[LP CYOA] Epic

[Azira]

edit: And to those of you who have a problem with not playing Dio to win, think about it like this:

Do we favor Dio - a horribly screwed up character who we've only been playing for less than 1 chapter? Or Ean - our bro from day one?

Ean is not just our bro. He's a bro to all things, except manipulative twats. Come to think of it, I think I know why Ean was broken up into several pieces:the spheres saw just how much of a bro he was.
They also saw that he doesn't gave any real bros, because no bro is enough of a bro to be Ean's bro(except BLOBERT, but he is their bro already), and being the bros they are they saw how unbro that was, so they decided to give him some bros to bro with. Since the only one to be able to bro with Ean is Ean, they had to split him up.
That, or they decided that he is too much Man for any one reality to handle.

I got a distinct Smurf vibe off of that tirade, Baltika9. Was that your intent?

 

[Baltika9]

edit: And to those of you who have a problem with not playing Dio to win, think about it like this:

Do we favor Dio - a horribly screwed up character who we've only been playing for less than 1 chapter? Or Ean - our bro from day one?

Ean is not just our bro. He's a bro to all things, except manipulative twats. Come to think of it, I think I know why Ean was broken up into several pieces:the spheres saw just how much of a bro he was.
They also saw that he doesn't gave any real bros, because no bro is enough of a bro to be Ean's bro(except BLOBERT, but he is their bro already), and being the bros they are they saw how unbro that was, so they decided to give him some bros to bro with. Since the only one to be able to bro with Ean is Ean, they had to split him up.
That, or they decided that he is too much Man for any one reality to handle.

I got a distinct Smurf vibe off of that tirade, Baltika9. Was that your intent?

My intent was to uncover the truth...nah, the intent was lulz. If comparing it to the Smurfs increased the amount of lulz received, I am all for it.
Also

While Dio might personally be a complete asshole, this does not mean he would make a bad emperor or minister.

I could see him as a spymaster on an extremely short leash.
Making him Emperor is pretty much putting Stalin's and Mao's lovechild on the throne. And there won't be any love children except Ean's on the throne on my watch.
Making him chancellor is literally asking for Palpatine.

 

[Smashing Axe]

Dio strikes me more as an Octavian/Augustus, willing to do whatever it takes for power, but once that's been attained he'll turn out to be a pretty good emperor.

And I meant Dio's not a psychopath because he felt a touch of empathy and regret for killing his waifu. A psychopath wouldn't give a shit, and likely wouldn't have enough self-control to plan long-term like Dio.

 

[Baltika9]

The madman - this is what we get for referencing squid sex every time Sek was mentioned. I think he might represent Ean's unfullfilled desires. All the crazy things we've ever brought up...

Following this logic, I can only imagine how he speaks.
treave, care to give us a sample?

Also: the only pity here is that referencing is all we did. M:

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

While Dio might personally be a complete asshole, this does not mean he would make a bad emperor or minister.

True. For me, however, it's not about who will rule this pretend Empire, but who will become the next Ean. Who will we be playing for the rest of this game? Will we restore the original Ean or set up Dio as our new character?

Anyway, all of this is a moot point. Even in trying to favor Dio, the codex will probably run him into the ground. It is the way of things.
:declining:

 

[newcomer]

For me, it's simple; Dio doesn't do squid sex, so he must lose!

But seriously, I have to see the personality of the other 2 pretenders before making any real judgement. For example, while you guys want your old Ean, do you really want to be bogged down by HONOR! or something like that? I see this as an opportunity to costumize Ean to a certain extend, and for me that means making tentacled children

 

[Baltika9]

Having considered it, here's the situation as I see it:
Dio is an overly ambitious noble that got upjumped into a potentially very powerful position, thanks only to chance and absolutely ruthless sociopathy. Extremely skilled talker and, by next update, will also be able to read intentions and, hopefully in time, minds.
Despite all this we, factually, know sweet-Jesus-fuck-all about what is going on with the Watxhers, with the shards and with Ean. We are an unofficial of a Prince that is either a genius, or completely retarded. Along with his apparent BFF named Aodh, who pretty much hates Dio's guts and rightly so. Most likely Dio is being kept around for his usefulness and not for any feelings of friendship or kinship.
Our goal, from what I gathed from the general concensus, is not clearly defined.
Let me put something forward: it should be twofold: find out what the hell is going on with Ean and bring him back, one way or another, and keep the current status quo intact until Big E returns/we make him return.
Honestly, it is a good thing we flopped and B won. Dio and everyone else are too small a fry right now to do global shit competently. For that we need Big E.

If you bros have any other plans, I'm listening, but we'd better agree on a course of action that is backed by a solid majority and stick to it, otherwise it'll be Chapter Six all over again. Only this trainwreck will not be fun to watch.

Furthermore, I think that the madman should be kept around as a psycholigical weapon against Gieloth. Any negotiations and debates with them would be laughably one-sided.

newcomer, let's focus on getting Big E back to Terra for now. We'll go back to spreading tentacle incline after.

 

[Esquilax]

Again, the problem with Chapter six wasn't a lack of goals/too much goals. I can't stress that enough. We were doing very, very well up until we went into the rift. It was a lack of situational awareness; going into a rift with infinite hordes of monsters with no backup was a foolish idea. People were desperate to close the rift, so they stopped thinking and weren't considering alternatives. The simple fact of the matter is that one bad move is all it takes to get yourself in deep shit. Hell, the rift itself was caused by "one bad move" when we zapped Marduk. So yeah, don't feel the need to overcompensate with a ton of plots because you felt we didn't plan enough in Chapter 6, that definitely wasn't the case.

I've already laid out a possible theory that we are in an illusory world of the sphere's creation - if I came up with this earlier in the chapter, I would have voted against sacrificing Thania. I don't know what exactly is going on, but there is definitely something off and things aren't what they seem. treave has told us this:

There are a few. Remember the exile option back when Dio was confronted by Aodh, and what I said about it? Regardless, it is possible for Dio to lose and become Ean anyway, or for him to win and not become Ean. The one thing that is hardest to achieve though is maintaining the status quo. Things are going to tzeentch.

Sacrificing Thania has reduced your options by the way.

Anyways, it's apparent to me that in this chapter, our goals aren't so clear simply because we don't know what the fuck is going on, which is completely understandable. It isn't like in previous Chapters where we pretty much had an idea of what to do and how to go about it (i.e. Build your power by killing Marduk's leiutenants, then kill Marduk/Close the rift and repel the Gieloth invasion of China) We opted to go into the void and now we're kind of scratching our heads as far as what we're going to do next. So it makes sense that we haven't been able to establish clear goals.

For now, I propose we try to maintain the status quo for as long as possible. We won't be able to do this for long, but hopefully, it will be enough to buy us enough time so that Dio can put the pieces together and find out exactly what is going on before we reach an inevitable confrontation point. Here are our "threats" to stability, both internal and external:

1) The weather situation. This increased the already present problem of the Ean cults, because desperate people cause unrest:

The harsh winters caused poor crop bounties, and the Empire's much vaunted road networks could do little to alleviate the problem. The resulting unrest aided in spreading the popularity of the mushrooming doomsday cults that claimed the founder of the Emperor was soon to return and bring all citizens of the Empire into a Golden Land. As they grew, many more men - and women, in some places - appeared, claiming the name of the First Emperor Ean and demonstrating the supernatural powers that he was reputed to have possessed...
...You walk away from the dirty man that had tried to accost you – you were late for dinner at the manor. It seems that there were more and more of them these days, ever since the weather turned foul. You could feel it here, even as far south as Etruria.

When treave said that things are going to tzeentch, I assume that means that new and unforseeable problems will pop up to fuck up all of our plans and continue to leave us in the dark. Count on the weather getting even worse as possibly being the most likely way that things can derail for us. As I've said before, I think this world may be an illusion, so whoever designed it can do whatever the hell they feel like.

2) Internal trouble from our own faction. They may see us as the Emperor, but I highly doubt that they're too pleased by the situation. I think that a few of our own will intend to betray us in the near future. Counters to that would be knowing their plans/telepathy. Unfortunately, knowing their plans would cause serious problems because of (5), but this can be remedied via telepathy.

3) External trouble from the madman. He is the most knowledgeable character and the one most likely to stir up trouble because he actually is the closest to knowing what's actually going on. This is precisely why I've advocated speaking to him - I know he's unpredictable, but he seems to be the one most likely to stir up the status quo out of the four heirs to Ean, and therefore the one who would be the most likely to impede our efforts to gain knowledge by creating war and instability. However, if we make an ally of him, we can buy ourselves time to figure out what's really going on. We could avert a war, at least for the time being. Telepathy would give us another avenue to possibly figuring him out and predicting his actions.

4) Trouble from Aodh/Prince faction. Aodh realizes we're a snake, as does the Prince most likely. They are keeping us around most likely because they want to find and root out all of the people under us. The only way to really erase suspicion is to know nothing of our people's plans, then investigate the rest through telepathy. When Aodh shook our hand, Dio was thinking about whether Aodh could be used to further his own position, but nothing about the murders. This leads me to believe that Aodh didn't figure out that we killed our father via telepathy - it only served as a red flag that spurred him to investigate us further.

If we know nothing, we can ease suspicions by coming off as another slimy noble who supports the Prince, which is infinitely better than being the secret leader of an Ean cult with plots to overthrow the Prince. Copping to a lesser charge is the way to go here.

5) The Soldier won't really trouble us - he doesn't know anything and he's eager to play the hero. Problem is, making friends with him makes us stronger, but we learn nothing about the world around us or our situation. It isn't beneficial to the status quo either, because the Soldier would be trying to maintain the status quo regardless of whether we approached him or not.

Note: Maintaining order while we figure out what's going on is going to be tough. We've been revealed while our position was weak, which has caused conflict with Aodh that was very much avoidable.

Based on this, I feel that the following set of choices would be the best for maintaining stability while we figure out what the fuck is going on. As usual, tell me what you guys think and feel free to tear it apart:

C) Okay, yes, it leaves us in the dark as to our own plans to further our rise. But our rise isn't my goal here - it's figuring out what the fuck is going on. The good thing about this is that it would reduce Aodh's suspicion of us and potential plotting from their end. If we know nothing, Aodh could be convinced that we're just a slimy noble instead of someone who intends to harm the Prince.

Also, think of this as taking a step back to take two steps forward. We're forgoing easy knowledge right now so that we can get more knowledge overall in the future.

C) Yes, the madman. The soldier is the safer bet, he's got brawn to match our brains, we're a good fit, etc. - I get the arguments, they all make sense. But the soldier isn't out there fucking up the status quo and causing trouble for the Empire - the madman is. This is why we ought to try to parley with him, in addition to the benefits of knowledge that could be gained from that fucked up head of his.

A) Telepathy. Yes, we don't have a brawny ally protecting us, but this is our best bet as far as knowledge is concerned. 1C would reduce the suspicions of the prince's faction, making the likelihood of them plotting against us minimal. Since we'd be working closely with Aodh, it would allow us to learn bits and pieces of what his faction is plotting, and insight into the overall Watcher War.

 

[Smashing Axe]

Our future if Dio wins

 

[treave]

BBA wins, no matter how you slice it.

***

Chapter 7.8: Travel Plans

The success of the nameless madman’s raid had far more reaching effects than anyone had predicted. That night had seen the death of hundreds and the total ransack of the Imperial Museum by the cultists. In a matter of weeks, dozens of new little cults sprang up, all claiming to be led by reincarnations of the Emperor. Though some were exposed almost immediately as charlatans, most of those pretenders did indeed possess inexplicable powers. More than a few lords and ladies were taken in by their parlour magicks and had raised their banner against the actual Emperor on the throne. It was a real headache.

“It is a real headache,” muttered the Prince.

“The situation is not ideal. With the cold front sweeping the north, our territories there have become more and more desperate for sustenance. It is no coincidence that most of these cults have appeared in the north,“ you say. You knew that these cults were mostly led by people that were similar to you, though your Watchers had insisted that they were parasites off your power and had to be eliminated eventually. These cults were backed by various Watchers, though there were some that operated independently, like the Cult of the Returned Emperor. According to them, your – Ean’s – power had been inherited by these cults somehow, and as the original incarnation of the First Emperor, it was your destiny to defeat the pretenders and retake your throne. To that end, they would kill and manipulate events so as to bring you to power, eventually. You could sense that their goals were probably sincere, but there was still something they were not telling you. You had refrained from questioning them too much after you had found out that your good friend Aodh was possibly a mind reader. You were sure that he still suspected you, though you could read nothing but friendliness from Runikylos himself.

“The most problematic of the cults is the one that assaulted the capital, but the Cult of the Returned Emperor in Skane and the Martyrs of Ean in Gallia have managed to rally several minor lords and ladies to their cause,” says Aodh.

“Of course, there are reasons why we cannot just defeat them by force.” The Prince sighs, massaging his temples.

You nod your head, agreeing. “The Council of Kings do not see the cults as a problem. As long as the cultists do not threaten the existing system, but only the line of succession, it could be an opportunity for the kings. We cannot mobilize the Imperial Army, and the various kingdoms will not suppress the cults for us.”

“The kings of Gallia and Britannia have already met – in secret – with the leader of the Martyrs of Ean, a young woman called Joan. They have plans.” says Aodh.

“So do we, Aodh. Do you know which of those kings is the most avid supporter of the Martyrs?”

The unassuming clerk nods. “Yes, my Prince. King Caio of Gallia. My namesake, King Aodh of Britannia, is merely following his lead.”

The Prince frowns and looks up at the ceiling. “I don’t like having to do this.”

“I’m sure most of us here have no taste for such actions, but nevertheless… it must be done, my Prince.”

“Very well. Do what you must, Aodh. Dio, I need your silver tongue for something.”

“You need only ask. What is it?”

“There’s this official from the Concordiat coming down to Crete for a diplomatic visit. Aodh tells me that there have been some disturbances in Tamur recently, and I need someone to help me find out more about it. We can’t risk the Concordiat raising another of those little skirmishes we are so fond of at this point.”

“Well…”

“Ah, you have some news from your masked men?”

It would not have been possible to hide your continued association with them, given that Aodh was always hanging around in the meetings. You had painted yourself as a double agent, feeding the Prince and Aodh small scraps of information from the larger scraps you knew. So far it had satisfied them.

“The Cult of the Returned Emperor was confirmed as definitely receiving funds from Free Scania. The masked men do not like this cult anymore than we do, and they plan to assassinate its leader, Jannik Inge. They had wanted me to travel to Free Scania to persuade the plotters there to abandon their backing and lead Jannik into a trap.”

Runikylos ponders this for a while. “That’s… an attractive plan. I can see the merits of it, though I think no one is better suited than you to tease information out of those enigmatic people of the Concordiat. Are you sure you cannot delay this?”

***

A. You head to Free Scania to handle the issue of the Cult of the Returned Emperor, together with the Watchers that are loyal to you. Focusing on defeating these pretenders is your number one priority.

B. You change your mind and agree to meet the Concordiat official. If you play your cards right, it is not impossible for you to secure backing from them, you think. It would give you another source of power.

 

[Azira]

You knew that these cults were mostly led by people that were similar to you, though your Watchers had insisted that they were parasites off your power and had to be eliminated eventually. These cults were backed by various Watchers, though there were some that operated independently, like the Cult of the Returned Emperor. According to them, your – Ean’s – power had been inherited by these cults somehow, and as the original incarnation of the First Emperor, it was your destiny to defeat the pretenders and retake your throne.

 

[Smashing Axe]

A
Let's deal with these pretenders and steal their power. Besides that, we might gain some answers. Backing from the Concordiat would be nice, but overall I just can't see how they'll help us. If we use them to take the throne then the legions would probably stand behind another united.

That said, if the Concordiat would back us, then we wouldn't need to rely upon the Watcher splinter cell entirely for our power. It's a tough decision, but I think A gets us more.

 

[oscar]

B. Play to our strength, which is our mastery of words and diplomacy.

 

[Tigranes]

Alright, I think it might be good practice from now on to set out the most interesting and informative aspects of treave's update, and go from there. It will help set a common agenda.

Apart from the obvious bits of multiple cults, Joan & King Caio, Concordat and Jannik Inge:

These cults were backed by various Watchers

I think it's interesting how the Watchers have split amongst various pretenders, including us. So given the Watchers are loyal to the First Emperor above all, do any of them care at the moment about the Emperor and the Prince? Does Runikylos have his own band of loyal Watchers? I mean, you'd think so...

you could read nothing but friendliness from Runikylos himself.

I think it's notable that we find no evidence (yet) of the Prince being in the know. Obviously our mindreading powers aren't perfect, but it seems a good idea to have stuck with him so far.

 

[treave]

This wasn't covered in the update because I had to sneak it out at work, but Dio knows that Aodh (and likely Runikylos) knows about this whole power of Ean business and Watcher factions, but he doesn't know what they think about it, or to what extent their knowledge stretches to (they could know no more than you, or they could know everything), only that they still continue to work to keep the Empire stable.

 

[Esquilax]

The success of the nameless madman’s raid had far more reaching effects than anyone had predicted. That night had seen the death of hundreds and the total ransack of the Imperial Museum by the cultists.

Interesting. The attack wasn't intended to overthrow the city, the madman only wanted an artifact* of some sort from the Museum. I wonder what exactly he needed there. treave, will Aodh be heading north to deal with the Cult of the Returned Emperor regardless of whether we go to meet the Concordiat official or not? So if we pick A, will Dio be working alongside him to put the cult down? I could see the potential for problems there, given Aodh's distrust of Diogenes.

“The Cult of the Returned Emperor was confirmed as definitely receiving funds from Free Scania. The masked men do not like this cult anymore than we do, and they plan to assassinate its leader, Jannik Inge. They had wanted me to travel to Free Scania to persuade the plotters there to abandon their backing and lead Jannik into a trap.”

Runikylos ponders this for a while. “That’s… an attractive plan. I can see the merits of it, though I think no one is better suited than you to tease information out of those enigmatic people of the Concordiat. Are you sure you cannot delay this?”

This does seem like something that Dio would be good at. As I said before, I would go with whatever option is better for stability. The Concordiat official might be probing the Empire for weaknesses - if they wanted to invade, now would be a pretty good time to do so.

* This is speculation. But it's very clear to me that the madman needed something from the museum. The intent of his attack was not to take the city, but to hit the Museum.

B for now, willing to flop to A if you guys offer up a decent argument.

 

[newcomer]

Artifacts? I suspect someone is actually working behind this madman, maybe Sekhenum? I really suspect that this madman actually has a very strong organization behind him.
For the vote, B for now

 

[treave]

treave, will Aodh be heading north to deal with the Cult of the Returned Emperor regardless of whether we go to meet the Concordiat official or not?

Aodh will be going to Gallia to take care of matters with the Martyrs of Ean and the King of Gallia.

 

[Storyfag]

B for now.

 

[TOME]

Something is off with the Watchers. Multiple cult leaders have developed powers, and Watchers know about these. And yet it seems that every cult has a faction of Watchers backing it up. Why give support to one cult leader only, when they know that the leader is not the only one showing signs of power and thus possible being Ean's heir/Ean himself? It could be a powerplay to several higher ups in Watcher organization, but the whole organization divided between all those who show powers? Unlikely.

One possibility is that there are no factions inside Watchers. They just play all the Ean-shards for their own purpose and a few Watchers here and there are sacrificed for the sake of appearance. This way they got leash for all the shards and can choose the outcome of this whole thing.

We need info, and B won't provide any. So A.

 

[Esquilax]

This is what we know of the Concordiat, in addition to what the Prince told us:

The mainstay of the Empire's soldiers are infantry, cavalry and bowmen, armed with steel weaponry and armour. Scholars have been hard at work replicating the firepowder used to devastating effect by the Concordiat in the 317th Concordiat Border Skirmish in 2918 A.C., and there are now at least ten regiments throughout the Empire equipped with rudimentary muskets, though their quality is still behind that of the Concordiat.
...
The Empire is currently at peace with the powers around it; the Free Scania, a splinter of the Old Skane Kingdom that refused to join the Empire when the kingdom mysteriously collapsed circa 850 A.C.; the assorted tribes of the Rus, where peace means that the Empire only burns down one village whenever their settlers are raided; the Indus Empire, which sued for peace after being defeated in the most recent attempt to take back part of the lands the Empire gained in the Indus Reconquest of 1875 B.C.; Tamur, a vassal of the Concordiat that has no policy of its own but has a reputation for birthing beautiful princesses; and the Concordiat, which has engaged in hundreds of little border skirmishes with the Empire via Tamur over the years, but has never escalated it to all out war. Even during times of war with the Indus Empire and the Concordiat, trade relations maintain cordial whenever swords are not being swung.
...“There’s this official from the Concordiat coming down to Crete for a diplomatic visit. Aodh tells me that there have been some disturbances in Tamur recently, and I need someone to help me find out more about it. We can’t risk the Concordiat raising another of those little skirmishes we are so fond of at this point.”

TOME, as for the reason that I want to talk to the Concordiat official: (1) finding out their intentions and averting a possible border skirmish or worst case scenario, an invasion, is beneficial towards maintaining the status quo, (2) maintaining the status quo buys Diogenes time to figure shit out, (3) Aodh will be investigating a cult as well, so we should be able to piece something together from both his investigation, as well as our own powers of telepathy to find out if he's bullshitting us, and (4) earlier, we reached for power too quickly and too greedily, leaving us in a new place without any friends or a power base. This might be an opportunity to build one.

Yes, so while we do need information, we also need time to figure shit out. I'll grant you that if we investigate the Scane cult, we'll probably have a clearer overall picture, though. However, maintaining stability will buy us time to acquire more information in the long-term, and we'll be able to at least figure something out when Aodh returns.

 

[Omicron]

B

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

B

 

[Baltika9]

I'll be arguing for A here.
First off, I know B has us use our talents to greater effect and try to persuade the Concordiat to lend aid and possibly some fluff about them and ingratiate ourselves to the Prince (which is absolutely redundant: he either adores us or is playing us).
The problem is this: how is it of any use to bringing Ean back? And furthermore, why involve a foerign nation in domestic disputes: they may wisely see the inner turnoil as a great chance to attack. On thw other hand, they may already be considering it and B may ward it off.

Going after Jannik Inge Talos (thank you, root), however, has a couple not-insignificant benefits. For one, very important, it maintains stability. The secession of Scania would be an absolute nightmare, as it is closer to the other seceding territories than Ankida by far. Letting Talos so his thing unopposed may have a domino effect.
Next, equally important, it allows us to kill off an apparent shard of Ean with relative impunity and see what happens (e.g.: does it awaken memories, hunger perhaps? Do we absorb him?)
And, finally, it increases the confidence of our own Watchers in Dio. Hell, we may actually learn something about what is going on and maybe even make a friend of Talos/get him on our side. Yes, I do not trust the Watchers one bit.

You were sure that he still suspected you, though you could read nothing but friendliness from Runikylos himself.

This is either very, very good or very, very bad.

Again, the problem with Chapter six wasn't a lack of goals/too much goals. I can't stress that enough. We were doing very, very well up until we went into the rift.

Oh yes, we were doing splendidly. If you consider being squeezed between the next Terrasphagos wave and the World Tree splendid, that is.

P.S.: Inb4 The Madman shapeshifts into Alduin and kills Inge.

Edit:

A. You head to Free Scania to handle the issue of the Cult of the Returned Emperor, together with the Watchers that are loyal to you. Focusing on defeating these pretenders is your number one priority.

Note that A sends us to Free Scania to deal with the cult as we see fit, not automaticaly kill Inge. At least, that's how I read it.

 

[Baltika9]

Also, the only way I see Dio becoming a decent person is Ean's memories having an effect on him. Subtle, at first, and increasing in magnitude over time.