How to convince a high noble to give more then he needs to

[Thaneus]

Hi Guys,

more of a general question typ thing for roleplaying a situation in which I and my mate got a bit stuck.
We are facing a large scale crysis and the Emperor already gave our group full fledged authority to work in his and country name to ask allied and non allied nobles or ppl of influence to assist in a defending war against a demonic force nearly overpowering force.

We now have 5 month time to get as much help as possible to assist in this challenge and prepare.
We already acquired means to fast travel the continent for the system in which we are playing.
The Emperor already stated martial law and all nobels of the empire send the required troops for their status as demanded by feudal rights; since it is a german system I am not sure if I translate the rade of nobility correct in englisch but they are:
Owning Nobels (german Freiherr; least nobility which owns land from feudal contract; most just have some villages and scarcely 1 town) -> needs to send 12ppl; about ~200 in the empire
Baron; owning about 1 town and some villages; consisting of at least 5 parts of a owning noble -> need to send 50ppl | ~80
Grave and Markgrave (Graf, Markgraf; land consist on about 3-5 barons) -> needs to send 150ppl | ~16
Duke (Herzog und Fürst; mayor ruler in the Empire) -> needs to send 500 | 5
King (one King who is not the Emperor himself is in the Empire) -> needs to send 1200 | 1
Emperor himself has 2000 ppl

One 5th of the country was already overrun, one duke is dead and nearly all his feudal subjects and peasants (rest fled) so forces are already down to at least 4/5th

just to let you know about the numbers we are on which this runs here.

Now we had the situation in which we already had some successes in talking with a duke and a grave who had personal connection to our group anyway, so easy catch and they agreed to go the "extra mile" and send some personal troops and recruit some more ppl from the populace; so major victory for thous (which we did in 2 days).
3rd day we face a grave who is also first chamber judge of the empire (the guys who come together to punish nobels or royals for treason) and he stated:
"I gave what I needed to and further would threaten my subjects and stability of my lands." He also added some valid arguments.
We tried to convince about the urgency and the possibility to just shift some resources around, but he stayed rock solid (well he is dwarf... a typical one at this). The free resources he has are for refugees or if something goes awry in the next month (bad harvest and stuff) which we concluded... he is a bit too secure at this, but has a point.
Since we, the players have no further arguments we compromised to just go with a bit of advertisement to get the "free" ppl who are not his direct subjects... which we felt rather dissatisfied with but better then nothing coming from the prior 2 successes.

Does anyone have valid ideas how to face are argument again suche ppl? He is not a bad guy since he is a trusted subject of the emperor with a high standing as a first chamber judge and we didnt feel any ill intend from him (he was just a tad annoyed, but still ok because of our status; well we wont be friends...) and we feel coming back wont do any good but I want to prepare since we will also go to neighboring country which are not in the Empire to ask for assistance and there we will face more resistance for sure...

From skill point of view:
My Charakter is practical a ultra high diplomancer, a noble (without land), has nearly every bonus in social interaction. Highest charisma mortally possible (highest mortlal can have 24; I have 26), a permanent "buff" on which attitudes toward me is always +1 but GM needs valid points to let me roll it (which is always a auto success anyway).
Additionally my character has "sense motive" even higher to check what ppl think or are up to.
Only 2 ppl blocked this ability and both had been Arch-vampires... (there is not much above thous guys in the system)

Yes magic is at the table but also there is anti-magic or detection magic, it is know which character can cast spells and how and if the nobels have any kind of detection artifact.... well... they can defend, which we want to prevent at all costs (as you know we have more important matter at hand) so no charming, dominating mind reading, dream manipulating...

Advice appreciated.

[Mutazoia]

"In the name of the King, and for the good of the Kingdom and its subjects, we hereby seize your lands and titles. You shall be confined in the tower on charges of treason, until such time as the current crisis has passed and can be guaranteed a fair trial"

You are working in the name of the King, with is full authority. There is no "NO" option for these guys. To refuse is treason, especially with the impending demon invasion. Refusing a Royal order is treasonous in the best of times, but during war time? You could legally kill the noble for treason, in the King's name, and be perfectly justified in doing so.

You could also mention that fact, (very loudly and publicly, so his advisers and such hear it) before actually arresting him and see if he caves. Not many peons will be willing to openly defy a Royal Decree.

[Berenger]

You are working in the name of the King, with is full authority. There is no "NO" option for these guys.

If this is based on medieval german politics, giving the king a "No." or a "Yes, but..." is a valid option for many powerful nobles, they did it all the time. The concepts of monarchy and absolute monarchy are different from each other and I guess this setting has the former since the king chose to send a diplomat rather than a letter stating his orders.

Obvious solution if you want something: offer something in return. Droit de régale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_de_r%C3%A9gale) (Regal, pl. Regalien in german), advantageous political marriages, a better title (this automatically increases the numer of required troops), debt relief, a favourable judgment in court etc.

[Thaneus]

"In the name of the King, and for the good of the Kingdom and its subjects, we hereby seize your lands and titles. You shall be confined in the tower on charges of treason, until such time as the current crisis has passed and can be guaranteed a fair trial"

You are working in the name of the King, with is full authority. There is no "NO" option for these guys. To refuse is treason, especially with the impending demon invasion. Refusing a Royal order is treasonous in the best of times, but during war time? You could legally kill the noble for treason, in the King's name, and be perfectly justified in doing so.

You could also mention that fact, (very loudly and publicly, so his advisers and such hear it) before actually arresting him and see if he caves. Not many peons will be willing to openly defy a Royal Decree.

Well this approach wont work, if we would do that we would break the Emperor degree which ensures the status of the Nobels and their autonomy.
This would lead to unrest to the whole noble faction and in this example the whole dwarfs.
Such would benefit the demons more then helping us.

Yes we have full authority but we also have to follow this status as representative and can not run amok. If all or even some Nobels start a uprising, because they feel cornered or oppressed it will be a mess.

The idea of Berenger is easy at it may sound hard to get it down.
In our party all but my character are married and non for "itself" is a good match for higher Nobels. The Emperor has 2 daughters and 1 son but we are not in the position to just "sell them off", we are diplomats with a lot of power and redeemed heros, but not unkillable or of unquestionable background. Its not like we are DnD characters! A band of 50 guards is a very dire situation for us even with magic and artifacts on our site.

A better title at least for graves and above needs to be assigned by the empires council; the Emperor can just appoint a new position on its own if the fief has become vacant.
Yes one duke dies but guy had 2 sons and the first born already took over so there is no "better" position for a grave to give, maybe just giving him some lesser fiefs additional but again, spamming such stuff around can gain the grudge of other Nobels or enforce their greed to.

So sticking with, we as heros will aid or give something... well most need money sure... as we do too.
Fortunately we saved a lot, I mean a real lot of nobels and their subjects or helped in some way, because of that we already get a lot of help too, but as I said I need some help figuring out to turn around the one we actually had no contact with.

Hell will start when we head to Countrys not controlled by the empire... there it wont be as easy as it is right now.
And yes the other countrys are not all favorable with the Empire but much less with the demons (but some will certainly think: oh nice let them fight and I grab the rest afterwards; and thats why we can not deplete all resource for fighting demons off but need some to not get backstapped by other nations)

So even after that war the Empire will still be in a weakened state.

[Delta]

"In the name of the King, and for the good of the Kingdom and its subjects, we hereby seize your lands and titles. You shall be confined in the tower on charges of treason, until such time as the current crisis has passed and can be guaranteed a fair trial"

A feudal kingdom is not a centralized dictatorship. A king who treats his vassals like that will not be king for long. Vassals gain land from their king in exchange for service, the terms of that service the OP has already stated.

In this case, we have an Empire, I'm not sure how much this is based on the Holy Roman Empire, if so the Emperor is actually elected by the highest nobles of the Empire so it's obvious his power over them is limited.

Berenger is correct, the best way to get them to give more is to offer them something. If there's a territorial dispute between two families, well, you can be sure the Emperor would look more kindly on the claims of the family who offered more troops to his efforts, wouldn't he?

If it's an invasion on such a huge scale, you can be sure there will be vacant fiefdoms and some noble families pretty much relegated to irrelevance afterwards, and those who served the Empire well would of course be more kindly rewarded in return, wouldn't they? Most nobles will have many more children to take care of than they have land to give to, so that's a hook that could work often.

To put it simply: Stuff like this is always a quid pro quo, find out what their political goals are, and sell them how having the Empire look kindly upon their issues after the war is done will be beneficial to their goals.

Traditionally, in the real world, one big aspect would've been loot, the more fighters a noble provided when capturing a city, the more hands he had to carry out gold and other valuables afterwards, but when facing a demonic invasion this probably won't be a big factor (unless of course there's valuable magical materials to be gained from the remains of dead demons in your setting?)

[Cespenar]

Obvious solution if you want something: offer something in return. Droit de régale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_de_r%C3%A9gale) (Regal, pl. Regalien in german), advantageous political marriages, a better title (this automatically increases the numer of required troops), debt relief, a favourable judgment in court etc.

This is basically it. It's how diplomacy was and is being done.

[Satinavian]

The emporer already got all the troops that he is entitled to. There is really no need for the nobles to go any further. And quite likely they can't go that much further anyway. Trained and well equipped troops are costly to maintain and won't exist beyond the requirement. And militia is usually only availible for a short time and there is no logistic support to deploy it far away.

There is a solution. It s called "mercenaries". A costly way to raise troops fast well beyond your regular capacity.
There is a way to raise money for mercenaries in such emergency situations. It is called "debt".

[Segev]

If this much of the kingdom is falling, the nobility benefit from the threat being stopped. Appeal to their self-interest. Assure them that the forces raised will be dispatched to their lands with the same fervor with which they contributed to them. Make sure their soldiers hear about the heroic actions of the King's forces in protecting their lands, and how important they, themselves, are to the defense thereof. Imply that nobles not giving what you want from them are selling out their lands, without quite saying so. Suggest that the two best ways to contribute are by sending men and materiel... or by serving as a buffer while the armies build up defenses in the areas "most valuable" to the defense of the nation.

[eru001]

Convince the king to offer a royal pardon (and depending on available funds, an enlistment bonus) to the kingdom's criminals if they report to the army and take up arms in the kingdom's defense. This should reduce the amount of criminal element's in this noble's (and other noble's) domains, thus reducing the amount of troops required to maintain stability (and netting some additional new troops), you can then go back to the noble and point out that now that maintaining stability is easier, surly he can spare some troops in this time of crisis. And surely the emperor would look upon such an action with gratitude. And I hear the gratitude of an Emperor is worth having every now and then.

[Pleh]

"Would you rather your kingdom destabilized by shortage of resources or by invading demons? We stand together or not at all. To prove it, we'll issue a promissary of reimbursement: the emperor shall compensate your contribution with interest after the threat has been vanquished."