On 12/21/05, Ike Porter <ike at manor.org> wrote: > On Wed, 21 Dec 2005, Davdi Silverrock wrote: > > > I understand the point you're making, but I still see problems with it. > > Consider: promotions are gradual. Putting Kragar in charge of a > > military group large enough to make a difference in a battle, while at > > the same time being aware of his... peculiar unnoticibility, means that > > whoever was in charge of field assignments was the one who made the > > mistake, not Kragar himself. Also, consider this: Before a group goes > > into battle, they train and practice maneuvers. Again, ample > > opportunity to note that Kragar's group is Not Doing Well because his > > subordinates aren't paying attention to him. > > Brain slow today, hopefully this makes sense: > > What you say would certainly be valid if Kragar had been in the imperial > army, but I've always envisioned it happening with Kragar being a nobleman > collecting his surrounding forces in order to join in the larger army to > assault the guy over there who pissed off the local lord at the party last > night. But if the stakes are that low, that makes it far *less* likely that the penalty for just "not being noticable" would be House expulsion. Indeed, as a modification to my prior notion, it makes more sense if Kragar's notional superior is not just some random officer, but someone on the Dragon Council itself, and he was being used to gain information to manipulate the internal politics of the Dragon Council. Or alternatively, Kragar's notional superior was an Imperial official, and an (internal) Imperial scandal was just barely suppressed.