God Save the Queen, Indeed: Let's Play Long Live the Queen!

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Originally Posted by Hawkflight

I vote this, but in the reverse order, so we can get a bonus to Dogs. I then proceed to cast a vote for Dogs and Dance.

This is good idea. I second all of this.

[Cogwheel]

Don't mind me, just depositing fanart.

Spoiler

Hope you weren't expecting quality.

[YakYak]

Yeah, that sums it up pretty well.

[Tavar]

Play with Toys, Dogs, and Dance.

[Deme]

Chapter 11: Week 9: Afraid

Spoiler

Ok, so. Time for some Toys! Everyone likes toys.

Unless you liked sports. Oh, well.


Puppies! It may be sliiiightly worthwhile to ram into the 50-point cap with dogs, but only if you don't care about Riding or Falconry.

If we don't care about dance for its own sake, we're good on it for now. Or we can care and be a dancing queen.

Anyway, what's up this week?

It's this incredibly smug guy! Lord Smugger McSmugson, Duke of Smugee.
"Thank you."

Why can't people be nice without wanting things from us? Oh, duh. In charge.

For once, Elodie knows more about what's going on than we do. However, it's still not much.


Aww, come on, Lodie! War is fun!
"There must be a peaceful way to settle this. I will send for diplomats from Ixion and try to come to some arrangement."

And since we're going along with his wishes, we get some more yielding.

"Your Highness, if I may ask...That necklace you're wearing. Where did it come from?"
This bit is, of course, reliant on us wearing this necklace we got.
"It was a gift from the Duke of Sedna."
"Then you have made arrangements with him?"


Yaaay checks for basic social skills!
...This, of course, is an interesting question.

Because we haven't decided ourselves.

Well, folks? What do we think about our status re: the duke of Sedna?

[Sanguine]

We are considering it of course.

[Hawkflight]

We jus' likes teh shinies.

[Tavar]

Shinies.


Also, for future planning, I think we should boost Riding, as without cars the Closest we can get is the Bat-Horse.

[Lycan 01]

She just likes jewelry.

Don't want to discourage potential suitors just yet.

[Mewtarthio]

It's important to keep our opponents guessing. If we announce that we're just wearing engagement jewelry because it's pretty, it should throw everyone off.

[YakYak]

Shiniez! That way he gives us shiniez, too!

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Yeah. Play the ditz card and pretend we just liek pritty jem tee hee.

[Deme]

OK, that grants us +1 willfull, balancing out that +1 Yielding.

Our current mood is still afraid, with:
Afraid: 1
Depressed: 1
Willful: 1
Lonely: 1

Things to note while making the weekend choice, which is the same as ever, is that
"Attend Service" gives us -1 Afraid,
And "Play Sports" gives us +1 Angry (so -1 Afraid) and -1 Lonely.

So let's talk weekend stuff and classes.

[Terraoblivion]

Never tried doing this. I wonder how messing around about the necklace works out.

[Deme]

I'm curious, too. I've worn it and said I was considering it once...And I didn't wear it a lot... But I've never known what was what, worn it, and said I liked shinies. I hope it does something interesting.

[YakYak]

Just to say it again, we're screwed.

[Mewtarthio]

So long as we're still Afraid, I still want to boost Elodie's Faith skills. I vote for Exploring the Castle with a double dose of Divination.

[Deme]

So, we just doing that? Mewthario wins by default?

[Hawkflight]

I vote we sneak out, explore, and a double dose of falconry.

[banthesun]

I support sport. Gotta flatten out that bar. As far as skills go, lets boost up a double dose of Trade.

[Sanguine]

Originally Posted by banthesun

I support sport. Gotta flatten out that bar. As far as skills go, lets boost up a double dose of Trade.

I say we go with this.

[Dublock]

Originally Posted by banthesun

I support sport. Gotta flatten out that bar. As far as skills go, lets boost up a double dose of Trade.

I third this as well.

[smuchmuch]

Sports. double dose of Novan history or Foreign affairs
(You know we just send a diplomat to ixion because of duke whatever, might be a good thing to know what this is all about.)

[Deme]

Chapter 12: Week 10: Mood: Depressed
or
Wait, I forgot a snarky title last time!

Spoiler

We just like jewelry. Screw a complicated web of social manipulation -- we're Bat-Elodie!

"But I appreciate presents. Doesn't everyone?"
Not helping the whole "grim avenger" thing, hun.




We did just say so, Sir Smuggles.


Earliest concensus has us doing sports. Sporting awaaaay!
And we're not playing forever alone. Yay!
(Also, the music for the Sports is really odd.)


Our skills.



Wow. Elodie knows nothing about trade. What sort of boarding school did she go to?

But, if we're just trying to work on the last bits of accounting, we're done with Trade! If we want to learn more about trade, that's cool, too.


Oh. Right. Time to do that whole 'avoiding war' thing.

And we've got the earl of Smug and his sister to back us up...Want to bet they won't be useful?

At least she's less smug-looking...Also, isn't she about our dad's age? She looks maybe a few years older than Elodie...Silly anime artstyle.
Deme of the Future Says: Yeah, she's the exact same age as The King Dowager.


...What? Were we supposed to know something about the amicableness of this meeting?
...Dang, game.

"Let bygones be bygones, no? We will forget about your unprovoked attacks on us, and you will transfer the rights to this little province."

Now, is this a failed background knowledge check, or a failed sense motive check? Think it over. I leave it to your imagination to determine all the things we don't know that he might *really* be saying.



We also failed an additional Foreign Affairs check. I guess we don't know what he wants, and so...We have a lot of options. A *lot* of options.
This is also the first time we have the option to start killing people, so that's a thing.

So, what do we do with this situation?

[Hawkflight]

Let's play to our strengths. Namely, accounting. Buy him off.

[Mobius Twist]

I wonder what skills we would use if we chose to bluff/intimidate?

I tend to agree that we should stick to things we've already learned here and try to finance our way out of this. Keep in mind that our funds are not unlimited and millionaire-princess Bruce Wayne would be better-trained by now, sadly. I am concerned that offering money for a section of land we're not familiar with will do two things: Overvalue the land (to our detriment) and set a precedent that the kingdom is full of appeaseniks who can be intimidated into emptying the treasury at even the slightest hint of resistance.

[Starbuck_II]

If we are going Dark, execute.

But otherwise Bluff him.

[Deme]

Bluffing doesn't come down to skills, oddly enough. Or, at least, not by much. It's a choice that's reliant on other choices we've made for its success or failure, if that helps.

[Mewtarthio]

Well, we have no clue what Ixion is or why they want the province, so bluffing is right out. Likewise, we don't know the fair value of the province, so we can't hope to buy it back from him. And simply handing him the province will make us appear weak and could spook the nobles.

There's really only one option here: Send that pathetic messenger's head back to his masters!

[smuchmuch]

Bluff could work except we have no idea what this is all about (and even if it doesn't rely on skill much, it's still likely too much for us seeing as we still have no talky skills whatsoever. Maybe having the jewelery might count in our favor, if we bluff that we're enggaed with the powerfull duke of whatever, they'll be thinking twice before attacking.)

We may be able to buy him if we hope it'll be an 'acounting' check but it might be seens as a sign of weakness, so will be surrendering the province. (and you can bet as hell its going to please our own nobles if we do that so yep, out of the question.)

So I say either bribe him or ...
(Might be a good idea to boost our combat tactics skills on the dozens then, something tells me that kind of answer is not goign to do wonders for peace.)

Can we get a savegame here Deme so we may try again later, maybe ?