Inactive [LP CYOA] Overlord

[Nevill]

We do a favour for the heir to the throne of Methuss

He is the Sixth Prince.

How the hell will this not lock us into a friendship path with Methuss? We've allied ourselves with royalty, for fuck's sake.

There are at least 5 other Princes or Princesses, not to mention His Majesty, and they might not share the same friendly feelings.

'The Prince does not equal Methuss' is what I hear people saying.

 

[Kipeci]

We do a favour for the heir to the throne of Methuss, killing a raiding party of Barzamites (disguised as Galbadians) in the process. How the hell will this not lock us into a friendship path with Methuss? We've allied ourselves with royalty, for fuck's sake.

Fuck this dude's gratitude. A petty distinction and a trip to the library isn't worth limiting our future options like this. Seize the moment, take this motherfucker, and use him as bait to draw the Barzamites into a goblin ambush. There are four countries in this region, and he ain't the only game in town.

Assistance against a raiding party a prince has trouble with does not mean that we'll be locked into sucking each other off for eternity. Are we friendlier than before? Sure. At least, with the prince. We haven't signed any alliance pacts in blood with even him though, let alone his whole kingdom which may find his cooperation with a Carnage Pigeon rather distasteful. As a sixth prince, assuming they go by agnatic primogeniture, he has a ways to go before becoming the heir and may be very disposable to more important figures in the kingdom, which may be why he's been sent with ten guys even if well-trained to mop up a horde of bandits.

The prince may be very useful in providing us information about local politics, geography, maybe even more, and being a minor noble could obviously only help out in that endeavor further. It's liable to collapse the moment it's discovered that we're a Carnage Pigeon, but so long as we have the information by then I'd consider it a good trade. It'd be best if it comes from the heart since our torturing has obviously proved to be rather substandard and I doubt he'd be so helpful as even a well-treated prisoner, either.

I'm thinking that getting his assistance in setting ourselves up would be more valuable than attempting to use him to lure an army to attack our goblin village, but I'd be willing to hear arguments about how that'd be a much better option.

I'm not worried he'll backstab us; nobody is. We're worried that by doing his bidding, we become aligned with his cause. Which is true. Friendship comes with a price.

I've seen a number of posts about how he's going to betray us, and to be honest I understand that since our form was not at all well received. It's one thing to befriend a strange humpbacked mage, quite another to knowingly assist them when they're a literal demon, and from what we've seen angels here are even worse regarded than demons. I think that things will probably not go so great once it's revealed what we are, my hope is just to have a clue of what's going on and what we can exploit by the time we get to that point which is going to be hard if we get paranoid and fort up in the woods. As to the price of the friendship, it's pretty clear that we'll be missing out on a fine picnic and have to go through the effort of casting devastating magics on a powerful army while attempting to not wreck the whole village as well. I don't think this means we can never launch into hostilities against his kingdom and we're forced into eternal friendship.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

It's less about being aligned with him and more about being perceived as being aligned with him by the other kingdoms.

Pick one side in this conflict and you can bet that the other sides will want to kill us. or at the very least they won't trust us should we decide we made a mistake and want to try to ally ourselves with one of the other kingdoms.

Now, maybe it would be good to pick a side eventually or maybe not, but I'd rather have a chance to learn about the situation before going down any one path.

 

[Baltika9]

I'm thinking that getting his assistance in setting ourselves up would be more valuable than attempting to use him to lure an army to attack our goblin village, but I'd be willing to hear arguments about how that'd be a much better option.

Because that's not the point. We're not intending to lure an army to our doorstep, that's what the Bazramites are there for. Methuss doesn't know about us, how will they suspect us?
As an angel, they are absolutely useless to us once the secret comes out. And considering the company we keep with Rin (you can bet she'll jump into the melee laughing like a maniac), that won't be too long at all.
Besides, Methuss already has one angel indentured to them, which means they can control us, too. Any guesses as to what they'll do one our secret gets out?

 

[Nevill]

We're not intending to lure an army to our doorstep, that's what the Bazramites are there for.

You are not intending to, but you risk it nonetheless by taking a royalty hostage.

Besides, Methuss already has one angel indentured to them, which means they can control us, too.

That's a bit of some unsubstantiated Shulgi-searching. What if that angel was saved by humans and gave them an oath of eternal friendship and rainbows?

 

[Azira]

Fuck it, I want to see what happens. A

 

[Baltika9]

That's a bit of some unsubstantiated Shulgi-searching. What if that angel was saved by humans and gave them an oath of eternal friendship and rainbows?

This is plausible, parrots aside, but, given what we know of angels, extremely unlikely. I don't consider it Shulgi searching when you connect the dots.
Celestial Murder Machine+ a bunch of nations in the middle of a cold war+the slave comment=weapon of mass destruction with the purpose of deterrence.
Now, it may be that there's more to our species than we know, and maybe the angel is buddies with Methuss, but I find that very unlikely. In all likelihood, there are no good or bad guys here, just people and international policies.
I'm not down with getting caught up in other people's power plays again. I'm in this for us.

You are not intending to, but you risk it nonetheless by taking a royalty hostage.

Yeah, I agree with Lambchop here. No one from the Bazram side will survive without our intervention, how will they pin this in us? The world doesn't even suspect our existence yet.
They are much more likely to think it's their neighbors, since these nations have an obvious history of fucking with each other any chance they get.

 

[Nevill]

This is plausible, parrots aside, but, given what we know of angels, extremely unlikely.

What do we know of angels?

Maybe she is their female Dak'kon.

 

[Baltika9]

That we are extremely bloodthirsty murder machines, at the least. Even though it's a part of human folklore, our bloodthirst fits into that, so it's likely to be a common trait across our species.
Philosophical introspection might not. At this point, it's all about what is more likely to be true.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

It'd be pretty funny if in the heat of battle we go on a killing spree and instead of impressing the prince, we either terrify him or maim him by mistake.

 

[TOME]

A>D

 

[lightbane]

Erd could (ab)use the Sleep spell combined with the Maximize and Extended spells in order to deal with a great number of the enemy knights in a non-violent but efficient manner, ensuring that we don't accidentally go crazy with bloodlust. Then Fumblerina can step in and deal with the non-neutralized targets, so that we both don't reveal too much of our power nor trigger our angelic features.

Also, if people keep asking why we don't reveal our face, a good excuse would be to say that Erd suffered severe burns when he was young and was left disfigured, which would buy us some time until the inevitable reveal (and the subsequent enslavement by the Methuss kingdom). Chances are they might buy it for a while.

 

[Kayerts]

Lightbane is hinting at an interesting point, I think. Both the HBE troops and the prince are curious about the pillar of lightning recently seen in the area; the HBE at least believe it to have some religious significance. Even assuming we somehow manage to keep our wing hidden and Rin manages to avoid anything that definitively outs herself as superhuman, the prince would have to be very dumb to not put two and two together if he shortly thereafter meets a strange, foreign mage who primarily casts powerful, unfamiliar, lightning-based spells.

So, if we get involved on the prince's side, I think our options are either to avoid using the majority of our arsenal that consists of lightning-based spells and therefore face a more difficult battle, or be outed before the prince as a filthy Wuxiang Gigadyne skill user. I'm skeptical about whether there's an outcome where the prince lives and he doesn't figure out that we're PillarBro, or at least that we're an earthshakingly powerful mage (and probably PillarBro). Are we okay with that? He'll know the full extent of our power, and if anyone on his side has had visions similar to the princess-confessor's, we'll have to deal with that.


e: Voting PlausibleDenaiblityPicnic D > C7

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

the prince would have to be very dumb to not put two and two together if he shortly thereafter meets a strange, foreign mage who primarily casts powerful, unfamiliar, lightning-based spells.

He already seems to suspect it just based on our being a foreign mage of some skill and the fact that we are in the area:

“Magic to turn men into stone… I have never seen such wonders. I am curious, sir mage, do you know anything about the column of light and the rumbling that was sighted near this area some two weeks ago?”

So, if we get involved on the prince's side, I think our options are either to avoid using the majority of our arsenal that consists of lightning-based spells and therefore face a more difficult battle, or be outed before the prince as a filthy Wuxiang Gigadyne skill user.

Which is going to be difficult seeing as how our most effective spells are lightning based and we are currently outnumbered 10 to 1. If we help the prince, we'll need to use some pretty massive crowd control spells, but still be precise enough not to flatten the village. I just can't see us doing that without using mass sleep (a D rank spell that the enemy may or may not be able to counter) or else using lightning attacks which would almost certainly give us away. Also, they aren't gathered together, so multiple mass sleep spells would probably be needed even with maximize and extend.

If we do go A, lightbane's suggestion may be worth a shot, but even if it works, we still have a suspicious prince on our hands - though perhaps one that isn't quite as certain as if we had nuked them to begin with.

 

[treave]

Voters

asxetos - A
Lambchop19 - D>C7>B>C1>C5
Kz3r0 - A
Grimgravy - D
lightbane - A>D
Nevill - A
Smashing Axe - C7>A>D
Elfberserker - A>D
Rex Feral - A>D
Esquilax - C7>D
Baltika9 - C7>C1
archaen - A
GreyViper - A
Gobblecock - D
Quetzacoatl - A
Kipeci - A
Azira - A
TOME - C7>D
Kayerts - D>C7
Jester - D
a bear named spigot - anything but A

Current tally:

A - 11
C7 - 4
D - 6

Post-flop:

A - 11
C7 - 2
D - 8

***

Hm, pretty one-sided, white-knighting for princes is definitely what we love to do best.

Regardless of the voting outcome, the next update is relatively short, so I'll probably be closing the votes in about 5 hours.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

faggotry. faggotry never changes.

 

[Baltika9]

So, is gayngel an actual option?

 

[treave]

You guys missed the boat with the boy, but I'll be sure to send another one along for the handsome prince.

 

[a bear named spigot]

put me down for anything that's not A, not that it looks like that will help atm

 

[Jester]

D

 

[TOME]

Flopping to C7>D.

I second Baltika's notion to head east towards the exiled beasts.

 

[Nevill]

Lightbane is hinting at an interesting point, I think. Both the HBE troops and the prince are curious about the pillar of lightning recently seen in the area; the HBE at least believe it to have some religious significance.

From what I've seen, they are talking about a pillar of light. A jump from light to electricity is not a very obvious one to make. Basically, I think only Gigadyne would be an immediate suspect.

But I think we are missing the point here. The pillar attracted everyone's attention not because of a religious significance or something like that - only the artefact has it, and only for Berzam, because everything is about religion there - but because it is a highly unusual phenomenon that has occured in a troubled region, and, if artificial in nature, was caused by a highly powerful being. In this case being powerful is what may cause a suspicion, ah, of being that powerful.

Powerful things do not interest people because of some symbolic meaning, but by themselves. I am pretty sure that is we dispose of 100 people by any method we would command the same amount of attention, regardless of the spells we've used.

We need to move east, towards the exiled monsters.

Which is something that puzzles me. Is there anything that prevents you - physically - from just walking away and moving east whenever you want? What, do you think they will shackle you to the rock or something? How is that an argument for anything?

Oh, you probably want to take your powerbase - or at least the benefits it provides - with you, since we've settled in the gobbo village and chose it as our base of operations. Well, I am sad to say that they are based in Methuss and unless you do your best Moses impersonation, that's where they will stay for the foreseeable future, so you are stuck dealing with the local problems if you want to keep them.

They are practically the only reason why we care about any of the recent occurences at all, and aren't going lolkxbye on the local conflicts. My impression is that we want to run our own empire before we move anywhere.

 

[Baltika9]

Oh, you probably want to take your powerbase with you, since we've settled in the gobbo village and chose it as our base of operations. Well, I am sad to say that they are based in Methuss and unless you do your best Moses impersonation

I don't see why not and I would love to take them with us. If anything, we can use them as emissaries once we arrive there and as scouts on the way. Considering all of our previous decisions, they should follow us without question because SHINING ONE!
What I don't want to do is leave traces of our presence around. If the prince lives in any capacity, he will remember that powerful, outlandish mage. I'm fine with anything except getting involved in this (the very definition of Other Peoples' Problems), but we'll see how it goes. If everything works out fine, I'd be interested in corrupting the prince to the dark side. Also, gayngeling him.

 

[Nevill]

I don't see why not and I would love to take them with us. If anything, we can use them as emissaries once we arrive there and as scouts on the way. Considering all of our previous decisions, they should follow us without question because SHINING ONE!

I don't know. Probably because you will need to feed, protect and provide for their women and kids - who are probably not very good at this emissary/scouting thing - if you want them to still be there in 10 years time. Also because you may need to lead them through the human lands, which might lead to you dealing with an army that is concerned with a sudden invasion of a goblin horde so fierce that even their cubs are attacking alongside the parents. Maybe also because you do not know if any land you'll lead them to will be any less fucked up than the one we left, what with you having no knowledge of the region whatsoever.

Other than that, sure, you can take them on a trip right away.

But you are probably stuck here expanding your sphere of influence towards the east, rather than walking there by yourself.

I'm fine with anything except getting involved in this (the very definition of Other Peoples' Problems), but we'll see how it goes.

That's a valid point, but it is a separate one.

 

[treave]

I'd love to offer a choice to pack up and move and find a more fortified location where you can really settle down and construct your lair, but before you can do that, you'll need to know where you are moving to. Just heading generally east, with no idea of the geography or how far you're going to have to walk to find a suitable spot, seems like too much work.