the account of him being an outsider to the court. And knowing King Robert's temperament, he is probably not in league with him either.

But let us see how the choices turns out.
 
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Gauldur's Bait

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MercantileInterest

If it is not too much to ask and doesn't spoil anything, can you give an explanation as to what just happened? I get the sense that this was the wrong choice to make but I am not sure why or what the correct course of action was in this situation.

Gauldur's Bait you need to get in here to offset my terrible suggestions, my dude.

Thanks guys! I'm totally bogged down with IRL distractions, but should have better time tomorrow to get into this. Great to see it back on! :salute:
 
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Did Bob allegedly take Winterfell or Windhelm? Just making sure.

1A

We can't really refuse one of these gifts. It would be too suspicious.

The stone of Barenziah...she is a famous Dunmer figure that was involved a few of the past Emperors. From Elder Scrolls Wiki:

"Tiber Septim was fascinated with Barenziah's beauty. After Symmachus left to return to Morrowind, she had an affair with the Emperor, and became pregnant. Hearing of her pregnancy, Tiber Septim was furious. Avoiding any scandal, he ordered the pregnancy to be aborted, and then sent Barenziah to Morrowind."

Remember, the Septim bloodline is legendary and the current Emperor is obsessed with its legacy, as well as old artifacts in general, the Septim ones in particular. So let us use this stone and the prophecy surround it to...rejuvenate the Emperor's faith even further. Unlike Motierre, we will present him with more than just words. A prophesy for a new God-Emperor. A stone for the crown that shall bring an endless winter to our Westerosi enemies.

Yes, I can hear it already: the agony and jubilation of the Divine Tamrielic Empire! We will reform our society and inflict terrible harm onto those who threaten it! The commonfolk and aristocrats alike will fear the Divines once more or else their filthy souls shall be rendered immaculate by flame!

Hail to the Mede Dynasty! Tremble before the new God-Emperor!

Anyway, you get the idea. Motierre created a weakness in the Emperor that he thought to exploit. Let's one-up Motierre and exploit this weakness ourselves and turn it into a strength.
 

Gauldur's Bait

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I don't see any use for a black soul gem right now (and we might not want it in our possession). However, it is interesting that he would offer such a thing to us in the first place. The cursed item is indeed either cursed or a fraud, in the latter case it could mostly be used as some sort of deterrent but would put us in a bad light doing so. So yeah, let's go with the stone.

1A
 
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To play devil's advocate and since I am afraid of encouraging yet another ruinous course of action, I will say that 1B has merits in that it is a soulgem that -probably- fits inside Morierre's dagger that we have. That being said we don't even know to what extent magic works in this setting and I would say 1A might grant us more political leverage that we desperately lack right now.
 

Gauldur's Bait

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Yes, thought about combining the dagger and the gem, but for what purpose would we want to do so now? Hmmm...decisions decisions...
 

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