A Globe Trotting Wizard’s Meticulous Journal (Warhammer Quest)

We're going to be having some semi finals, with a tie between our three front runners.

Please vote again for just one of the three plans leading plans, sorry to any who voted for building the world you want to see.

I'm thrilled by the variety of votes that have been cast.

The semi finals have created another tie, so I'll be the tie breaker and I'd like to go with Life and Death.

Sorry to be a bit of a tyrant but I just don't want to put off the start of the quest any longer. For those who voted for something else don't worry you'll see stuff from the other options throughout this quest. In both rumour posts and perhaps meeting up with them when you're done in Nehekara as this is just the first story arc.

As for the name they'll be vote at the end of the next update.

So I'll post the update some time today.

A/N I'm so happy this vote was so close, it feels like there was a good spread of interest and a nice range of combinations but we do have a winner, this is the start of their story


After what had to be one of the strangest interviews in the history of the civilised world, you had made you choice. After asking a few more questions to make certain of where you stood, the decision had been obvious to you.

The difference between an apprentice and a magister was not measured by power. Not by the number of spells known or even by knowledge of the winds. It was in experience.

Personal, hands on and intimate experience. Of the world, the dangers in it and the way that your on Wind interacted with those.

From that experience wizards were forged into among the mightiest defenders of the Empire.

With a writ to wander the world they were free in a way few were. But even with that freedom many stay within Sigmar's domain.

Where would they go? To Kislev or Bretonnia where any wizard not connected to a priesthood was suspicious. Or further south to Tilea or Estalia to be caught up in some new struggle there.

If any new Journeyman thought Athel Loren, Lorelaurn or the Karaz Ankor would be kinder to them than human kingdoms. Then there was a dragon you'd like give them as a goodbye present on their journey. You just needed 100 gold coins to make it stop being invisible.

But to stay in the Empire was not truly to journey, what could learned in Middenheim could be learned in Altdorf and vice versa. The world was so much more than the Empire, there were as many paths in magic as stars in the sky and far too much to see from one corner.

All three men had made a good case for themselves.

Ultimately what had made your decision was three salient facts.

Number one and perhaps most importantly. This had been a golden age for your kind, these last 80 years. Magnus the Pious, the wise, the great and thousand other earned epithets, had remade the empire. Ending centuries of misrule and weakness.

The creation of the Colleges of Magic had been the crown jewel of his reign. The chance for humans to finally harness the power of magic safely. There had been bumps and failures along the way.

Witch Hunter's still burnt people on thin evidence. Most peasants still looked at you like you might start summoning daemons at a heartbeat. But between the colleges and churches of the empire there had been peace. With no major incidents there was, if not trust, then at least acceptance. The Church of Sigmar and Ulric, had both once clamoured for censure and restrictions on the colleges, if not outright dissolution after the end of the Great War against Chaos.

However, Magnus had quieted these calls, toward the end of his reign there was hardly a peep from the Churches. Now 14 years into the reign of emperor Leopold, there had not been anything but blessed (perhaps literally) silence. Only minor squabbles with individual churches, nothing from the Grand Theogonist or Ar Ulric themselves.

However, what was happening now was unprecedented. A joint venture between the two groups was just too good to pass up on. A chance for you to help go a step further, to not just have a peaceful relationship. But a cooperative on. To work with the church as equals in the pursuit of the Empire's prosperity and the destruction of its enemies.

Number Two, the effects of the Winds of magic as one went further north were well documented. Ever increasing corruption by the forces of chaos as one approached the Wastes. The opposite was not nearly so well studied. To be sure, wizards had gone south and seen the lands there before. Few comprehensive studies on how the bedrock of all magecraft was changed by location. To see how Ghyran behaved far from the eyes of Chaos Gods. To study ancient knowledge and ask questions of the most open minded priests of today.

Finally Number Three, simple curiosity had grabbed you. Marcel had been very open about what they wanted and while learning more of Cathay would be marvellous, you would only learn what the dragon revealed. Julius had proposed something interesting but it sounded like a mighty easy way to get a grudge sworn against you to your mind. But this was a chance to not just journey but to adventure, to see the world and the things in it.

So, with those reasons in mind, you enquired further of Heinrich with still bleeding face. He had informed you that he would be happy to continue this conversation in the morning in his office, while giving Marcel and Julius as side eye. The reason for which soon proved obvious. Both were not looking at you but rather out the window where, going by his skull face, an Amethyst magister was on the prowl.

Both man and Dwarf had leapt up after him. You seemingly forgotten. The pair went haring off down the street with Heinrich in hot pursuit.

It was only after his coat had cleared the door that you noticed he had left a wooden token with the address of a small dockside office on it.

The barmaid had approached and insisted that you pay for all four drinks, the good stuff. Maybe you should have taken Julius' money.

The next morning you had gone to the meeting more than a little nervous. A feeling that was abated by the elderly secretary who had asked you to wait in the waiting room, offering to keep you company explaining that it was a great excuse not to work.

Her name was Evangeline Aegir. She was doughty and wholesome as many old women are. Full of stories about her grandchildren and tales of her husband in his days as a sailor. Her faith in Mannan, her book club, her time working in this same building for the last 40 years, originally to manage the Altdorf end of her husbands work in Marienburg. The more she talked the easier it was for you to share about yourself, your personal faith and a little more about yourself.

However, you began with a short explanation of magic and your time studying it.


Magic Rules

Magic is where science meets art. It is both and yet neither, there are undeniable truths and inevitable contradictions. Having a low learning score won't make you bad at magic. Magic is the culmination and representation of a person's life their will and abilities. Therefore your magic score is a reflection of all other stats.

Magic = to all other stats added together and divided by 6. But there will be ways to raise your magic score independent of the others.

When you want to do something magic related. You will be given a magic DC which you have to reach to achieve your goal. However if you roll a 10 or below, regardless of modifiers. This is a miscast and you must roll again to see how bad it is, 100 is harmless and even potentially insightful and may trigger additional rolls. 1 is potentially lethal and will require additional rolls. There are ways to lower the DC, with items, places of power, individuals to watch you while you cast and so on. There will also be events that raise the danger.

You will have to make these magic DC rolls whenever magic comes into play. If you take martial actions, you will roll for martial and magic, a high enough roll on magic will grant a bonus to the martial roll. Magic will also have its own actions, more magic actions will be unlocked over time. Further magic may increase the reward of completing the action or decrease the time to complete it.

You will Start With 4 Tokens, you can acquire additional tokens by taking on Banes.


Piety

Magic is immaterial yet affects the material.

It is ephemeral and yet tactile.

It is one yet it is eight.

Each of the eight are mindless yet each of the eight have idiosyncrasies.

The contradiction has affected many forms of thought, from the physical sciences to medicine, from philosophy to theology.

That last one is something the colleges do not officially engage in, being a secular organisation. But each man must bear his soul to the world in some way and come to a conclusion that satisfies him.

Which is why you are an.


[ ] Gnostic - You make no claims about the nature of the gods, they exist, but what are they? Are they like men as the servants of Sigmar proclaim, like animals as Ulric's pack howls or are they more like sapient spells? Forces of magic that have come to life and affect the world. All are good answers but none have any objective proof to support them. So you choose to believe nothing in the absence of evidence, apart from a general acceptance of the existence of the divine.

Cost = Free, Rewards Piety = 2D6 plus three.


[ ] Polytheist - The Empire honours many gods but most of these gods and their churches, encourage monolatry. To not deny what other gods have done but to embrace just one as your personal saviour. This has never rang true for you, the gods have watched over the empire for centuries and only a fool would call that valueless. However none called to you personally or touched your heart. But that hardly means they aren't there.

Cost = 1 Token, Reward Piety = 3D6 plus three.


[ ] Animist - Religion is a child's attempt to imitate an adult, there are grains of truth. These grains are precious things, they give hope, succour and happiness to millions. But they are not the Truth of the gods. Sigmar is not a man anymore, Ulric was never a wolf and the gods' work in the world flows from the Aethyr. Their nature is beyond your understanding but so too is it beyond the understanding of each god's own priests.


You have not adopted a deity yet but perhaps your Journey will also be one to faith.

Cost = 2 Tokens, Reward Piety = 4D6 plus five.

Personality Traits



Who you are as a person is not just a series of adjectives but also what you have endured and what gifts you most prize.



When all the good and bad is counted up, who are you.



Blessings


[ ] Keeping your nose to the grindstone - You have always pushed yourself hard, long hours and late nights to push yourself to be as good as you can be. You are studious and hardworking


Reward = Plus 1 to one stat of your choice, Cost = One token. May be taken multiple times, but not repeatedly on the same stat and the cost for each additional use is One Token. Raising a stat already above 15 to that level will cost 2 tokens per stat point.


[ ] Loving Parents - Your earliest memories are happy ones, the core of your personality is a well adjusted person. It may not be the stuff of legends but you have a place to call home and people who love you. Even in a dark world that is a precious thing, perhaps especially there. Where you go they will follow.

Reward = Loving Family, Cost = 1 Token


[ ] Linguist - While you already claimed to barely speak Bretonnian, you do have some grip on the language, as well as Tilean, Eastalian and Kislevite. You even talk the college course on what little is known of Old High Nehekaran. It should be easy enough to brush up on a few of these before the trip.

Reward = Learning a new language is now a free action and will be done in the background while performing the relevant action, Cost = 1 Token


[ ] Model Ship Builder - There is nothing to it really, you like ships in bottles. It seems all those hours of meticulous crafting had the benefit of teaching you patience and calmness. You knew all those people who said making ships in bottles was uncool were wrong.

Rewards = Miscast DC reduced to 9 permanently, Cost = 1 Token


[ ] Sports Enthusiast - Horse Racing, Fencing and Rowing, you love to watch and participate in these events but particularly the first one. Being a lifetime member of the Altdorf Equestrian League has its advantages. While not the mightiest of organisations, everyone needs horses and it has contacts in cities across the old world.

Reward = 1 Marital, 1 Diplomacy and contacts across the old world. Cost = 2 Tokens


[ ] Creative Spark - You love to bring new things into the world. Your dorm room is littered with a hundred things that will never be, but for every hundred there is one that could be and that one thing may change the world.

Reward = Plus 5 to any roll involving something that was your idea that you are working on. Cost = 2 Tokens


[ ] Elementalist Enthusiast - While their power was never as great as the college and has waned since the articles of magic were written. You have always had a fascination with one of humanities first attempts at magic. This has caused you to walk in odd circles and pick up new and old ideas.

Rewards = Elementalist training, contacts across the old world, Cost = 2 Tokens


[ ] Prodigious Witch Sight - Most wizards start out with the Sense of Intuition (also known as Aethyric Attunment). They must use this as a way to begin to feel magic, through itches and shivers. Through increasing sensitivity they learn to open their third eye. But you were born with yours open, you thought that was how the world looked and were shocked to learn others could not see it. If noting else your additional sight left you an appreciation for things of beauty.

Reward = Plus 10 to magic rolls (this does not affect miscasts), Cost = 2 Tokens.


[ ] Natural Channeler - All wizards manipulate the winds but you go a step further. You are a fountain for the wind you are bound to, it responds not just to your will but to your whims. Supernatural creature both evil and benign are drawn to this wellspring. Even in places where your wind is weak you bring it with you, you are a dynamo of power that even other wizards can draw on. But with this power comes risk, a normal wizard is a tempting target, you would be the jewel in any Daemons crown.

Reward = For magic rolls, you roll twice and pick the higher option, this includes for rolls under your miscast DC, Cost = 3 Tokens, normally on a miscast you roll to see how bad the miscast is. With this, yours will automatically be catastrophic but less likely to occur in the first place. So failure and miscasts are less likely but far worse if they happen.


But while you talked happily of your views on the divine and the bits and pieces of your life, you kept some secrets to yourself and some perhaps from yourself.


Banes A/N (None of these make you evil, this isn't an evil quest but no one is perfect)



[ ] Evil Ancestry - The college is young but magic isn't, an ancestor of yours turned to Dhar to preserve themselves. As of the latest reports they are still alive and more dangerous than ever.

Cost - Your ancestor may come for you and those who know the story about them may be suspicious of you, Rewards = 1 token.


[ ] Witch Hunter target - Heinrich may have been open minded, but not all of his kind are. Before even becoming an apprentice your first use of magic was far from harmless. It was a shameful thing. Since that day someone has been watching you on and off for years, waiting, growing impatient.

Cost = You hurt someone with your magic and a witch hunter is watching, Rewards = 1 token.


[ ] Child of Morrsleib - You were born unprotected under the Green moon. Your parents prayed to every god that would listen that you not be born cursed. Some would say magic was the curse, but you hardly see it that way. No mutations and no corruption. That you know of.

Cost = ???, Rewards = 2 Tokens.


[ ] Dark Muse - As all minds do, yours sometimes goes to dark places. When you come back you often find some amusement or pleasure in what you saw there. Who doesn't like to be frightened sometimes by a scary story or enjoy a guilty pleasure. Its harmless, right?

Cost = The attention of something, Rewards = 2 Tokens


[ ] Elevated beyond the Mundane - A plan is just a list of things that are never going to happen, mundane's make plans. They think about the future, hope for the best and work to bring their ideas into reality. There are a thousand poems about how the world laughs at these efforts. Not you however, for a wizard the gap between your will and reality is so much slimmer. You may accomplish in a day what would require others a year to do alone.

Cost = A slightly condescending view of people who can't do magic not that uncommon in the colleges, this may complicate early interactions with them, Rewards = 2 Tokens. Cannot be taken with Supremacy over the Mundane


[ ] Supremacy over the Mundane - In your heart you have always held a quiet thought, one buried deep, one you have never even thought consciously let alone spoken aloud. Magnus saved the Empire by creating the colleges. He was forced to bind your social power even as he liberated your magical power. But to preserve the Empire beyond all threats, further steps must be taken. Wizards must not just serve, you must lead. All of you are educated, all of you have endured tribulation, all of you stand against the darkness of the world. The Empire is great, how much greater could it be.

Cost = Few immediate downsides, you haven't expressed this out loud before, it isn't even something you consciously recognise believing. But at a core level this is what you believe, not inherently malicious, noblesse oblige is possible with character growth but is an early source of corruption Rewards = 4 tokens. Cannot be taken with Elevated beyond the Mundane



Equipment

[ ] Dwarf Pistol - Most wizards steer clear of firearms, gunpower is unstable and magic can be too. So why put the two together? The answer is if you have one of superb quality and a small amount of powder for it. (Can't be taken with Exceptional Focus)

Rewards - Plus 4 to marital combat rolls while carrying it, Cost = 1 token

[ ] Exceptional Focus - all are proud of the foci they have made in their apprentice but whether by inspiration or luck, yours is of particular quality. It acts not just as channel for your power, but a point of stability in the heat of combat. (Can't be taken with Dwarf Pistol)

Rewards = Plus 5 to magic rolls in combat situations, Cost = 1 token


[ ] Horse - She may not be a Bretonnian stead but buttercup has served you well, taking you across Altdorf and even beyond. Its a dream of yours to ride her into the sunset.

Rewards = Horse, Cost = 1 token


[ ] Master's Journal - Bequeathed to you by your teacher, this odd collection of prose, poems and errant thoughts is not a spell book. It contains no actual explanation on how to do magic but to you it is invaluable. It contains your masters perspective on your wind and through that its almost like he is right there to help you.

Rewards = Plus 10 to all magic rolls (apart from personal combat) if you read it recently, Cost = 1 Token


[ ] Silk Attire - All the way from the far side of the world, this outfit would be near priceless were it not a gift to the college by a grateful foreign dignitary. No one else wanted it so its yours.

Rewards = Plus 3 Diplomacy and Intrigue while wearing it in non combat scenarios, Cost = 1 Token


[ ] Vampire Skull - Its not just nobles who keep trophies, the college does too. This skulls owner has been forgotten, it is thousands of years old, found in the deserts of Badlands. It was thrust upon you by a babbling member of the celestial college bounding about the streets giving out knickknacks to bemused Altdorfers.

Rewards = ???, cost = 1 Token


[ ] War Gear - Your wind is not Chamon, metal does not leap to obey your will. So many of your order go into battle in clothes not fit for purpose. But not you, you will not got into battle without adequate protection. So you have done your best make something with your wind that will serve ... almost as well as plate and sword.

Rewards = Plus 4 Martial while wearing it, Cost = 1 Token.


[ ] Wizards Robes - These were meticulously sewn by you personally usually as a way to blow off steam after class. Completely by accident this became a useful mental exercise to remember how you should have done things in the class room, useless at the time but vital to remember now.

Rewards = Miscast level reduced by 2 while wearing it, Cost = 1 Token



This is who you are.

Name and Gender Options
[ ] Amelia Albrecht (meaning Bright Nemesis)

[ ] Johann Engel (Meaning God's Graciousness has filled me with hope)

[ ] Write in

This is where you stand.



A/N Piety really needed its own vote, it just adds so much to how your character sees the world. Also this would be a good time to say, I have no Beta so if anyone is interested please start a conversation.



Don't be afraid to vote for things that don't seem to have massive value, I'll make them valuable from a mechanical perspective later.



The equipment is all one token stuff because it'll be more fun to earn and build that stuff. Even if you choose to vote for nothing you'll still have some equipment it just won't grant any mechanical benefits. Further lots of it is give ideas for early side quests. Also while they do grant higher bonuses than traits they are also situational, some of them are more to start quest lines.



Vote by plan and only vote for one plan. This vote won't have a set time but should last a few days.