Gnaeblin Defence Plans

Today's discussions seem to have gone well.  For the Gnaeblin, that is.  For the Dzarraf too, if I'm honest.  For myself, though, it didn't.  I think I've improved at my planning and at my negotiation skills considerably as I've grown older – so much so that I landed myself some extra work through the thoroughness of my arguments.

As I made the plans I slowly came to believe that the Gnaeblin are more than capable of making these kind of plans without me – I thought I'd been brought in to help them agree on a course of action and avoid long, drawn-out discussions between themselves.  It turns out that they really are quite bad at making these kinds of plans by consensus, and sometimes just need to be 'told' what needs to happen.  I'd been brought in to do more than just advise on the defences – I was also there to shepherd them into an agreement, to help Banneghenn get the agreement he needs from those around him who are wavering.

The more I'd looked into the problem of defending each Gnaeblin village, the harder the job became to organise the defences in a generic way.  I'd been through several proposals for defensive strategy as I'd thought this through, but I couldn't resolve it all to my own satisfaction.  The generalised plans I presented to Banneghenn included the caveat that any thinking of this kind would need to be tempered and refined by consideration of the places where the strategies were to be implemented.  This was my genuine conclusion, but I may have misread the situation during the previous few days.

The way I explained this was by saying that there are always factors specific to a particular scenario or terrain that can change the way the strategies are implemented.  I think it was a mistake to impress this upon Banneghenn with some enthusiasm.  After a short consideration, he asked that I visit some of the more rural areas of his lands, outlying regions both in the tunnels and on the surface and help to direct some of those variations to the on-the-ground tactics.  I did try to refuse - to call upon the pressing work I have waiting for me back in my delves.  He must have though I was being polite, however, and he insisted.  He even wrote a letter to Bekzham to agree a longer stay and to detail this new request to which I had 'agreed'.

Looks like I'm going to be around these lands for some time.  Two weeks, it looks like, minimum.  Anyway, it's going to take a couple of days to organise the people that I'll be travelling with and a small number of guards to protect me.  So I'll be stuck here in the lap of luxury for a little longer yet.