Inactive [LP CYOA] Overlord

[Nevill]

Well...This is a pity...
We could always use professional soldiers with good morale and no prejuction towards our monster guys, but I don't see how we could sway them to be under our command rather than being loyal Dijeh soldiers.

There is always more where they came from.

A shame the rulers of Dijeh are pansies who can't even tortute their prisoners right!

Imagine what they could do with a competent ruler, like us! We must conquer it ASAP! Then these guys can be both under our command and loyal Dijeh soldiers.

I suspect that the captain is a key here.
The Captain seems to be able to inspire good morale with his troops as being capable enought to be granter such a important mission. He certainly would be useful when training new soldiers, because not only he is knowledgeable in warfare, but also seem to have charisma to get troops following him...

Well, there is a problem. How do you get him to follow you while preserving all the qualities that make him a desireable hire in the first place?

You can probably corrupt him, sure, and he might retain some of it (his military training won't go anywhere), but that just wouldn't be the same man. Whether it would be good or bad for our purposes is not an easy question.

 

[lightbane]

Well, it seems that the things we asked for were considered acceptable for the Governor.

Ontoglia: +9 (Neutral)

On the other hand though, perhaps we could have asked for more stuff.
Either way, what's done is done. My votes are:

B1>C

If this dude goes that far for love, he'll undoubtedly pose a threat to us in the future due his mental condition. However, a proper Overlord needs a psychotic lieutenant that may or may not attempt to betray him at some point (I recommend employing the use of an explosive collar to ensure his loyalty). Alternatively, the rest of his men are welcome if they don't mind betraying everything they know and stood for. I'm sure Erd can relate to this experience.

But if they don't wish to cooperate, then they'll be disposed of in a swift and bloodless way (if only to not to gain more "Pigeon points").

Actually, C is being greedy and is the metagame of "playing to win" while doing B1 is just playing out Erdrick's noted pathologies surrounding women and the love that he never got from his mother (the reason for all evil!)

Actually, if Erd has some issues, I believe these would have been related to the fact he was literally thrown into a warzone when he was a kid, forcefully separated from his family and then forced to fight in increasingly hellish encounters to survive, battling countless monsters for many years. But I'm sure the Goddesses were merciful and gave the necessary psychological attention that their champion needed to not suffer a breakdown at some point, instead of doing something lazy and petty like a mind-controlling medallion that also worked as a remote bomb... Oh wait.

PS: What about an extra choice?

D: You reveal your angelic nature. Then kill them in self-defense when the soldiers inevitably freak out.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

C>B1

And we should have gotten the letter of recommendation from him as proof of his agreement. It not only would have protected us against a double-cross, but also could have been used to blackmail him.

Honestly, it's as if you guys have no experience at this at all. Guess we'll just have to kidnap his daughter just to make sure.

 

[Grimgravy]

A1>C - Who knows? Maybe some of them will take us up on our offer.

It's a shame we're going to off a bunch of decent blokes. Wrong time and place for them.

 

[asxetos]

B1 > C.
Talal will be broken but he can be a useful tool. We may also get some inside info on Dijeh that the mayor couldnt have provided.

 

[Nevill]

We may also get some inside info on Dijeh that the mayor couldnt have provided.

You sure Zayan isn't the one to be asked about it?

 

[asxetos]

Oh i forgot about her. You are correct ofc. But at least we can verify some stuff i guess?

 

[Kz3r0]

C.

 

[Kipeci]

Yeah, this is a bummer. Just let's keep it professional and not give them too much extra pain if we can avoid it.

C.

 

[ScubaV]

An important question is where do zayan's tits rank on a scale of 10? Any less than 8 and Talal can freely pursue her and he might be worth keeping around. 8 or above and we're gonna have to permanently nip that Theseus situation in the bud.

Of course if her tits are <8 but she fancies Erdrick's long hat then we still get the triangle situation.

 

[lightbane]

I would assume that a mad scientist's only love is the love for SCIENCE!!!. However, Zayan most likely will develop interest for Erd once she realizes he's a non-human creature. To be specific, she'll want to vivisect him to see how his insides work. But perhaps you people are into that kind of stuff.

You can tell that he and his men share a good camaraderie. They had been nothing but friendly and courteous to you thus far: it had actually surprised you at first to see his men treating Rin and Aria with respect and not attempt to grope them drunkenly as is your experience with most soldiers. You had even spotted a couple of them striking up conversation with Runde: they appeared to be interested in his working conditions, for some reason. In terms of professionalism they definitely seem to take after their captain.

Did these soldiers really ask a slave about his "working conditions"?
Either they're truly nice guys/white knights, or they're hiding something. Also, even these guys completely ignore Arlin. Poor kid. :D

 

[Nevill]

I would assume that a mad scientist's only love is the love for SCIENCE!!!

Yeah. Talal is going to have a hard time either way. Sacrificing everything for one single thing, only to be denied that. You need not look farther than Sensuki to know that it never ends well.

Also, even these guys completely ignore Arlin. Poor kid. :D

We will make him into a master assassin. No one will ever notice him until it's too late!

Did these soldiers really ask a slave about his "working conditions"?

We have speculated that Zayan is part-monster. Maybe Dijeh has a few of them settled there?

 

[Kz3r0]

Either they're truly nice guys/white knights, or they're hiding something.

I expect that this fight will be much harder that we think, they are fishy as hell, unless is an army that hasn't fought a war in decades.

 

[Storyfag]

A1, becasue why not?

 

[archaen]

A1 > C

 

[Nevill]

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.

 

[Storyfag]

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 in 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.

 

[archaen]

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 in as a secondary vote.

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.

 

[Elfberserker]

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

 

[Bibbimbop]

We can always destroy them if they betray us later on.

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.

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

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.

 

[Nevill]

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.

 

[Elfberserker]

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?

 

[Storyfag]

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.

 

[lightbane]

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.

 

[Nevill]

That's why we kill those, who refuses us.

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.

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.

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.