The first time you enter the Harmondale outdoor map after you have completed the 'Rescue the dwarves' quest, two timers will start.

There will now also be ambassadors from Erathia and Avlee in your throne room. If you talk to the ambassadors in Castle Harmondale they will inform you that their respective rules (King Parson and Queen Catherine) will grant you audiences.

When you visit them they will offer a quest:

Parson: Get the Fort Riverstride Plans (Reward 10000 XP each + 5000 gold in the bank).

Catherine: Rescue Loren Steel (Reward 10000 XP each + 5000 gold in the bank).

If you have taken either of these quests and visit the other regent, you will be offered a counterquest:

Parson: Deliver a fake Loren Steel to Catherine (Reward 5000 XP each + 5000 gold in the bank).

Catherine: Take false Riverstride Plans to King Parson (Reward 5000 XP each + 5000 gold in the bank).

As you can see, too much plotting and counterplotting does not pay (XP-wise). These quests have a time-limit of one month, but at least in my game, these limits do not quite work. The first two quests have no time limit and can even be completed after the the new arbiter has been chosen, whereas the counterquests expire after a month, but will then return to the first quests, which has no time limit.

These quests serve one more purpose other than giving you XP and money and the thrill og court intrigues, namely to decide the outcome of the war that will break out and what will become of Harmondale afterwards.

The first time you enter the Tularean Forest outdoor map exactly to the minute 3 months after the first timer starts, a messenger from Erathia comes to you telling you that war has broken out between Erathia and Avlee. The messenger wants you to get Gryphonheart`s Trumpet and take it to Queen Catherine in Erathia. You can, however, also take it to King Parson of Avlee in the Tularean Forest, or to Judge Grey in the arbiter`s house in Harmondale.

If you give the trumpet to either nation, that nation will win the war and Harmondale will become a province under its rule. However, if you give the trumpet to Judge Grey, you stand a chance of making Harmondale an independent nation. In order to do this successfully, you will have to take part of the intrigues. If you do not do any of the quests from the regents, Harmondale will still be a province under Erathia, probably by default. However, if you do both the first quests or both the counterquests, Harmondale gains its independency (if you deliver the trumpet to Judge Grey).

Now for the truce and the choosing of the new arbiter. The first time you enter the Harmondale outdoor map exactly to the minute 4 months after the second timer started, a messenger comes to you explaing that Judge Grey has died of a heart attack and you must choose a new arbiter. This is, as you well know, when you choose light or dark. When the new arbiter is installed in the arbiters house, Harmondale will gain its independency or become a province, depending on the events above.

Sometimes people ask what they should do regarding the court intrigue quests. It does not affect the outcome of the game, but here are my thoughs:

If you consider yourself good and intend to choose the light side, you should rescue Loren Steel. He is about to be executed and it would be in your interest to spare his life. Also, a note in a chest near his prison reveals him to be a messenger for Gavin Magnus to ambassador Wright, which makes it even more important for you to save him, as these will be you future allies. Delivering a fake Loren, of course, is ruled out by this. You would not want to give either real or fake plans to King Parson, as he intends to use these to attack Erathia. War would not be in your interest and both fake or real plans delivered to the elves could hasten an attack.

Now, if you want the XP, you could take the iverstride Plans quest, but not deliver any plans. You see, as noted above, this quest does not follow the time limit of one month, but even better than that, if you talk to King Parson again AFTER a month has passed, he will give you XP and money even if you have no plans with you at all.

If you consider yourself evil and intend to ally with the dark side, you would certainly like to see Loren Steel executed for two reasons. Having him executed would provoke Queen Catherine, increasing the chances for war and also, as mentioned above, Loren is a messenger for Gavin Magnus, and killing this messenger (Who was on his way to warn Harmondale of warmongering), would harm your future enemies and please you future allies. You would not want to deliver the fake Loren, because then Queen Catherine would not know of the execution. You would also want to deliver some kind of plans to King Parson in hopes of hastening his attack on Erathia. Whether you deliver fake or real reports would be your own choice, but delivering the real ones gives more XP. Delivering fake reports might be risky. Hypothetically, if King Parson discovered the forgery, he would stay his attack.

Here too, you can gain the full amount of XP by accepting Catherines quest to rescure Loren Steel, wait until a month has passed and collect the reward without bringing Loren. You can wonder whether or not in this case she will learn of Loren`s execution, but we must think of ourselves first, right?

Lastly, should you have either Loren or the fake Loren with you and wish to get rid of him without taking him to Queen Catherine, you need a Sacrifice scroll and a have one (any) NPC hired. When you use the Sacrifice scroll, DOUBLECLICK the NPC portrait (as opposed to clicking it as you are supposed to do with this spell). You will now get the NPC portrait, but a dialugue with Loren/fake Loren where you actually have the option to dismiss him.

As a matter of form, I need to mention Daemonger from the old 3DOs Might and Magic forums who discovered the effect of doubleclicking when using the Sacrifice spell. His discovery was that if you do this on an NPC that is the only NPC with you, you would get Captain William Darvees as an NPC and could thus "Cast off" to Harmondale any time you wanted. It still takes 7 days (likely reduced by hiring further appropriate NPCs). We named this effect Daemonger`s Beacon.

I`ve also found that if you do this again to a second NPC next to William, you will get Rebecca Devine as an NPC. Pretty neat for a party of the dark side to capture the Priest of Light promotor, I`d say.

Further experiments has granted some funny results, like the ability to dismiss Loren Steel.