Lundar's Library

I’ve lately been hearing a number of arguments against trading orga
stones with the ‘Brions, and one of the main concerns seems to be that
the ‘Brions will somehow use the stones against us. Despite the
assurances given by the ‘Brions that the stones will not be used to
harm exiles, some people claim that we who support the trade are
“providing the ‘Brions with powerful weapons.”

To these exiles, I would like to point out that the orga stones
are not “weapons” as they suggest, but teleportation devices. It is not
we who are providing the ‘Brions with Bloodblades and other tools of
combat.

Still, some exiles will argue that the stones could still be
used against us. They argue that with the teleportation stones, the
‘Brions will be able to teleport directly into the heart of Puddleby
itself– along with their powerful minions, and wage a destructive war
against us.

I understand how this might be seen as a plausible threat to
someone who does not understand how an orga stone works, but to those
who do understand the workings of the stone, this scenario is less likely. There are several reasons for this.

1) The orga stones cannot be used to teleport between islands. This
means that the ‘Brions would already have to be on Puddleby island to
teleport into our town.

2) The orga stones must be used to first “mark” the area in
which the user wishes to teleport to. This means that for the ‘Brions
to teleport into Puddleby, they would have to physically walk into town
center, create a “mark”, then return to their troops before teleporting
into town.

3) The orga stones require that all those being teleported must
be cross shared. This limits the number of troops that the ‘Brions
could teleport into town to 30, in addition to the ‘Brions themselves.

While this does not completely remove the possibility of the
stones being used destructively, it does greatly limit their utility to
be used in such fashion.

I’d also like to point out that the ‘Brions have very little
motivation for mounting an attack against Puddleby. The ‘Brions have
never before attacked exiles except in self-defense or in retaliation
to aggression on the part of exiles. For all indications, they wish
only to work with exiles, or otherwise be left alone. There would be
nothing for the ‘Brions to gain by making war against a deathless foe.

Finally, perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is that we are not trying to wage a war with the ‘Brions. Quite the opposite, we are tying to improve
our diplomatic ties with the ‘Brions by settling the issue of the orga
stones, which has been a sore spot between Puddleby-Brion relations for
the past decade. It is those who oppose the trade and actively work to
hamper our efforts, who threaten to destroy our tenuous relations with
the ‘Brions, and throw Puddleby into open conflict and war.