*redacted*

[Major_Blackhart]

I betcha the entity that backs him does it solely for its own amusement, like Nyarlothep. It has no real plan, it just likes to see everybody elses stuff fucked up, like a sadistic kid with a magnifying glass and a nearby anthill.

 

[Baltika9]

Well, it was mentioned that there are entities that hold a small amount of respect for humanity. With any luck, our patron is one of those.

 

[iGnaCeZ]

Well, it was mentioned that there are entities that hold a small amount of respect for humanity. With any luck, our patron is one of those.

The good entities in this world are alot stronger than those of negativity (in all its forms) so lets hope we are in good hands indeed :p

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.

 

[Baltika9]

The old ones demand MORE!
Update or forfeit your soul.

 

[Cassidy]

*redacted*

 

[Azira]

An update.

Here are my votes:

1B
The Norse religion should focus on inner strength and not gold and treasure. Let's make this a warrior's religion, not the effeminate christ church, where they wallow in their own debauchery.
2A
Trust the high priest. We need to focus our attention elsewhere. Besides, someone who can, and does, use glamours like the blue sparks is certainly a bro.. Right?...
3A
Give us our info, Ingvar! Now! :berserkergang:
Yet, killing him I want to avoid. If we can keep the creepy little immortal girl on our good side, that would be preferable.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

1B 2A 3A

 

[Zero Credibility]

1A - the clergy are our allies now, and financially supporting them will make them more effective (not to mention loyal) to our cause. There will be other, perhaps better chances of shaping the Norse religion once Angartýr is king.

2A - he seems to know what he is doing.

3A - for information and to keep the creepy girl happy.

 

[oscar]

Great update. Reminds me of the old VtM: Wild Nights days

1A - There's a reason Protestants are turning in droves to Catholicism and Orthodoxy. While faith can waver from generation to generation depending on a myriad of factors, powerful architecture and brilliant imagery aspire across time and speak to man's primal soul.
2A - This man seems competent and our attention is elsewhere
3D - We need to deal with the most important threat first. If they get wind of our actions and start preparing via summoning Eldritch monstrosities and utilising there vast wealth against us.

While interesting, I strongly recommend we don't get sidetracked by the girl. We need to strike while we have the element of surprise. If we don't our inevitable clash with these guys is going to be a lot uglier. In regards to the assassination attempt, the culprits are either incompetent or hoping for us to pursue them and enter a trap. In any case we have far bigger and more immediate factions to deal with.

 

[Zero Credibility]

While interesting, I strongly recommend we don't get sidetracked by the girl. We need to strike while we have the element of surprise.

I don't know - element of surprise is all well and good, but more info would perhaps let us avoid any nasty surprises ourselves.

 

[Cassidy]

To make it more clear, 1) is a choice between having Norse temples looking like:

(Minus the decrepitude and hauntings, obviously)

Or something less iconic but cheaper, with them dedicating most of their resources towards more practical than symbollic purposes. Of course, symbols can be very powerful and inspiring if properly used, but there is always a risk of the Norse clergy becoming complacent and as corrupt as the Catholic Church if showered with too much wealth for too long.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Changing my 3 to D.
So now 1B 2A 3D

 

[iGnaCeZ]

1B 2A 3D

 

[Esquilax]

I'm back, motherfuckers!

Great update. Reminds me of the old VtM: Wild Nights days

1A - There's a reason Protestants are turning in droves to Catholicism and Orthodoxy. While faith can waver from generation to generation depending on a myriad of factors, powerful architecture and brilliant imagery aspire across time and speak to man's primal soul.
2A - This man seems competent and our attention is elsewhere
3D - We need to deal with the most important threat first. If they get wind of our actions and start preparing via summoning Eldritch monstrosities and utilising there vast wealth against us.

While interesting, I strongly recommend we don't get sidetracked by the girl. We need to strike while we have the element of surprise. If we don't our inevitable clash with these guys is going to be a lot uglier. In regards to the assassination attempt, the culprits are either incompetent or hoping for us to pursue them and enter a trap. In any case we have far bigger and more immediate factions to deal with.

I love oscar's idea here, but we still have a few serious flaws to consider here. Architecture is powerful and I am totally with you on how it can serve as a powerful symbol throughout the ages, but there's more than one way to win hearts and minds here; the clergy supporting us don't have wealth but the Myyr family does, and they are situated in a poor, crime-ridden area to boot. Of course, going for a direct attack has its own problem's and the clergy won't be able to help us if we go berserkergang on everybody.

There's a good chance that attacking them at this point will result in them seeking support from the commoners to use against us. I can totally see a wealthy, secretive cult trying to spin this as oppression. I'm not saying 1A is a bad idea at all, I'm just saying that we ought to keep in mind what kind of blowback that we should expect.

As for the clergy, we only have Freyvald to vouch for their trustworthiness. We shouldn't succumb to being overly paranoid, particularly if we choose to act decisively, but at the same time I'm also having trouble taking this all on faith. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Myyr family has a mole inside the temple that Freyvald doesn't expect because they've been around for so long. That being said, I don't like the alternatives and I think that interfering might end up doing more harm than good.

For 3D, I love it in theory, but I just don't see it being feasible considering Angartyr's skill set. He's a bad motherfucker with a sword who's started to learn a thing or two about leadership and command, but he's not adept at this sort of operation. I suppose he could pose at a merchant, but Angartyr has never struck me as skilled at deception. No, a mission like this requires a lot of finesse, and I don't think Angartyr brings those skills to the table here. However, he knows someone who does; Ingvar's bastard daughter, who we should cultivate as an ally. This isn't like Linkoping - this sort of problem isn't the type that you can put an axe through.

I think that A is the route we ought to seek out and I don't believe that this is a situation where we can simply cut off the heads of our enemies in a single stroke. I know that sort of thing is tempting, but in reality things rarely work like that.

Ingvar strikes me as the sort who prefers to be on the winning side, clever but not very brave. If we spare his life and terrify him sufficiently, we can (a) find out who exactly wanted us dead and (b) how to reach them. I believe that Ingvar can be forced into working with us because of this. If we play our cards right, we can keep the element of surprise since we didn't take his life and we will have established a good relationship with Ingvar's daughter, who can handle finesse tasks better than we can.

1A
2A
3A

 

[Jester]

A - they need money for getting luv for us
A - we could lose trust otherwise and i kinda wish to find out about that voodoo stuff
A - we need to know whats going on

 

[Baltika9]

Flopping to AAA, and not because of the production values. Yeah, it will take longer, but this is a smarter, more tempered approach that won't turn Angartyr into a self-righteous ass. Let's at least pretend to have decency.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Decency is for mortals fool!!!

 

[oscar]

Esquilax, it's not a stealth mission. It's a slaughter the hell out of them and then get out of there mission. We do not want these guys to become aware that we are around here, what they will if we go around doing interrogations, beating up slum thugs et all

Right now, they don't know we're back on the scene. If they do know than they will start beefing up security, getting more politically aggressive and perhaps even engaging in the occult. We want these guys gone, weakened or left in chaos so we can free our hand to do other things.

 

[iGnaCeZ]

Esquilax, it's not a stealth mission. It's a slaughter the hell out of them and then get out of there mission. We do not want these guys to become aware that we are around here, what they will if we go around doing interrogations, beating up slum thugs et all

Right now, they don't know we're back on the scene. If they do know than they will start beefing up security, getting more politically aggressive and perhaps even engaging in the occult. We want these guys gone, weakened or left in chaos so we can free our hand to do other things.

Exactly, first things first, these guys are the biggest threat to us and the city

 

[Esquilax]

Esquilax, it's not a stealth mission. It's a slaughter the hell out of them and then get out of there mission. We do not want these guys to become aware that we are around here, what they will if we go around doing interrogations, beating up slum thugs et all

Right now, they don't know we're back on the scene. If they do know than they will start beefing up security, getting more politically aggressive and perhaps even engaging in the occult. We want these guys gone, weakened or left in chaos so we can free our hand to do other things.

Ideally, I would like to pick 3D for the reasons that you describe, but I don't see Angartyr having the skills to simply walk through the front door and slay everyone in his way - things won't be that simple and even a warrior of Angartyr's caliber can't simply fight them all. Finesse would be more helpful because it would allow us to sneak in and strike our targets without drawing unwanted attention along the way; an operation like this would be more fitting for an assassin than a warlord/commander type that Angartyr is.

I am not sure how you'd go about killing all of them, and even if we manage by some miracle to pull it off, our pals in the clergy won't be able to protect us:

To antecede that as a note, obviously the most EXTREME means of gaining entry will draw a lot of unwanted attention, and if he chooses to open a path to his chosen objective by killing everyone standing on it, then the clergy definitively won't be able to get the law enforcement off his back.

So even in a best-case scenario, we could end up being executed for our crimes by the authorities and we won't be able to go after Narackamous anyways. As for engaging in the occult, I believe we'll encounter some Deep Ones within the manor already:

Much of the information he gathered only served to confirm his worst fears. The Mýrr had currently, by and far, the largest and wealthiest manor of the City, which curiously, but not so much for Angartýr, had its backyard connected to the great river of the bay flowing into the ocean.

The family has situated themselves near the river for a reason, it's so the Deep Ones that live there can have a home. So you can bet that we're going to be encountering some supernatural horrors in there regardless. Now, that's certainly no reason not to go after them (I'm certainly not averse to taking risks), I just feel that we don't have the right skills for this particular operation.

 

[oscar]

They won't be getting any easier to deal with as they become aware of our presence.

 

[Azira]

If we have backup, they will. Right now though, we're flying solo.

 

[Esquilax]

They won't be getting any easier to deal with as they become aware of our presence.

You're right, it won't get any easier. However, I don't see how going after them solo will work given that Angartyr has no stealth skills to speak of - what is he going to do, kill his way through dozens of people and possibly some cultists and Deep Ones along the way as well? And in the unlikely event we succeed, rubbing out the most powerful family will create a power vacuum that the other merchants in the City will want to take advantage of. This means that we'd be locked up and executed in short order because our ambitions to become King would be seen as a threat.

I don't really fancy dying unless it's part of some brilliant long con*, I just don't see the long-term potential in this plan.

* Speaking of using our deaths as a long con, this is a great idea:

Go around the streets to personally donate some money to some of the poorest inhabitants in The City, and do nothing bolder than that for now. This will definitively be far more low profile than any other option, but it may take a longer time to achieve solid results, and Angartýr's fortune is large enough to make him a threat to the local merchant powers, but may be insufficient to help all the poor in the city long enough for the masses to acclaim him as a king or popular dictator, and even if they do, he will inevitably have to fight many enemies afterwards, and nothing stops them from sending more assassins after him while he is doing charity. Of course, should he be killed while doing charity and return to life soon enough... that could possibly turn him into a god in the eyes of the common folk, but naturally all of this is risky.

Engineering our own deaths to become a Christ figure and gaining power through people's faith in us once we rise again is a genius idea. Of course, dying comes with serious drawbacks of its own, I'm strongly considering this option as well.

 

[oscar]

Or it could see us out of action for a century.