30 KiB
[RT][HF] A Practical Guide to Evil: Book 4: Chapter 48: Shadows
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Author: u/Zayits *
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URL: https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/2018/08/27/chapter-48-shadows/
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Score: 63
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Created: 2018-08-27T04:02:33
Post:
Comments:
u/ProfessorPhi [+32] (7 hours later)
On a side note, given that the Crusaders negotiated the treaty with the Queen in Callow and not the Kingdom, that means the treaty was made with a fae.
Which means that Pilgrim breaking the terms of the truce, means he's broken it with a Fae. Which should mean that Pilgrim has fucked himself over in regards to Cat.
u/WalterTFD [+31] (32 minutes later)
Not Ratface! Dang it!!
u/CeruleanTresses [+20] (an hour later)
F
u/xland44 [+5] (2 hours later)
I'm putting my money on him not actually being dead and simply in hiding. It'd be so fitting for him to pop up and yell "Surprise!"
u/CoronaPollentia [+25] (8 hours later)
He's not Named. The UnNamed don't get to do shit like that, not in this story.
Okay, except maybe Robber.
u/RiOrius [+9] (13 hours later)
Who might be Named. Goblins keep that kind of thing under wraps.
u/CoronaPollentia [+5] (15 hours later)
I find it hard to believe Cat would miss that. She's got a feel for power, especially nowadays.
u/Ardvarkeating101 [+4] Father of Learning (15 hours later)
In Robber's POV chapter, and I believe word of god, Robber specifically does not have a name.
u/notagiantdolphin [+20] (3 hours later)
People in story make a bit of Catherine being reactive instead of proactive as the source of her problems, but everytime she tries to be proactive something stomps along to kick her teeth in. She's always going to be on the backfoot purely from being in the same arena as people who were moving years before she started. Every attempt to build something that might survive her is smothered in the crib. Hell, in interlude chapters people like Warlock and Malicia look on her as an incipient corpse. Or maybe this is just the start of the purification process the dead king talked about.
And despite her stroke against Callow, Malicia seems to have abandoned her original objective with Black and moved away from calcifying Praes into something less obscene and more into a functional nation. The truebloods are gone, but far from forgotten. Those institutions are beholden to the calamities, who are loyal to Black - who has lost faith in her. She's riding a tiger that's trying to buck her and short all the tools she had before, with new threats to replace the old ones.
u/CouteauBleu [+9] We are the Empire. (13 hours later)
I think Catherine still has a fighting chance to build a lasting nation, even with the latest setbacks.
Her court was decapitated, but the assassins targeting her army were intercepted, which shows that the Jacks (and Black's men) are a match for Malicia's spies. She just needs to get better at defensive warfare: covering all fronts, hunting harder for enemy spies, making examples of anyone she finds, etc.
u/NotACauldronAgent [+19] Probably (27 minutes later)
How are there people left in Callow to fight? It seems the place churns our endless legions. The crash of too-few farmers is going to suck.
u/panchoadrenalina [+31] (49 minutes later)
Medieval style armies are tiny compared to the potential manpower pool. Imagining callow population to be in the few millions and there have been raised something like a few thousands soldiers. The previous army of callow had a large core of wastelander soldiers.
Calernian armies have an even bigger manpower pool because girl powah lets girls fight. Cats bottle neck has always been in the money department.
u/Agnoman [+20] (6 hours later)
The populations probably not as high as you might think, given that food from Callow is limited by the terrible farming practices the gnomes keep people using, and also how they have to feed Praes and Praes' armies. There was that slight issue of a hundred thousand people plus being wiped out at Liesse, which is generally just not great for the entire south of Callow, or it's economic and agricultural situation. and then all the people Praes has killed over the years of its occupation (which, IIRC, is also in the six digits).
This becomes an issue when Callow routinely does things like get its soldiers stranded in hell, or explicitly use the Callowan soldiers as meat shields to keep the Praesi alive. They've lost half their army several times in a row now.
And now there are new mouths being sent by Malicia for Callow to feed. And the southern farms were essentially bombed.
But even ignoring that, think about what Ratface (may he rest in peace) says:
"I understand the Hellhound is riding you about funding for the army, but another thousand men will make no difference if we can’t pay those soldiers.”
Callow is, as we've been told over and over again is all but broke. There were concerns about just maintaining the army as it was, let alone rebuilding one, or making an army that can "shake the continent". Like, it's all well and good for Cat to order the treasury emptied, but we've been told many times that it already is empty. And Callow has no trade, no one it can borrow money from. How are they going to pay and provision soldiers?
This is something of a huge deal. I'm hoping that this is the main focus of the next book, and not something glossed over while Cat runs around stabbing people.
u/Gr_Cheese [+11] (11 hours later)
How are they going to pay and provision soldiers?
I think there was an argument about Callow minting their own currency, which fell on the side of not because it would be seen as antagonistic to the Tower. I can't find that tidbit at the moment. I think it involved Ratface.
As for provisioning soldiers? If by "the southern farms were essentially bombed" you mean the Summer Fae incursion, then that was not explicitly stated, was it? The Fae were targeting people, presumably in population centers like small towns or cities, not torching land. Land doesn't scream. The Fae can't hunt land. So, the crops in the south were not necessarily lost. And rural farmers probably avoided death by dint of being too sparse to bother with.
Money is the most immediate problem for Callow's war machine. If the army doesn't pay, people desert, but Callowan patriotism might mitigate desertion. Anyway, the money problem can be addressed by Callow minting their own currency, then pushing the problem on into the future where spoils of war or land grants or militarily enforced foreign trade could make up the difference. As you've mentioned, Callow does not have any foreign trade now that the Tower has cut them off, so they can pull all sorts of monetary shenanigans without making themselves worse off right off the bat. If they can manage the transition between foreign coin and Callowan coin then avoid military induced inflation in the local prices of necessities, they're golden.
Hell, without foreign trade siphoning it away, Callow probably has a surplus of food.
The less immediate problem for Callow's war machine is acquiring the materials with which to wage war, which off the top of my head I classify as: 1) food, 2) shelter, 3) armaments, 4) supply train, 5) siege machines, 6) goblin munitions.
Food is something that Callow has in abundance, this is cannon from the Black Knight's little black book.
Shelter is presumably not a today problem, because it's not winter and they're still in Callow--so they may rely on existing garrison infrastructure.
Armaments are a problem. Gotta get that good steel. Probably from the Goblins or the Deoraithe. I don't remember Callow proper being described as having mines. This is doubly important for the Drow plan Cat is going with, since the Drow were described as low tech. This needs to be addressed in-universe in my opinion.
Expanding supply trains is not a today problem either. Callow is raising armies, likely near garrisons and cities. This only becomes an issue for new mobilization, which occurs after training.
Siege machines! Pickler's were nuked. This is a concern for the next armed conflict, but that next conflict might still be a ways off. There's nothing to suggest that these require anything scarcer than time to build--timber and rope are common.
Goblin munitions are being addressed, re: the envoy mentioned in this chapter.
I think it would have been better had Cat said 'Well, time to print our own currency' than 'Empty the treasury'. And also addressed armaments as well as munitions with the emissary. Otherwise we're on point for a huge army... and Callow as a failed state if that army is not successful enough.
u/werafdsaew [+7] (12 hours later)
They're already minting their own coins (which requires precious metal), and paper money is not popular at this tech level.
u/Gr_Cheese [+6] (15 hours later)
You're right.
“Our own coin is slowly displacing the others,” Baroness Kendall pointed out. “Patience might be the wisest answer.”
The Taghreb shook his head.
“We’re replacing old Callowan coinages,” he said. “We barely touched the Wasteland portion. The Carrion Lord spent decades making certain Callow was dependent on Imperial coin for trade, it is not work that can be undone in a few years’ span. Not unless we plan and invest.” - Chapter 1: Observatory
It's a shame they don't have paper money.
Are war bonds that far fetched of an idea? Exchangeable for Callowan gold at a later date? I feel like some economic fuckery is necessary here, Callow isn't supposed to be able to afford this.
u/Agnoman [+3] (17 hours later)
I think there was an argument about Callow minting their own currency, which fell on the side of not because it would be seen as antagonistic to the Tower. I can't find that tidbit at the moment. I think it involved Ratface.
As Werafdsaew pointed out, this is something they're already trying to do, with already existing issues. And Ratface is gone, unfortunately for Cat and Callow.
As for provisioning soldiers? If by "the southern farms were essentially bombed" you mean the Summer Fae incursion, then that was not explicitly stated, was it? The Fae were targeting people, presumably in population centers like small towns or cities, not torching land. Land doesn't scream. The Fae can't hunt land. >So, the crops in the south were not necessarily lost. And rural farmers probably avoided death by dint of being too sparse to bother with.
Not so, unfortunately for Callow. Back in between Summer and the Diabolist, and before the latest round of slaughter (and before Malicia started sending refugees specifically to be a problem) Cat said:
Ahead of us lay plains that had once been green, before Summer came to own them. Now half the land was scorched black and the rest lusher than was possible in Creation. Orchards bore fruits regardless of the season, fields already harvested grew again tall and golden wheat. There would be food shortages, in the coming months. My homeland had seen war twice in three years, this one even more devastating than the last. Even if the blackened earth was made cultivable again, how many of those fields would lack men to till them? Summer had killed many, harmed more and I knew Akua would bring deeper wounds still.
Chapter 39 Exposition
And now they've pulled out farmers from Fields.
As you've mentioned, Callow does not have any foreign trade now that the Tower has cut them off, so they can pull all sorts of monetary shenanigans without making themselves worse off right off the bat. If they can manage the transition between foreign coin and Callowan coin then avoid military induced inflation in the local prices of necessities, they're golden.
I'm sure there are lots of clever options available, but the book has stressed many times how difficult this is going to be for Callow, and now most of the experts who would have dealt with these problems are dead, and there are major issues with replacing them.
This is a storm of critical issues that Cat needs to deal with, and I think she needs to do it on screen.
u/Gr_Cheese [+2] (a day later)
Between what you and Werafdsaew have brought up, I am absolutely convinced. Saying "Empty the treasury!" does not magically solve these problems. Callow is not in good shape, and it's stretching plausibility for the Hellhound to have enough runway in coin, food, and equipment to raise her continent shaking army.
u/werafdsaew [+1] (22 hours later)
There would be food shortages, in the coming months.
But that's before Diabolist solved that problem by reducing the mouths to feed by 100k people.
u/Agnoman [+4] (a day later)
Calling it solved is somewhat hasty. They don't have food to spare for refugees, that's for certain. The farmland in the south is still all but gone, and there's apparently no one to work it. Plenty of other land has been torched in the various other wars callow's fought in recently. Now they're pulling everyone away from the Fields of Streges - This is all obviously going to limit their production quite significantly, especially if even more men are taken from the fields elsewhere into the Army of Callow.
The last we heard about Denier and Summerholm's food supplies, their granaries had been "all but emptied". Now Laure is apparently out of wine.
I've been searching backwards and forwards through the story, and I can't find one instance of where food in Callow has been plentiful recently. What there have been is mentions of food running out and the concern that people are going to go hungry soon. Maybe they can hold out for a while. But eventually "soon" becomes "now", especially if all the policies we see Cat taking are ones that exacerbate the problem.
u/CouteauBleu [+1] We are the Empire. (a day later)
Maybe they can something something human sacrifices?
u/Agnoman [+1] (a day later)
Maybe? A magical solution would probably be the neater than a complicated socio-economic policy that takes years or decades. But I'm also not sure if human sacrifices can actually help?
The best description we have of Prasei field sacrifices, afaik, is the one from book 3 chapter 66 Refrain:
“On the third month of the year I found myself on the outskirts of the city of Okoro, and stumbled upon one of the famous Praesi field rituals. The throats of ten and three men were slit on dusty ground, and from the lifeblood spilled the earth turned from yellow to black. Granted audience with the lord presiding, I asked him the meaning of the ceremony. ‘Everywhere men bleed,’ he told me. ‘In Praes we get the full worth of it.’”
If the best human sacrifices just increase the fertility of the soil.. I don't think that helps too much? Best case scenario is that it helps clean up some of the south.
Maybe there are other rituals or spells? I really can't make guesses at the limits of the magic system, tbh, or what problend it can and can't trivially solve.
u/notagiantdolphin [+2] (a day later)
One tidbit about that is that Cordelia seems to think Catherine had something to do with it - she mentions in her latest POV that she's 'lost her taste for killing her own countrymen' since Liesse.
u/Mountebank [+5] (12 hours later)
As for armaments, I remember it being mentioned that everyone in Callow kept weapons, swords and such, they've inherited hidden solely for occasions just like this. It's a tradition. Whenever things get bad enough in Callow the common folk grab their family's sword and go fight back.
And presumably they've scavenged a lot of armaments from their battle against the crusade as well.
u/CouteauBleu [+3] We are the Empire. (13 hours later)
I remember it being mentioned that everyone in Callow kept weapons, swords and such, they've inherited hidden solely for occasions just like this.
And even if those aren't enough, Catherine could simply decree "Everyone who isn't going to war, give your weapons to your neighbor who is!", and melt the surplus equipment.
And presumably they've scavenged a lot of armaments from their battle against the crusade as well.
I'm not quite sure. Most of the crusaders either drowned in a lake that became a marsh, or ran away. I don't think there was much lootable gear to be found, especially since most of the crusaders were under-equipped. I guess Catherine should have requested for all their weapons to be confiscated when she made the ceasefire treaty. (although if she'd done that, now they'd be defenseless against the Dead King)
u/Gr_Cheese [+3] (15 hours later)
Don't the Legions wear chain and/or plate? Don't their enemies use inferior metal armors? This strikes me as a problem that needs to be addressed. I don't think peasants have chain or plate lying around.
But sure, Callow could melt down all of their spare metal. Kind of like Mao Zedong during the Great Leap Forward.
Twenty-two thousand soldiers had come to these plains, and now less than fifteen thousand remained fighting fit. - Interlude: Kaleidoscope V
A maximum of 7,000 invaders dead before Cat wakes up from her lake induced coma. Scavenge armaments? Maybe. We don't have granular details on the treaty, but assuming Cat retained ownership of leftovers then you're still counting on a salvage operation that involves some degree of lake.
That's stretching it a bit.
u/CouteauBleu [+1] We are the Empire. (16 hours later)
I think you meant to reply to Mountebank, since you're making the same point as me.
Kind of like Mao Zedong during the Great Leap Forward.
I'm not familiar enough with that period to tell if you're being sarcastic.
u/Gr_Cheese [+3] (17 hours later)
You're right, I kind of skimmed the second half of your post and thought you were agreeing with Mountebank. My bad. I was too excited that history class was finally going to be useful.
The Great Leap Forward resulted in a lot of useful metal equipment being turned into shoddy pig iron instead of steel as intended.
u/Dent7777 [+1] House Atreides (10 hours later)
Do you think the refugees could settle the former lands of Liesse?
u/Agnoman [+1] (a day later)
I don't think Malicia would have made this play if there was an easy solution, no. And the south of Callow was in pretty bad shape, last we heard.
u/Dent7777 [+1] House Atreides (a day later)
At the end of the day, these refugees need to go somewhere. Sending them back to Praes doesn't seem like an option, sending them to the grave isn't really a particularly good idea for a number of reasons, and I doubt she'll find some other nation to take them in.
Cat's got a depopulated area that was once a rich city. Instead of creating resentment and kicking off a guerrilla campaign, Cat could gain a lot over the long term by taking in and helping the refugees.
u/Agnoman [+1] (a day later)
I'm not about to advocate for killing all of the refugees. I'd really like it if someone could find some compassion in themselves. But in looking at the consequences here, I think it's important to Malicia is sending them specifically to disrupt and destabilize Callow, and Malicia is competent enough that we can assume that it's a plan that should work.
If Cat send them down towards Liesse, there's going to be issues, almost definitely in the short term and potentially in the longer term if enough damage is done to the already very damaged Callow.
Liesse itself is a literal hell hole, and the lands around it are apparently no good for farming, courtesy of Summer. It'd be a drain on resources that are already questionable.
u/exceptioncause [-6] (4 hours later)
ah, girl powah... the most non-rational thing in the book
u/CouteauBleu [+4] We are the Empire. (12 hours later)
I was thinking, we're getting increasingly close to the "regular hero Catherine" alternate universe where Callow becomes a super-militarized country that is inevitably going to turn to invasion and pillage to make up for its collapsing infrastructure and lack of farming.
u/CouteauBleu [+1] We are the Empire. (a day later)
Reminds me of a history book where a German character comments on the ongoing USSR campaign and says something like "How the hell are still not winning? We keep slaughtering their armies and Stalin keeps forming new ones!".
u/CouteauBleu [+16] We are the Empire. (13 hours later)
"The highest-ranking officer in the city was a Senior Tribune by the name of Abigail."
Calling it now: all shall hail Abigail! All hail Dream Empress Irritated, The Inexplicably Successful!
“Pull back all the people in the Fields to Summerholm,” I finally said. “Have them bring every bag of grain and herd of cattle back with them while they do. The refugees won’t keep coming if there’s nothing to be had.”
Not cool, Cat. Refugees are people too. :(
u/AurelianoTampa [+8] (4 hours later)
So if Juniper could build an army within six months, why do they need the drow? Pull back to Callow, reinforce and recruit, and invade Praes in half a year. Sure, Procer's gonna be brutalized, but they have their entire army + 30,000 Levantines to stall The Dead King for months. And with his invasion of Procer, the need for an army immediately disappears, no? Ashur will keep Praesi forces divided on defense and unable to invade Callow. Hell, the best plan might be for Cat to try and recruit and extract Black. She already knows him, his spies stopped Malicia from gutting Cat's officers, and I doubt he'll be too thrilled with TDK joining Malicia. He knows the narrative implications of such an act, after all.
u/None [+20] (5 hours later)
[deleted]
u/ZeroNihilist [+4] (6 hours later)
Also, she's the Black Queen. She's basically story-bound to lead the Dark Elves.
u/TrebarTilonai [+11] (12 hours later)
She's not, though. They call her that, but it doesn't have the weight of a Name as that got avoided at Liesse.
u/ZeroNihilist [+2] (18 hours later)
I was thinking I'm terms of the actual story, not the in-universe narrative force.
u/leakycauldron [+1] Imperium of Man (2 days later)
I think you're wrong. She is only "the Black Queen" from the narrative perspective of a non-contender - Procer.
From an objective perspective, she's a neutral/evilesque queen ruling beneath the thumb of a terrible empress, being invaded for political means - the story that tells is very different.
u/ZeroNihilist [+1] (2 days later)
Right, I'm just saying that the Black Queen, bearing the mantle of Moonless Nights, is likely to end up taking over the Dark Elves, a matriarchal society that follows the Tenets of Night and lives underground (where there is no visible moon).
Maybe the point is for that expectation to be subverted, but if so this whole excursion to the Drow is a bizarre arc to include in the story (especially right off the back of another failure to get help for Callow).
u/leakycauldron [+1] Imperium of Man (2 days later)
She's already Queen of the Hunt, which is another fae role - Fae and Elves are barely related. You're crossing wires.
u/ZeroNihilist [+1] (2 days later)
I'm not totally wedded to the concept, but I would be surprised if the foreshadowing about the Drow here turned out to not be a significant element (whether it's fulfilled or subverted).
Interestingly, searching for prior mentions of the Drow in the story I found a mention in Interlude - Precipitation, said by Cordelia Hasenbach to prospective Good allies (emphasis mine):
We have been looking south all those years, and now Evil wakes. Do you think the Tower will stand alone, when their Legions spill out onto the continent? The Dead King will rise from his slumber and drown the world in death. The Everdark will band under a single banner and etch the Tenets of Night in blood across our cities. The Chain of Hunger grows larger and bolder every spring, and when they come it will not be in warbands – their hordes will blot out the horizon.
And this is contrasted with an earlier mention in Akua's interlude Villainous Interlude - Coup de Theatre:
We are the last of our breed, Malicia. The last great villains of Calernia, perhaps in all of Creation.
The drow of the Everdark had collapsed into bickering tribes unworthy of the ruins they haunted. The Chain of Hunger was nothing more than a horde of starving rats, as incapable of villainy as any other animal. The Dead King, that famed monster who’d turned his entire kingdom into undead and invaded the very devils who’d thought to trick him, had not stirred from beyond his borders in centuries. Stygia and Bellerophon had been muzzled by the other cities in the League, reduced to petty border disputes, and the same city of Helike that had broken the Principate’s back under the Unconquered now flinched in the face of Procer’s displeasure.
I'm getting the feeling that this is all going to turn into a Good vs. Evil (and Evil vs. Evil, and especially Callow vs. Almost Everyone) showdown sooner rather than later, especially since the only Evil faction in Akua's monologue that are not now gaining in power is the Chain of Hunger.
u/leakycauldron [+1] Imperium of Man (2 days later)
I agree with everything you said before: Just don't agree that Fae Queen of the Hunt is doing anything resembling leadership with Drow.
u/ricree [+13] (8 hours later)
Also, strictly speaking, didn't Cat get just about everything she set out to gain from the Dead King? Her goal was to use his invasion to take the threat off of Callow, while maintaining plausible deniability. This is exactly what she currently has, save that she was not able to negotiate a delay that would let civilians.
On the other hand, scrying is not necessarily secure. We've been told this on any number of occasions, and explicitly in this chapter. Whether or not she is headed for the drow lands, I suspect that she said this meaning for it to be overheard. Just as likely, it's a bit of misdirection before she heads somewhere else. Or maybe even the whole gang will go to Thalassina to see Warlock.
u/AurelianoTampa [+4] (8 hours later)
Also, strictly speaking, didn't Cat get just about everything she set out to gain from the Dead King?
That's just what I was thinking. She needed an army to stop Procer from invading again, and now that Procer is going to be invaded instead, Cat doesn't have an immediate need for an army. The only real danger is TDK and Praes turning on her after Procer is destroyed. Or, y'know, TDK taking over the world. Which is a legitimate concern, but I'm not sure if trying to get the drow on board is going to be much better, if it's even possible.
u/ricree [+10] (8 hours later)
She didn't even really "need an army". Her plan at the start was explicitly not to ally with Keter in any public way, but instead to use his "completely independent" invasion as a counterpoint that would strengthen her own position.
u/notagiantdolphin [+2] (a day later)
Malicia keeps kicking Cat, and some parts of Callow are described as poor for farming. What's to stop her having written in a provision about the King getting a chunk of Callow? One of the bits Malicia doesn't want, of course.
u/Zayits [+3] (6 hours later)
They don't have half a year. They had four months befor Papenhein would have digged a pass through Red Flower mountains, and they already spent over a half of that.
Also, the Levantines are to the south of the Iserran lake and will have to move either against the Black Knight or the Tyrant, which means that the only force that's going to be in Dead King's path for now are twenty five thousand beaten and half-starved crusaders, eleven heroes that had trouble holding back Cat, much less Revenants, and whatever garrisons that will be left in Cleves and Hainaut by the time they arrive.
u/Ardvarkeating101 [+3] Father of Learning (15 hours later)
They don't have half a year. They had four months befor Papenhein would have digged a pass through Red Flower mountains, and they already spent over a half of that.
They have to stop digging now or the DK is going to murder-rape their entire kingdom, Callow is safe from Procer until that war is over which could take years.
u/Zayits [+1] (a day later)
Klaus already let the Black Knight loose. I know that sitting out Dead King's invasion is a political suicide, especially for a Lycaonese, but he still has an option of leaving a portion of his forces to dig, since marching to the north will take long enough that taking everyone he has may not matter that much, while the the army of princess Rosala is already there.
u/Ardvarkeating101 [+1] Father of Learning (a day later)
I think you're underestimating the view of the Dead King in the Lycaonese mindset