Book 2 – Page 41

[AL_Lagarto]

As a further elaboration on the idea of Charlie putting Wanda onto the Summon Perfect Warlord spell: if Charlie casts the spell, it costs him 500k shmuckers. But if someone else casts it and he captures the warlord, it costs him only what he brings to the fight - and the Royal Crown Coalition will pick up the tab for that. So if you're arranging a can't-lose situation, why not sucker both sides into getting you your perfect warlord for free?

[Kelon]

You have all made good points. Janis friend could have help predict that the spell was needed, MK whipped it up, Charley would have proably have heard about it (nothing seems to escape his notice, and this was an epic level bit of fate magic which would have certainly attracted his attention even if he wasnt going to buy it), and Janis/some other wizard directed Wanda to it. It would explain why none of the Royals seemed to have heard about him(or the spell). Though it makes you wonder if anyone ever found out about his trip to the MK, as a large and very powerful group of wizards kept a guard on him (think of all the possible ways to spy with magic).

Though talking about the lack of Charlies warlords does make you wonder... I mean there has to be a very good reason why he wouldnt have at least one(if only to manage the city) instead of depending on Archons with the leadership trait, and not trying to get his own casters. And why was he suddenly willing to trust a tratior(if Parson indeed turned to his side) to be his only warlord when he wouldn't trusted a home grown warlord of his own creation? Even though Parson was doing very good, remeber that the other warlords caught on to what he was doing very quickly once it happened. As a whole, warlords seem very loyal to their side in general, and with epic-level thinkmancy you think it would be easy to ride herd on any warlord he didnt trust.(or hire a turn-a-mancer to make sure). And he has 700 golems that would greatly benefit from a good doll-a-mancer(i suscept it would be ridciously easy for Charley to level her). Why suddenly change his several-hundred turn policy? Sure Parson was good, but several warlords on the other side realized the exact same things Parson did (like taking the city ASAP instead of waiting for siege, weak leadership for tunnels, etc.). Yes Parson is very, very good but until the battle for the knob got very serious, he hadnt had a chance to show said skills. (Remeber he hinted Parson would survive when Parson contacted him after Stanely left with the dwagons and before his brilliant stunts with playing Ansom). I think Charley was intending to recuit him even then.


Edit: All Janis would have to say was something about fate and Wanda would have been hooked....

[AL_Lagarto]

(Remeber he hinted Parson would survive when Parson contacted him after Stanely left with the dwagons and before his brilliant stunts with playing Ansom). I think Charley was intending to recuit him even then.

That's certainly suggestive of the idea that Charlie was opportunistically hijacking someone else's casting of the Perfect Warlord spell, isn't it?

As for why Charlie would want such a warlord... suppose that Charlie is the sort of guy who plans ahead. And he is! He's quite canny enough to know that the usual grand strategy of warfare won't work, especially for a non-Royal like him. So he does his very best Machiavelli and portrays himself as a neutral party beholden only to the bottom line with a reputation for holding strictly to his terms of contract... until he's built up enough of a war chest and mass mob of Archons to blitz numerous sides at once, consolidate, and have an outside base from which to continue the fight - very favorable circumstances. And in the meantime he's been working with all these different sides, doing all these Thinkamancy calls for third parties, and even snooping in on a few he's not facilitating from time to time. In other words, Charlie has a stupendous amount of intelligence, probably moreso than anyone on Erf. Parson, and even moreso Parson with his Mathamancy bracer, really is the perfect warlord - the more than perfect warlord - for Charlie, in analyzing how to best exploit that intelligence and plan something outside the box as a massive simultaneous decapitation strike on a score of sides. I suspect that Charlie anticipated the spell having that sort of result and was eager to collect. If Parson was up to snuff, great - his upkeep is about two Archons' worth and he might have interesting ideas for making a few quick bucks while Charlie is building up his first strike force. If not, it wasn't Charlie's massive wad of money spent summoning him. Charlie can cut Parson loose and wait for another opportunity.

[build6]

And why was he suddenly willing to trust a tratior(if Parson indeed turned to his side) to be his only warlord when he wouldn't trusted a home grown warlord of his own creation? Even though Parson was doing very good, remeber that the other warlords caught on to what he was doing very quickly once it happened. As a whole, warlords seem very loyal to their side in general, and with epic-level thinkmancy you think it would be easy to ride herd on any warlord he didnt trust.

Hrm, Parson had no choice but to serve Stanley or the spell that summoned him would terminate him. Maybe Charlie has a way to change the "target of service" if he captures Parson, so "loyalty" issues wouldn't apply?

[Altima]

Something else to consider is Parson's size.

I imagine without anything to use for comparison, Tram assumes that Parson is of normal erfworlder proportions. If you think of Parson as that size, with all his current measurements, he would indeed look like a potato.

Of course, Parson is about twice the size of an Erfworlder, and was large enough to somewhat shock and intimidate Wanda and Stanley when he first met them. And, really, the only unit who met Parson in combat seemed to have been scared witless before being croaked.

[joosy]

Has anyone considered that Parson still owes Charley several calcuations? And that he might have called Parson?

Kelon

Not really. Charlie does not want Parson to know that he is working against Gobwin Knob primarily because he does not want Parson considering that factor into his own battle calculations.

[Crisis21]

Of course, Parson is about twice the size of an Erfworlder, and was large enough to somewhat shock and intimidate Wanda and Stanley when he first met them. And, really, the only unit who met Parson in combat seemed to have been scared witless before being croaked.

The guy from FoxMUD in this comic, right? Understandable that he'd be scared. He just saw a warlord, with unknown stats, decapitate his mount with one swing.

[Kelon]

Upon even more thinking of Charley lack of warlords, do you guys realize this entire time he has no Chief Warlord bonus on his troops? As a merc, he should be thinking about reducing costs as much as possible. Making all your units fight better is certainly in that. So what is so important to Charley that he would be willing to give up an edge? Well several bonus, such as a warlord in the stack and the chief warlord bonus.( A minor reason might be that warlords would need special mounts and such to keep up with Archons, but im sure Charley could have footed the bill if he so chose to)

I think it might be because Charley wants to keep a tight hold of everything. He is a brilliant man, managing not only all those thinkigrams, but his merc business, intel operations, and countering GK all at the same time. He feels he cant trust minons to do the job right, which is why they all report to him directly. But this has a negative side, as seen with Charley attempting to juggle Haggar, FAQ, Jetstone all at the same time for the same battle while getting updates from his archons in the field(how else could he have found out so fast about the Archon that got popped grabbing Ossamar? No one in a thinkgram told him about it). He in essecence is attempting to marco and mirco manage the whole war effort. This is praobly why he wanted Parson, so he could get rid of some loads like that(like tell him to manage the battle while he does other things). His plan should have worked too, but Julian is that ace in the hole you play at your own risk, and got burned bad. It might be very likely Julian may be forced to join with GK (as Jetstone and Haggar both have reasons to dislike her intensely) if this battle goes south for Jetstone. Obviously, she was in cahoots with them the whole time!

[chanman]

Another possibility that just occurred to me - Charlie may have contributed or at least invested resources into developing that spell for a share of the income.

If/when Stanley fell, the Shmuckers are presumably looted by the winners of the fight - And Charlie's share, if any, is likely going to be tiny at best.

On the other hand, if he bankrolled the development of a grotesquely expensive spell, and then trust Stanley to screw it up... (remember the 500,000 was for spell + casters), he gets the money, Stanley gets croaked, and he gets a chance to capture the perfect warlord, and hope that the perfect warlord will weaken the RCC enough to make hiring his aid more necessary for whatever the RCC does next.

From that perspective, Parson is 'more' than the perfect warlord for Charlie who should have been just good enough to drive up demand for Charlie's services, not so good that they start laying waste to the existing balance of power.

[Nightseraph]

As of current, I can only see this playing out in 3 ways. One being , during a parley, wanda relinquishes the arkenpliers and goes free, therefore allowing many characters to survive and Jetstone to survive. The other being Charlie providing trammenis the funds he needs to be made heir, Slately falling, ect.
Jetstone is too important, serving as the main adversary, and I doubt its already time for Charlie to come out as BBEG.
Therefore Jetstone has to survive at least temporarily. The decrypted are too powerful for someone anyone to survive against them for long, excepting Jetstone and their numbers, resources and casters.

Option 3.. Involves decryped serving FAQ.. but thats a long ways off

[Lord Kasavin]

Eh, I would not get overly conspiratorial here. Stanley is to much a wild card to make solid plans around.

I think Charlie had little interest in the conflict until he got Parson's mathamancy offer, and then became primarily interested in the bracer. The bracer is a really powerful tool for a mercenary. Consider the current financial crisis. It has its roots in assets being assest for risk, i.e. sub prime mortgages were sold as AAA bonds or something like that. While Charlie can undoubtedly figure a lot of this out on his own, having the bracer to do the more complex and more uncertain bet hedges would be invaluable. For example, just asking what is the highest price that has a 90% chance of being accepted would be a great way to insure business without leaving money on the table.

So, his offer to turn Parson had nothing to do with his status as the perfect Warlord, but everything to do with his Mathamancy link. Charlie might not even have planned on keeping Parson around if the Bracer worked without him. Yet, he backed off for a chacne to grab the Bracers, the Pliers, and/or get another big paycheck from the RCC2.

Now, back to Trammennis. The potatoe comment is a fat joke, but think about what Charlie said. He called Parson "the most dangerous being in Erfworld." More dangerous than than Wanda and her unholy army? More dangerous than Madman with the Hammer that set his side upon a path of total conquest and destruction? More dangerous than the secretive Overlord that just ended a side's turn at an most opportune time? Right now, all Charlie is offering that Parson is a threat is his word, and Tramm has every reason to be suspicious.

Of course, reading the dossier might change his mind. Afterall, there has to be some explanation for Charlie's involvement against GK. One final note, Charlie's bounty money would presumably come after the battle, meaning it wouldn't save Jetstone should Slately die during the battle. Charlie was trying to further push his offer to get a captured Archon returned to him. With Jetstone's general animosity towards Charlie right now, they may very well tell him to keep his money and this is the closest chance Charlie has ever had to capture a decrypted Archon.

@Night Seraph: Another option is a battle where GK almost succeeds, but ultimately fails at terrible cost. I also think Jack is a good enough Foolamancer that he could hide in the city for the remainder of the turn and otherwise escape with any units still vital to plot. I do not think Wanda is, but Ossomer could be interesting to keep around.

[Kelon]

I never meant to imply he was, but you have to admit Stanley is easy to direct what you want to do if you know the right buttons. For example, what happened to FAQ. Even if he wasnt behind that, he certainly must have know (the think-a-gram most likely went through him to Stanley as FAQ had no think-a-mancers of their own). Stanley is a great, well, tool for other players to use and the weakest link in GK in all likelyhood. I think you may have a point about the bracer, though Charley himself did say he would like the bracer AND him if all possible at one point.

[Nightseraph]

The problem is the ease of replacing decrypted and dwagons.. so there can effectively be no prohibitive costs in either of those types of units.. excepting casters and garrison does GK use any other troops? For Gk to suffer a true loss from any battle.. Jack or Wanda or Sizemore or Maggie must die!
I'll know you'll argue that they have to have croaked units to replace decrypted.. however it is relatively easy to attack a much weaker side for free units. GK has so much more to gain from offensives then any other side.

[Lord Kasavin]

I never meant to imply he was, but you have to admit Stanley is easy to direct what you want to do if you know the right buttons.

No, I do not have to admit this. In fact, I think the opposite is true. 9 times out of 10, when ever somebody convinces Stanley to do something, it is something that is in his own interest that he would not have otherwise done. Wanda wanted to pay the full 500,000 schmuckers to have a Findamancer cast the PW spell. She did not get this, and only got the 350,000 when telling Stanley the money would be lost anyways. Parson failed to convince Stanley to rebound after the Donut disaster and attack the now isolated Ansom, Jillian, and the pliers. Furthermore, Stanley just outright left GK to its fate. I really cannot think of a time when Stanley was convinced to change his behavior when it was not in his best interest.

For example, what happened to FAQ. Even if he wasnt behind that, he certainly must have know (the think-a-gram most likely went through him to Stanley as FAQ had no think-a-mancers of their own). Stanley is a great, well, tool for other players to use and the weakest link in GK in all likelyhood. I think you may have a point about the bracer, though Charley himself did say he would like the bracer AND him if all possible at one point.

Weakest link at GK? Probably. The guy provides free obstacles for characters to overcome and thus increase the drama. However, predictable? Malleable? I do not see that in the slightest.

[Kelon]

I had not considered it in that respect. What came to mind when i was typing it was Parson making Stanley call himself a Tool, and Wanda instructing him how to get the most mileage of being a warlord without getting disbanded for doing what he should do.

Though looking at all these unraveled edges (the attack on FAQ, the prefect timing of that PW spell being available and WITHIN the budget of GK if it bought the whole plan, the revolution at GK, and the Gobwins being no-where to be found) paints an interesting picture... that someone is stirring the pot for whatever reason(several of these certainly tie in to Charley, but I feel someone else also is playing, as while Charley is very good at tatics and even more devious in his plans, I dont believe he had anything to do with making the PW spell).

In response to the massive archonic invasion with Parson at the head- is it possible for them to go to the magic kingdom? If they could do that, they would be able to strike a blow at every city that has a portal at the same time like you suggest. Which could explain why Charley doesnt want or need warlords(being unable to use the portal would leave them at home). I see the main problem being the MK, as im sure they have spell defenses up the Wazoo guarding their gates and borders from the rest of Erfworld as im sure you can sail there from somewhere. Seeing how one tri link took out an army in a "multiple hex dirt-a-mancy trap", I wouldnt think Charley risk attacking it.

[build6]

Upon even more thinking of Charley lack of warlords, do you guys realize this entire time he has no Chief Warlord bonus on his troops? As a merc, he should be thinking about reducing costs as much as possible. Making all your units fight better is certainly in that.

I dunno - Archons seem to be really quite powerful units from what we've seen so far. The only times we've seen Archons go down easy is because of how they're used, i.e. "not in overwhelming force" (e.g. one Archon spying on Haggar's entire force). Maybe in that sense the chief warlord bonus isn't really important. From Charlie's perspective, "the client gets what he pays for" and he doesn't actually care what happens to his Archons, so if his Archons had higher bonuses he'd want to charge more - and so it's the same to him whether his clients pay $X for 3 archons or 2 archons with equivalently higher bonuses etc.?

No, I do not have to admit this. In fact, I think the opposite is true. 9 times out of 10, when ever somebody convinces Stanley to do something, it is something that is in his own interest that he would not have otherwise done. Wanda wanted to pay the full 500,000 schmuckers to have a Findamancer cast the PW spell. She did not get this, and only got the 350,000 when telling Stanley the money would be lost anyways. Parson failed to convince Stanley to rebound after the Donut disaster and attack the now isolated Ansom, Jillian, and the pliers. Furthermore, Stanley just outright left GK to its fate. I really cannot think of a time when Stanley was convinced to change his behavior when it was not in his best interest.

I'd agree with this - Stanley is definitely ... "surprising". Whether out of some kind of misplaced "shrewdness" or sheer bloody-mindedness he just will do something at least slightly different from what you try to persuade him to do. I'm curious who would've showed up if he HAD agreed to pay the full 500k shmuckers...

[Lord Kasavin]

I'd agree with this - Stanley is definitely ... "surprising". Whether out of some kind of misplaced "shrewdness" or sheer bloody-mindedness he just will do something at least slightly different from what you try to persuade him to do. I'm curious who would've showed up if he HAD agreed to pay the full 500k shmuckers...

Ender Wiggin... with anti-gravity gear and paralyze gun.

[paint]

What are you people discussing that plot crap for? We have MOAR RAINBOWS to identify!

Panel 2: That's a logo from something (a TV show?) but I can't place it right now.

Panel 3: The retired Apple Computer logo rainbow. I like how Charlie's talking about money in this panel.

Panel 4: Skittles. Taste the Rainbow.

Panel 6: A disco ball, but... why a rainbow?

Panel 7: A care bear. To show Charlie cares.

Panel 8: Ooooooh very symbolic. God's gift of the rainbow (after the biblical flood), a symbol of divine generosity. Because Charlie's giving Tramennis something he needs.

Panel 9: A mystery box from Mario Kart. Because Charlie is asking a question.

Panel 10: I don't get the ring of exclamation points. But does't Tramennis look like John Lennon here, with those glasses? Certainly with the tie-dye.

it looks like another color wheel..

Panel 11: Rainbow color wheel.

Panel 12: The RGB dots used to broadcast TV.

double rainbow all the way .. OMG!!!!

Spoiler: show

on Stanly .
i still thinkn that somewhere in ther stanly although not the most ideal leader actually seems ot show an inkiling of a good heart .. and i don't think he is nessicarrily as incopetent as he acts sometimes...



i also think charle might turn out ot be uman .from anthoer of those summoning spells that happened previously that happened to come across the arken dish which i'm pretty sure is the sattellite canging on chaliescom.. sine it's mostly broadcast stuff. and radio ..

[paint]

Whew... Lots to chew on in this one.

I am most intrigued by the 'holo image' used by Charlie. Maybe he has a bug or other monitoring device in GK? Maybe he has the ability to conduct remote surveillance...

to me it looks like an image for book one......

anddd since i'm totally OC this means at some point this weekend i'll have ot go thru the intire comic again
to see if i can match the image

[Lamech]

I'd agree with this - Stanley is definitely ... "surprising". Whether out of some kind of misplaced "shrewdness" or sheer bloody-mindedness he just will do something at least slightly different from what you try to persuade him to do. I'm curious who would've showed up if he HAD agreed to pay the full 500k shmuckers...

King Aurthor would have been very annoyed when his conneticut yankee disappeared.