>>24881123
It seems my fellow anons wanted to redirect orders to Grist, but I have no idea how they intended to do that so they'll have to clarify that. What I do have is my old plan to delude Vern that some more of his blacksmiths (in addition to the ones we already used) are secretly collaborating to have him overthrown. Adding five or so to the list, then another two or three next day should do nicely to make everybody hate him.

>>24881225
Supporting, the plan to disrupt his orders has lost its effectiveness if the bulk of their money is made off of easily maintained mass produced crap.

Guess we'll have to devote some time to the "make him look crazy" plan

>>24881225

You spend a few days slowly building up Vern's paranoia. Every day a few more shops are searched, the mercenaries interrogate a smith and his family, occasionally rough a few of them up a little. Things are quickly getting out of hand and the blacksmiths are feeling less and less like they've got a good thing going.

The other guild leaders aren't much happier. These aren't grunt laborers he's alienating, but skilled experts who will be difficult to replace should they decide to emigrate for their family's safety or to seek better longterm prospects. The guild relies on keeping Arn's middle class content to do whatever they're told (preferably without actually paying them very much), and that's hard to do when they're constantly being raided by mercenaries.

Rumors begin to circulate that Vern is going to be offered an estate far out in the countryside to retire in the near future. Which is of course code for "take the offer we're making or we'll take your goddamn head off because you've gone senile and it's cutting into our bottom line." But maybe those're just rumors.

>wat do?

>>24881537
Excellent. Even if he isn't getting removed soon, we should only need to push a little more. The next step is getting Grist the best deal possible here, which would be putting him on top of the business. How did guild leaders get put in charge? Selected by the other guild leaders?

>>24881671
Also how much longer can we maintain this delusion? It wasn't mentioned if we have dropped it yet or what so I'm curious.

>>24881671

Well initially it was because they were a bunch of cartel owners with local monopolies who banded together to get the entire city's commerce in their vice-like grip. But now, yeah, the guild leaders choose a successor. Typically they all just wave in whoever the outgoing leader appointed before retiring/in his will. In extreme cases (i.e. the dude was hung or something) they might appoint it by committee instead.

>>24881730

It's just one delusion so you can maintain it up until you have to go to sleep. You've got two or three days left on it.

>>24881746
Well manipulating a committee isn't impossible, but if we can get it done as fast as possible that'd be great. If we could convince the most influential guild leaders that they could make huge profits if they offered Grist the position in exchange for teaching the other blacksmiths to make better shit, thereby making Arn THE city in the east to get your metalwork, that might just get the job done.

We may also have to convince Grist that it's a good idea, but we can totally do that.

>>24881887
Additionally, we could try to spread the same sentiment among the blacksmiths (we already did a bit of work on that). If a large number is convinced it's a good idea, that should also help sway the decision.

Been reading through the archives when I was bored. Trying to catch up and actually know what's going on before I join in, but the quest looks fun.

See y'all in... eventually.

>>24881887
I think that we should meet with Grist and ask him: "If the Guild made you the new blacksmith Guild Lord, would you teach the secrets of Western steel to those under you? If not, what would it take?"

We need to see if Grist is okay with this and also determine if he'd like us to physically vouch for his position. We won't be able to convince the majority of the Guild Lords with delusions alone.

>>24882123
Also good to see another face in the quest, hope you catch up soon.

>>24882156

"Ha, they make me a guild lord and I will give them secrets," Grist says, "for that job I will teach these smiths how to make real masterpieces. Not these scrap metal cuirasses like they make now."

As far as "physically" it depends on what you mean. He has no love for the guild after all their dirty tricks and doesn't especially mind if some of them turn up dead for their crimes. But he doesn't want any trouble coming back to him or it'll be a noose around his neck in a heartbeat.

>>24881225
That would have been me. The plan was to make Vern's smiths mess up their orders with delusions like "That forge is too hot and needs to be cooled". It would mess up their forging and the products would turn out awful. When the guild tries to turn them over we'd delude the traders with "this stock is horrible and not worth what you paid", then once the deal goes sour we'd lure them to Grist like we did the first time.

>>24881537
This seems to have worked well, however. Subtlety seems to be key. If we make a couple orders go wrong now it'll make Vern think his Smiths are deliberately working against him, because they wouldn't just suddenly start fucking up after however many years of being in charge.

The only thing left to do is get Grist the business he needs. Especially if someone high calibre makes the purchase. Another guild lord, or the mercenary captain. Not 100% sure on how to go about that though. Maybe the other guild lords know that Vern wants Grist's SUPERIOR WESTERN STEEL, so we can make then curious enough to go see it for themselves?

Well, let's go find out who the other council members are, the ones who decide on who replaces Vern for going off the deep end, then approach them one by one at night.

We then sneak in, and appear to them, offering each one the following delusion:
"You're fell asleep while working, and I'm your dream, so anything I say is what your subconscious is really thinking."

Then we go on about how Vern is a psychopath that will screw over everything and drive out all the good smiths, and that as a show of good faith to the smiths, we should replace Vern with a guy who he's been really riding on. Grist fits that bill, and he's one of the better smiths in the city. He'll even share the secrets of western steel with everyone if he gets put in charge. And the whole 'criminal' thing can easily be waved away by Vern being off his rocker.

Then we say some crazy dream shit that sounds deep, is widely applicable to just about everyone, and is effectively meaningless to really sell the dream angle; leave, drop the delusion, and do it again to the next guy.

>>24882811
I think we should try this, definitely make sure they are alone first and don't hang around too long. We can't maintain two delusions for very long if we want to keep up Vern's craziness.

>>24882811
I'm not sold on that. It requires revealing ourselves to the enemy directly, even if we can convince them it's all in their head. We don't know how aware they are of spirits; even the Dorriki were smart enough to exercise some caution when dealing with us. If we are that direct, there's a chance they'll catch on to our presence, and unlike the Dorriki I don't think they will be terrified of us if they do. Plus, even if the whole thing goes off without a hitch they may wake up and go "What a weird dream." and go back to bullying traders into paying three times the value of fish.

We need to get Grist some publicity but in a way that seems almost serendipitous to anyone who's looking.

>>24882959
I don't really see any risk of them jumping to the conclusion that some crazy spirit just popped into their office, rather than it simply being a dream just as they were completely convinced it was prior to us dropping the delusion again.

>>24883054
Likewise, I think the plan has merit.

>>24883054

Because said crazy spirit will be showing up to specifically support Grist in favour of being a guild lord. Without doing that, he's just a smith with an edge over the guild. Afterwards, it will look like he's using the powers of spirits to try to coerce the guild into doing what he wants. We're risking making him an enemy of the guild by doing this.

>>24883177
>Then we say some crazy dream shit that sounds deep, is widely applicable to just about everyone, and is effectively meaningless to really sell the dream angle

Not really, considering that would just look like it being a pressing matter on the dude's mind.

>>24883177
We don't have to show ourselves to them outside of this. By doing this, we should be able to give them all the idea that he might be a good candidate, so when they actually meet to decide on this if none of them bring it up themselves all we have to do is whisper into the ear of one of them to bring it up.

>>24883267
They're not going to want to bring in a supposed counterfeiter (remember that people genuinely believe this) on the whim of a dream, especially because Grist is not actually part of the guild and Vern has likely named a successor already. If they work out they all had the same dream suggesting Grist, then at the very least they'll find it massively suspicious.

I don't see why we should go through the trouble of putting ourselves directly in front of the guild lords and risking the trouble it can bring in the future when instead of telling people Grist is the better smith, we can help him actually sell his stock and let people see it for themselves. Instead of deluding a guild lord into thinking some random accused criminal the best choice, we bring one down (via our delusions and Mari's raw charisma) to see Grists wares in person. Grist can show off his wares himself, and prove he's a shrewd businessman by explaining he's not in the guild because the guild won't offer him enough for the value of his trade. Especially if we can help Grist pick up a few orders that the guild is fucking up (via us interfering) we can show them that Grist is in a solid position instead of banking on them believing a one-off "dream" where a crazy-ass little girl rambles about politics about some guy they've never met, in a part of the market they don't care about.

I can't tell if one of these positions has more votes than the others. Roll it, d100 highest wins, but as usual if there's a majority for one option or the other I'll go with that.

>>24883475
We could do both. I don't agree with the risks you believe the dream approach entails, but if we can somehow get one of them to actually come down to his place (remind Grist not to assume they're even considering the deal yet) as well as support him by planting opinions via the dream plan, that'd be real neat.

Rolled 27

>>24883631

Rolling for helping Grist sell his wares instead of trying to manifest a dream. We'll find either the captain of the guard or a guild lord, and using Mari's apparently stupidly high charisma stat and our delusions to bring them to Grist's shop and try to convince them to make a special order.

Though I want to be fair and not I'm the only one advocating this position, and there seems to be at least two in support of trying the dream delusion.

>>24883714
and note I'm*

Rolled 45

>>24883631
Rolling for fake dream shenanigans.

>>24883708
That's true, we could do this and supplement their thoughts with the physical proof of his workmanship and honesty. Why don't we just take this decent compromise since we never have to show ourselves after the dream, just Mari?

Rolled 95

>>24883708 again
I'll just slap a roll on this since we're rolling.

Rolled 35

>>24883821
I should probably do the same for >>24883753 this.

>>24883821

Well, this is our highest roll, but the first part of the plan is "if we can somehow" etc. Someone want to fill in the blanks?

>>24883932
Well, I'm not sure how anon wanted to accomplish it, but here's my take.
Ideally, we can stalk them for a bit to see if any of them might actually have an interest in acquiring quality metalwork, then have Mari show up at his place to request that he take the time to see this controversial blacksmith. Both getting to meet him and getting him to listen to her can be aided by delusions from shadow from of "this girl is incredibly well informed and is easily worth the guild leader's time"

>>24884209
Sorry I was out grabbing food, but I support this.

>>24884209

Carpenters need nails and hammers, coopers need those iron bands of theirs, farmers need hoes and pitchforks. But none of that really demands excellent quality goods. No one here is preparing for the frontlines, so the local demand for extremely well-crafted tools is pretty much nil. Want to just pick a guild leader at random and hope it works out?

>>24884695
What about the captain of the mercenaries/town guards? A man in his position is likely to want his gear to be top notch.

>>24884821
You mean the guy Vern's been ordering around to raid his smiths because he thinks they have a connection to overthrowing him for Grist? Yeah I could see that going well.

>>24884821
We can do that to get him an order, but the captain has no say on picking a successor guild leader. It's one of them that we want to impress, and if none of them appear to have more interest than the others, I suppose we'll just have to pick one of them.

>>24884821

Sure, he needs neat stuff forged, but as >>24884922 mentions the captain of the mercenaries is not a guild leader.

>>24885016
Guess we'll pick a guild lord at random. Not much consensus one way or another, and we can always do the mercenary captain purchase later.

Argh. I got halfway through a response but then something came up, as things are want to do. This thread has been kind of short and unresponsive already and we haven't made a ton of progress, mostly because I've been sluggish and distracted today. And now I have to go way earlier than normal because of reasons. Tomorrow should be better, though.

>see you then

>>24885637
Gonna bump since you told the skype group to do so. TM said to preserve the thread for tomorrow, so.

>>24888189
Second polite bump for OP.

>>24890798
Last polite bump for the night. If the thread is still here in the morning, good on it. Else, its pre-emptively archived.

>>24893100
Looks like we need another bump.

>>24896881
Ty anon. Bumping.

>>24898407
Last necessary bump hopefully.

>>24899965

Seems like not many people are into this Quest anymore.

>>24900618
There's just about a handful in total I think. The threads are emptier than they should be because of silly heads who take discussions to their skype group when it belongs in the thread.

saging because OP isn't here yet

>>24900618
As the anon above said, it is partially because of skype discussion. The other half of it is the very volatile schedule and adjusting to a new style of play compared to the last two chapters. Discussions can be slow and uneventful at times due to that.

>>24901262
And by new style of play you mean that we're doing pretty much the same except in civilized territory instead of a forest of savages and occupying not-romans, right?

>>24901386
I wouldn't really call "Point barely civilized backwoods fucks in the direction of enemy compound you just finished infiltrating" and "Subverting an established trade guild to place an ally in the workings" the same thing.

>>24901482
Hey now, we might have tried something similar in Dorrik, but placing someone anywhere meaningful in a disciplined military is a little more difficult.

>>24901545
Last bump for now. Anything beyond an hour or two would be called off at this point.