[LP CYOA] Epic

[Baltika9]

Oh, ok then. So Dio will train them personally?

Masterful. I knew we should have picked the combat upgrade. There goes that plan.

Tell me, how are Sicilia's crime families in street warfare with guns?

 

[treave]

Tell me, how are Sicilia's crime families in street warfare with guns?

...guns are still rare enough that not every soldier in the army has one.

Not very. Only the most powerful of the crime families have access to guns cobbled together from parts stolen from the military gunsmiths, and they barely have more than a hundred between them. They're more of a status symbol right now.

 

[Baltika9]

Not very. Only the most powerful of the crime families have access to guns cobbled together from parts stolen from the military gunsmiths, and they barely have more than a hundred between them. They're more of a status symbol right now.

Good enough. I think you already know what I'm leading up to.

 

[treave]

No. You'll have to answer at least all the questions I laid out. It'll also help you to convince other people to your side if you manage to do it successfully, or at least put better reasoning that can be debated on the table.

 

[Baltika9]

No. You'll have to answer at least all the questions I laid out. It'll also help you to convince other people to your side if you manage to do it successfully, or at least put better reasoning that can be debated on the table.

Sorry, that was supposed to be a "who." I meant this guy:

Edit: details incoming...soon.

 

[oscar]

These muskets aren't M16s ffs, they'd be the absolute worst weapon imaginable for a special ops unit (unless we wanted to do some false flag stuff).

Distribute the muskets to well-known engineers, inventors, gunsmiths and craftsmen + B

 

[Kipeci]

Do we have repeating crossbows?

Why use guns when those are so much better at this point, if they do exist?

 

[Smashing Axe]

A4C

We might be able to get him executed, it'll let us strike off yet another potential Ean so we reign supreme. I'm indifferent between B and C, although I agree that C is likely to increase our chances of success with A4

We're a schemer, if we don't scheme against our foes (No matter how bro they might be) then what good are we?

 

[treave]

Do we have repeating crossbows?

Why use guns when those are so much better at this point, if they do exist?

Crossbows, yes. Repeating crossbows... well, ask the Concordiat. There's a reason they use mainly firearms against the Shinar, though. You do have repeating ballistas, but your scholars haven't figured out a way to miniaturize the concept while still providing adequate power.

 

[Baltika9]

We're a schemer, if we don't scheme against our foes (No matter how bro they might be) then what good are we?

I'd rather we scheme for the good of the Empire.

 

[Kipeci]

BB

4A is a terrible idea. Why go through all the trouble to land Ban completely within our influence when you intend to just have him knocked off a few seconds later? He's a potentially useful tool, an extremely popular hero and successful warrior in the palms of our hand. Let's hold onto him.

I'm not too terribly into BB, I'll admit, but it's better than sneakily getting one of our tools killed just because it'd be easy.

 

[treave]

Ah, just do what you guys want with your free-form choices. I'll see what happens later on.

 

[Baltika9]

D- give five muskets to the best sharpshooters of our Watchers and have them accompany Dio to Skane. These are our fire support and assassins. The rest goes to our soldier bro, presented from RK's name. Make the two groups visually distinct and destroy as many Concordiat giveaways as possible without damaging them.
B

Such is my vote.

 

[treave]

I'm counting that as D-Baltika.

 

[Baltika9]

"On the merits of firearms, or why we need personal Musketeers, by Baltika9"

—

"It was a fine game you played, Sir Camna. A very fine game, indeed." He said to you, loud enough for you to hear, but not enough for anyone else.
Jannik Inge's voice was stern and strong, as befitting an Emperor, even if a false one. And that was not his only virtue. He was strong, fast and cunning. Not a very good breath, though.

"Posing as a criminal with rebel sympathies...worming your way into our trust. Alas..."
Smug and proud, too. No wonder he rallied so many men to his cause. He was an inspiring figure. Had you yourself not known better, perhaps you too would be under his banner...

"Even the most elaborate lies cannot escape the Emperor's judgement." Such thoughts, however, were useless now. Damn this cold weather. Standing in nothing but a pair of linen pants and a flax shirt on your back next to the guillotine did nothing to keep it, or your worries, at bay. You fidget, uncomfortable. The dungeons did little to help your composure.

Inge turns to address the crowd behind him.

It all lead up to this. One year...one whole year you spent in Skane.

"For your crimes of Murder, Subversion and Heresy..." a whole year of this frozen backwater. Killing, lying, manipulating,

"...For the murder of countless innocents and loyal faithful of the True Emperor, for the malicious infiltration and corruption of this land, in the service of a False Throne..." cajoling, bribing and extorting,

"...and, most heinously, corrupting the IMPERIAL TRUTH!!!" Inge's voice rose to a furious roar. Truly, what a magnificent man, you thought as you stood on the execution square outside his palace on this freezing morning, with the whole region coming to witness your death.

"I sentence you, Diogenes of House Camna, servant of the False Throne..." even his foreign supporters from Free Scania came to bear witness to his triumph. You can't believe you actually wrote a whole tome extolling their independence. Bloody parasites.

"TO DEATH!!!" the croud roared in excitement and approval. And now, here you stood, your head about to get chopped off for a false revolution, in the name of a false emperor, and no matter his talents, he still is a complete, foolish puppet.
A million voices would yell in triumph once your head fell of your shoulders and the life left your body. Your corpse would become Inge's proclamation to the entire world. You can't resist the urge to grin.

Just.

As.

Planned.

"Any last words, servant of the False Throne?" Inge's voice was challenging, mocking. You see, out of the corner of your eyes, a brief flash of light in the distance. And then more. Ten in total.

"Why yes my dear, dressed up puppet. As a matter of fact, I do. You lost." You look him straight into his eyes, a smug grin plastered all over your face.

"Come now, Camna, even a delusional fool like you cannot be this stupid, or did my dungeons finally break you? Your conspirators are captured, your secrets exposed. The whole of Skane knows your deception. What could possibly give you hope right now?"

He laugs, loudly. A mighty, boisterous laugh. You will enjoy ripping his throat out. After a moment, he faces you with a sickeningly amused smile.
"What can possibly save you?"

"There is one maneuver!" your voice is now raised, heard far and wide across the crowd, hushing them. Bless your powers. Unbelievably, his smile got even more disgustingly amused.

"And what wha-" the words die in his mouth, as two of the guards next to him fall dead. He really should have worked on the security.

"Multiple!" from the roofs this time, two more corpses.

"Simultaneous!" another shot, again from the crowd. They begin panicking, the guards unable to reach your men through the press of bodies.

"And devastating deep strikes!" the four guards that ran up the stairs fell dead from the bullets that hit them, oddly in sync with your words. The last guard frees your arms and hands you a knife. You give Inge a wicked grin.

"W- w- what is this?" shock and disbelief are on his face.

"STEEHL REHN!!!" the last bullet, through his skull.

Masterful.

—

P.S.: to the esteemed gentelmen that are currently reading this. It is my sincere hope that the above entry, even being but a mere shadow of the most esteemed treave's genious, is enough to convince you of the merits of arming our own squad of professional sharpshooters.

Note, however, that this is a fan work exclusively and in no way, shape or form is canon. Unless it becomes canon.

And now I bid you good night.

Best regards,
Baltika the Ninth.

 

[newcomer]

Baltika's D is plausible, but may I propose an addition:

- treave said the weapons will be delivered to the hero through multiple middlemen. Use the watchers to permanently dispose some of them, causing the information link to be broken & untraceable

 

[TOME]

We chose to play scheming noble so we should scheme. Come up with a plan that puts us on top, gives us an army to command. How about we frame one not-so-loyal army commander, expose him and have RK name us the next commander to said army? That way we gain trained and loyal men. Converting them to our own sharpshooter squad shouldn't be hard.

 

[Esquilax]

We chose to play scheming noble so we should scheme. Come up with a plan that puts us on top, gives us an army to command. How about we frame one not-so-loyal army commander, expose him and have RK name us the next commander to said army? That way we gain trained and loyal men. Converting them to our own sharpshooter squad shouldn't be hard.

Diogenes is a diplomat, not a general, why would he be named as the next commander of the army? As you said, we chose to play a scheming noble, so leading and commanding men doesn't fit that character concept.

D- give ten muskets to the best sharpshooters of our Watchers and have them accompany Dio to Skane. These are our fire support and assassins. The rest goes to our soldier bro, presented from RK's name. Make the two groups visually distinct and destroy as many Concordiat giveaways as possible without damaging them.

The advanced weaponry itself is a Concordiat giveaway. This isn't like some sort of modern weapon where you file off the serial numbers so it's harder for the cops to trace you. The problem with all these plans is that you are looking for some sort of a brilliant one-strike solution to all of our problems, but things simply don't work that way. I dislike this plan for divvying up the weapons because I feel that it's a half-measure; I don't quite see the point of carrying around any weapons on our own because I don't think that they'll do us much good when our goal is really to just infiltrate the Cult of the Returned Emperor, and also because they'll draw way too much attention to us. The weapons would be of better use to Ban in giving him an edge so he can take out the madman for us. With luck, we can strengthen our friendship and he can take out the rest of our rivals for us as well.

If you really want to make use of the weapons, either use them as a frame job to consolidate our own power, or use them in a plot to gain the confidence of the cultists. If we lead them to a cache of high-tech weaponry, it might do wonders in gaining their trust before we eventually take Inge out.

For reference, let's look at the original plan our Watchers had to assassinate Inge before we left to engage in diplomacy with the Concordiat and the Prince of Skane was kidnapped:

“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.”

So originally, we were going to convince Inge's people to sell out their leader so we could assassinate him. That doesn't seem very viable now that Inge has managed to kidnap the Prince and gain a lot of support in the region. Because of that, I think that our best bet is going undercover. I understand that Diogenes isn't a Watcher like Aodh is so this might not be playing to his strengths, however (I'm not sure how good our guy is at assuming a different identity).

 

[Baltika9]

Esquilax: out of all the actions we can take, giving ten muskets to the Watchers is the least conspicous one. Ffs, they're the goddamn Gestapo, the only ones able to even catch them are their colleague and even then:

Our current muskets are patterned after this model and would have matched it were they sent back in time to be used then, but it appears that they have made several slight modifications that might have improvedthe capabilities of the firearm. The barrel and grip are slightly different from the war relics our predecessors managed to scavenge. Judging from the slight rust and discoloration, these have been mothballed for quite a few years too.”
...
It goes without mention that Fearling would be getting one for research purposes, and the Watchers rarely questioned where one of their own managed to obtain illicit items. You still had more to hand out, though.

It's the same thing we have, only with modified grips and internal mechanisms. Not the most noticeable details.
The soldier is more likely to get caught then them.

Also, this

So originally, we were going to convince Inge's people to sell out their leader so we could assassinate him. That doesn't seem very viable now that Inge has managed to kidnap the Prince and gain a lot of support in the region. Because of that, I think that our best bet is going undercover. I understand that Diogenes isn't a Watcher like Aodh is so this might not be playing to his strengths, however (I'm not sure how good our guy is at assuming a different identity).

Just screams that going to Skane without some backup and muscle is a Very, Very Bad Idea. The muskets give us an extremely good opportunity to pull off some demoralizing assassinations. I'm not expecting a miracle, but they will give us a very important edge.
Ban can have the rest. Forty muskets should be enough for him.

 

[treave]

Dio won't be doing any infiltrating himself but his watchers will.

 

[Baltika9]

Dio won't be doing any infiltrating himself but his watchers will.

All the more reason to give them better equipement. They are capable of making judgement calls out in the field, so they can only benefit from an expanded arsenal.

 

[Esquilax]

Yes, our eventual goal is to assassinate Jannik Inge, but we aren't going to do that with some ridiculous Renaissance Black Ops strike, we're going to do it by having our Watchers work from within to undermine his organization and take him out. They don't need guns for that, they need trust - I don't see how a few muskets (which we shouldn't have in our possession to begin with) are going to help us kill Inge when we really ought to be striking from the shadows. Ban would get a lot more mileage from the weapons because he actually does appear to have a squad of elite black-ops types. It also doesn't hurt that unlike Diogenes, Ban can actually fight worth a shit:

Ban had been sent out with two dozen soldiers, among them the Prince’s Watchers, to hunt down the lunatic that had dared lead his rabble to storm Ankida, an action that had previously been regarded to be as impossible as touching the moon. It looks they returned empty-handed. “Ah, we’ll get him next time. Don’t be down on yourself, kid.” You slap him on the back. He grins boyishly, going back to his drink. “Next time you should be there to help me.”

Like I said, if you're not giving the weapons to Ban and claiming it was Runikylos' idea, the best thing to do is this:

D: Infiltrate the cult with our Watchers. Then, to gain confidence into Inge's inner circle, arrange for them to attack a caravan with the weapons cache planted inside it beforehand. To prevent potential political fallout, have our Watchers claim that the weapons are a new experimental design of Shin'ari muskets, rather than Concordiat weaponry. This can be done, because we know that Inge's people don't have Watchers of their own, so we have a better ability to deceive them because they have no counterintelligence:

These cults were backed by various Watchers, though there were some that operated independently, like the Cult of the Returned Emperor.

Edit: For the record, I'm still voting A3B.

 

[Baltika9]

treave: are the modded rifles signfificantly better than what our Watchers already have? Can you tell me what new possibilities they offer? Or is that meta?

It just struck me that I might be arguing over nothing.

 

[treave]

treave: are the modded rifles signfificantly better than what our Watchers already have? Can you tell me what new possibilities they offer? Or is that meta?

A bit better accuracy, range and reliability. To give a number, it would be 10% better. If the current muskets are good up to 50 metres, the Concordiat muskets you have are good up to 55.

 

[Baltika9]

treave: are the modded rifles signfificantly better than what our Watchers already have? Can you tell me what new possibilities they offer? Or is that meta?

A bit better accuracy, range and reliability. To give a number, it would be 10% better. If the current muskets are good up to 50 metres, the Concordiat muskets you have are good up to 55.

Well, fifty five meters is not a small distance, having them in the toolbox won't really harm us, but taking ten doesn't really justify the risks. Let Ban have forty five and take the rest, one for research and the rest "just in case", since arming the Nord version of Che Guevarra doesn't seem such a bright idea and having the Prince hear that the rebels are packing Concordiat heat wouldn't be good, which he will as soon as he asks his scholars "Since when did we get upgrades?", the answer to which is "We didn't."

Edit: also, my llittle piece of text was intended as a "lol steehl rehn" joke, however poorly written, not an actual plan. Because doing that would be stupid.