- Location
- United States of America, Michigan
[X] Veekie
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
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- Tags
- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
How do you control it without touching the Wind itself though? As I mentioned, canon Gold mages can cheat to produce effects using other Winds by manipulating matter that's absorbed other Winds (as that's within the domain of Chamon)*, which then influences the expression of the Wind contained by the substance of the magic item. Mathlide can't do that here, as this seems like raw magic.
Otherwise, with enough 'Qhaysh Juice' the best we could do is perhaps reproduce the effects of a localised Storm of Magic, but that's a terrible idea for most people who aren't elven high mages, dwarven runesmiths, daemons or vampires.
Now, in terms of experiments, I can see her being able to 'distill' the 'Qhaysh Juice' to produce liquified Ulgu,, which could be used a a battery and so should make spellcasting much safer as you can't suddenly by overcome by a squall in the Winds, and would also make the production of Ulgu powerstones vastly easier, as she's skipped two of the steps. I can also see it being used to manufacture components for enchanting, as I said.
* Actually, one long shot if Mathilde knows how the Gold Wizards' enchantment techniques work, is that she could try to do something similar with mist. It's possible to control mists with Ulgu like Chamon can control regular matter, so if Mathilde works out how to separate 'Qhaysh Juice' into its component eight parts, she could then try infusing the resulting liquids into mist, controlling the mist to influence the absorbed Wind to produce the desired effect, and then bottling the mist, which could then be released to produce a relevant effect on demand. Bottled fire ball or healing, for example.
Of course, all this would be much easier if Mathilde doesn't take a trait that makes her hate studying and scholarship.
I suspect that Mathilde would find that the Practical trait would be the cancer, as it's the kind of thing that has it develops is more likely to quite literally kill her. Or even if it doesn't develop, and just sits there pulling her down.
The paper is just a challenge and an annoyance at the moment. Accepting defeat and learning to hate scholarship is not a good idea for a wizard.
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Kornet
Quite possibly a sloth abomination
- Location
- Mother Russia
[X] Yes. Don't be unrealistic. The paper communicates the concept and construction of Mathilde's Mystical Matrix without inducing unconsciousness or migraines. That's a win. Take the win.
This. So much this. An academic paper is not about fineese, it is about communicating information in a (marginally) readable way.
Besides, as a man who is behind a deadline for his paper, I just fucking appreciate the trait description.
This. So much this. An academic paper is not about fineese, it is about communicating information in a (marginally) readable way.
Besides, as a man who is behind a deadline for his paper, I just fucking appreciate the trait description.
Thinking of immortality…
@BoneyM
Most CKII style quests are explicitly dynastic. There is an understanding that if the player character gets killed their appointed heir will become the new player character. (Most quests never get to that point but nonetheless.) This quest however… we are just an advisor. So what happens if we get our throat torn out by an undead monster?
@BoneyM
Most CKII style quests are explicitly dynastic. There is an understanding that if the player character gets killed their appointed heir will become the new player character. (Most quests never get to that point but nonetheless.) This quest however… we are just an advisor. So what happens if we get our throat torn out by an undead monster?
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] No. Mathilde's Mystical Matrix is worthy of a paper of sublime profundity, that communicates the earthshaking possibilities of the spell with elegance.
[X][Action] Plan Pressing Onwards
[X][Action] Plan Pressing Onwards
Honestly, I'm torn. On the one hand, I really want to cut this paper business off before it has a chance to eat up even more of our time. We've got it to the point where it doesn't fail at its main goal, but it could still be better. My problem is a lack of prioritisation on how we go about making it better. We're supposed to be preparing to attack the centre of Vampire power in the Empire, but we've spent nearly six months writing a paper that's not going to have a chance to effect that. On the other, I think @Alratan and others are more right than wrong when they talk about, for example, the fact that we still have something sort of unprecedented that we need to research (Snake Juice) and how the Practical trait, with that description about coming to dislike academia, will affect those efforts.
Well, I've got other things to decide, so I can come back to that later.
These are our more permanent solutions to the problem of discretionary funds not really being meant for how we're using them. We can either get them on an officially sanctioned organisations books (and it's a relevant one, since intelligence and law enforcement are both government security functions) or we can put work towards providing market information for the EIC. I think I'll want to do both eventually, but @veekie was right that we don't really want to take Trade Delegation until we've actually learned how the EIC works and in any case that's likely to cost us start up money like the attempt at gossipmongering did.
Special Branch it is, then. @veekie's going to come out, again, with his thing about how it'll cause the information network to be infiltrated, but I'll preemptively argue against that position. Take the phrase 'financial trickery' from the option text. This is not about integrating the information network into the Watch's command structure or bureaucracy, it's about pulling a fast one so that the Watch pays the InfoNet's expenses. We'll likely see problems in the form of Jack being upset that his budget's been reduced or Abelhelm and Wilhelmina being upset that the Watch's budget is growing faster than they expected. We're not likely to see problems with infiltration of the information network, or at least not more likely that we already would have been, because that still requires that someone infiltrates the information network -- it's not handing the Watch an itemised list of informants and their addresses, it's "Give me X gold."
I think we've actually already done the first (@BoneyM? Is that a repeatable action? I don't remember if we've expanded further since the last time we took it), but it'll definitely be worth taking once we've expanded some more.
The others are all more or less necessary in the medium to long term. Training and administrators are something that we want to get to sooner rather than later, in particular. Not too urgent at the moment, though.
These ones are nice additions to the core functionalities, but not even close to necessary right now. I'd like to get to them, but we have a lot of more important actions to take.
These are great, and assuming for the purposes of my post that we take Special Branch, absolutely required to at least some level. My problem is that I can't choose which one I want. Would we prefer the quick cash of the first two or the more effort, more money of the latter two? Do we want the bonus to public order and health from getting the streets clear of crap, the employment benefits of the market gardens, or the obvious benefits to the military of having a native source of gunpowder ingredients? It's something I think I'll need input on.
Whew, that's a lot of time wasted thinking about organisational actions. And I still haven't looked at the personal actions.
Definitely opposed to joining the hunt. That seems liable to either get us hurt or be a complete anticlimax with not a lot of room in between. The others aren't really pulling me towards them either. Even if we had vastly more actions available, they're still not really that interesting to me. We don't really have the Diplomacy for interacting officially with the dwarves or Ostermark and Vanhaldenschlosse is a necromancer's castle that doesn't even seem to have monsters. What kind of adventure would that be?
Of these, the only one that draws me is watching Ulgu. Reclusion is a definite no. Sending it off is counterproductive if we want to use this as a Magister's project. Staying at the inn is nice, but not even close to narratively interesting. Plus I like reading about the Winds. They're the unique part of Warhammer Fantasy's magic, and we chose a wizard character. More of that stuff is always good.
These can be mostly discounted for now, I think. Practice, Practice, Practice would only be worth it for Learning with the actions we've been taking recently, but we just did that and it's already our highest base stat. Everyone else is too busy for Tutoring, as is Markus for Really Good Swords -- and it's going to take more effort than previously, so we'll really want his bonus. Combat Training, Free Market or otherwise, doesn't really seem worth it outside of Gustav or the Greatswords, and Gun Shopping isn't worth it either for now.
I could maybe be convinced to take the Enchantment option here, but that's a big maybe. We've pushed working on it back again and again, so we're too late to have any effect on the Purge with it, and we've got several prep actions that we should probably take first anyway (that we've also been putting off).
I'd vote for finishing the excavation and setting up the lab (like I already have twice), but I have a sneaking suspicion that there's maybe one or two other people in the ~40 regular voters who'd want to do that. Let's call it a fallback option if I can't decide on anything else. We do need to do them eventually, even if they might make for drier reading than we're used to.
Qhaysh Skunkworks is something I could see myself voting for just to appease other players, but it really does sound incredibly dangerous. Just about everything worth taking on this list (ie. from Shyish-kebabs down, except for spells) would benefit from having the enchantment lab, so I find myself not wanting to research them until we've set the lab up only to run into the wall that is the fact nobody votes to do it.
All just kind of unnecessary at the moment.
One day I'll find room for Letters Home. Getting To Know You Whether You Like It Or Not would be good for last turn's Maybe-Vampire Countess, but we just told Abelhelm we can wait on it and he agreed, so it's not urgent. Getting To Know You could be nice, particularly the 'offering your help' part which I've not actually noticed before, but it's all either army stuff (Abelhelm, Markus, Gustav, Kasmir, Detlef, etc) or things we don't know enough to be meddling in (Anton, Wilhelmina). I suppose it could work for Asarnil, and he was less of a dick than I was expecting, but we seem to have dropped our brief infatuation with taking actions relating to him. That's nice.
TL;DR:
I'm probably going to vote for something like
but I'm open to arguments for particular options, especially with the Watch's money-making and personal actions.
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Guile
Having a really great time right now
Unfortunately there's not a lot of promising options for the Intelligence network that involve actually making your coin back. The EIC is operating at cost, so partnering with them is a bad idea. Getting our operations classified under the Watch or Army is likewise not really solving any problems for us, but at least the Intelligence Attache corps that is costing us so much money is probably a tiny drop in the bucket for Stirland's army of 40,000. All the other Intel options cost more money.
Guess I'd go for something like this:
[X] Plan Exploding Snake Juice
-[X] Yes. Don't be unrealistic. The paper communicates the concept and construction of Mathilde's Mystical Matrix without inducing unconsciousness or migraines. That's a win. Take the win.
-[X] Attaché Paperwork: The Intelligence Attachés are your biggest expense by far - see if you can have them paid for by the Army of Stirland instead.
-[X] In Wissenland, there are a number of techniques in use to derive saltpeter from urine. It would take a great deal more effort than selling to tanneries, but saltpeter could be exported to Nuln for fantastic profit, or used to start gunpowder production in Stirland.
-[X] Enchantment: You've finally got the equipment, now you've just got to unpack it all and set up your laboratory.
-[X] Qhaysh Skunkworks: It would take careful study to unlock the secrets of the liquid. It would take considerably less time to find out if it can be made to burn, or explode, or do something militarily useful.
--[X] Ranald's blessing
It's unfortunate you can't write-in an intel option to find out WHY the Gossipmonger initiative failed, try to find out who's working against us or if the market wasn't right or what.
EDIT: Also, once we can start getting free 'getting to know you' actions again, we should spend them on getting to know Wilhelmina's kids. We don't have to try and apply pressure to get them kicked out of the EIC, we just need to keep an eye on them.
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- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It might be better to attach to the general staff instead of a regiment. My thought was that we'd do better uaing our wizard sight as part of a searching regiment than being in a behind-thee-lines tent, and since this evil king guy has stronger servants, we'd be more useful fighting at the front than last time. Then again, we have the shadow horse to cover ground by ourselves, and we might have more positive influence on how the search goes if we're prt of the general staff. I might switch, if a few other people also think it would be best?
DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
I don't see why we should keep pouring actions into this paper when it's not teaching us anything new at all. There is a lot of ulgu to study and we're wasting our time on rehashing stuff we already know? Why would we bother? If we want to spend even more actions writing up academic papers, then study magic until we've learned something else exciting and new and write a second paper about that. Sticking with this one when it's already done is obsessive dithering that achieves nothing worthwhile.
I'm all in favor of learning more about magic, but that should really be done by choosing an action which involves doing more magic instead of an action that amounts to meditating on the nature of the Grey Wind. We have a lot of those! Learn a new shadow spell. Nail down how enchantment works. Poke our Qhaysh Juice. Hell, write-in an action to actually learn something new about our spell matrix by trying to extend it to new spell categories or have multiple distinct alarm spells so that we can tell which one went off or similar instead of endlessly mentally rehashing what we already know about it.
This action appears to be, basically, "make a single learning roll and if you crit you get a trait", just like the last one. Which is nice and all, but we can go crit-fishing on all kinds of actions that don't have an expected result of absolutely nothing in a non-crit scenario.
I like most of your ideas, but Qhaysh Skunkworks is just a terrible action overall and we should never take it. The army of Stirland does not have so much trouble killing things that they need new, extremely-limited-quantity exotic explosives. We saw with the Blasphemy of Blood events that they're quite capable of simply applying dedicated thoroughness and a dash of dragonfire to murdering anything that really, really needs killing. The Skunkworks will cost our extremely limited supplies of snake juice, create a weapon that Stirland doesn't even need, and cost an action to do it- it's like losing in three different ways!
We have yet to do a general staff action and the (previous) description of it does imply that we'd be able to deploy ourselves to any needed hotspots, so if we get reports that someplace needs a wizard we should still be able to ride out and check things out. That seems like a better move to me overall.
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Guile
Having a really great time right now
Losing 1/5th of your army six months before you even reach the enemy capital is pretty brutal, but it is true that nothing we do will have much of an effect on the war effort compared to Anton bringing in 20 new cannons.
How about:
[X] Yes. Don't be unrealistic. The paper communicates the concept and construction of Mathilde's Mystical Matrix without inducing unconsciousness or migraines. That's a win. Take the win.
[X] Plan Snake Juice
-[X] Write-in: Try to find out where, how and why your money drained away into the coffers of Flensberg court affiliates like tossing coins down a well. Enemy action seems likely, rather than your entire new network deciding to turn on you without prompting.
-[X] In Wissenland, there are a number of techniques in use to derive saltpeter from urine. It would take a great deal more effort than selling to tanneries, but saltpeter could be exported to Nuln for fantastic profit, or used to start gunpowder production in Stirland.
-[X] Enchantment: You've finally got the equipment, now you've just got to unpack it all and set up your laboratory.
-[X] Qhaysh Juice: Whatever it is, it's dripping out of the box at a steady rate. You've got several gallons of the stuff and it's still coming out. It's got to be good for something.
--[X] Ranald's blessing
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You make a convincing argument. I'm just concerned that we're going to end up voting for it anyway. If we do, I want to be able to mitigate it by at least having it be something I'll find worth reading.
There's also the fact that I want to excavate and set up the lab, to prepare for all of those other research actions, but I've already proposed it two or three times and garnered I think one vote for it that wasn't mine. It's not a popular course of action.
That's an interesting perspective. I personally didn't like it because of the aspect of danger. We can't expect everything to be safe when it comes to magic, obviously, but working with something that's supposed to degrade into Dhar in regular circumstances doesn't sound like something we want to be destabilising.
- Location
- Aotearoa
According to Boney when I asked, this is purely to events happening at general staff HQ, explicitly not stuff the Regiments finds in the field. Like, if the Countess went for a decapitation strike, we'd be there, but not when the 4th finds the Singing King or whatever.
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[X] Yes. Don't be unrealistic. The paper communicates the concept and construction of Mathilde's Mystical Matrix without inducing unconsciousness or migraines. That's a win. Take the win.
[X] Plan Sneaky Finances and Wizard Lab
-[X] Special Branch: Pull some financial trickery to get the information network classified as part of the Watch, so that their costs are covered by the Stirlandian treasury.
-[X] In Wissenland, there are a number of techniques in use to derive saltpeter from urine. It would take a great deal more effort than selling to tanneries, but saltpeter could be exported to Nuln for fantastic profit, or used to start gunpowder production in Stirland.
-[X] Diggy Diggy Hole, Remixed: You're getting sick of having workmen tramping in and out of your abode. Recruit an entire team and personally oversee them to clear out all of the reachable portions of the Palace-Shrine and be done with it. (-personal gold)
--[X] Ranald's Blessing
-[X] Enchantment: You've finally got the equipment, now you've just got to unpack it all and set up your laboratory.
Sleep deprived me of any shot at catching up no matter what my plan is, so I might as well return to the old standby. When will I learn.
[X] Plan Sneaky Finances and Wizard Lab
-[X] Special Branch: Pull some financial trickery to get the information network classified as part of the Watch, so that their costs are covered by the Stirlandian treasury.
-[X] In Wissenland, there are a number of techniques in use to derive saltpeter from urine. It would take a great deal more effort than selling to tanneries, but saltpeter could be exported to Nuln for fantastic profit, or used to start gunpowder production in Stirland.
-[X] Diggy Diggy Hole, Remixed: You're getting sick of having workmen tramping in and out of your abode. Recruit an entire team and personally oversee them to clear out all of the reachable portions of the Palace-Shrine and be done with it. (-personal gold)
--[X] Ranald's Blessing
-[X] Enchantment: You've finally got the equipment, now you've just got to unpack it all and set up your laboratory.
Sleep deprived me of any shot at catching up no matter what my plan is, so I might as well return to the old standby. When will I learn.
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DarkLight140
Credit to Team
- Location
- Lost in my thoughts
Huh. Well, that's less than great, but at the same time... attaching ourselves to any given regiment means that we could just happen to pick the wrong regiment and completely miss the battle because someone else found the King and fought him, in which case we've basically wasted our time with exactly the same sort of action that the previous attachment to a regiment was. Any ideas for how to get around that problem?
Dadarian
The King of Queen's
- Location
- Queen's on the Shore
[X] Plan Snake Juice
-[X] Yes. Don't be unrealistic. The paper communicates the concept and construction of Mathilde's Mystical Matrix without inducing unconsciousness or migraines. That's a win. Take the win.
-[X] Write-in: Try to find out where, how and why your money drained away into the coffers of Flensberg court affiliates like tossing coins down a well. Enemy action seems likely, rather than your entire new network deciding to turn on you without prompting.
-[X] In Wissenland, there are a number of techniques in use to derive saltpeter from urine. It would take a great deal more effort than selling to tanneries, but saltpeter could be exported to Nuln for fantastic profit, or used to start gunpowder production in Stirland.
-[X] Enchantment: You've finally got the equipment, now you've just got to unpack it all and set up your laboratory.
-[X] Qhaysh Juice: Whatever it is, it's dripping out of the box at a steady rate. You've got several gallons of the stuff and it's still coming out. It's got to be good for something.
--[X] Ranald's blessing
I like it.
-[X] Yes. Don't be unrealistic. The paper communicates the concept and construction of Mathilde's Mystical Matrix without inducing unconsciousness or migraines. That's a win. Take the win.
-[X] Write-in: Try to find out where, how and why your money drained away into the coffers of Flensberg court affiliates like tossing coins down a well. Enemy action seems likely, rather than your entire new network deciding to turn on you without prompting.
-[X] In Wissenland, there are a number of techniques in use to derive saltpeter from urine. It would take a great deal more effort than selling to tanneries, but saltpeter could be exported to Nuln for fantastic profit, or used to start gunpowder production in Stirland.
-[X] Enchantment: You've finally got the equipment, now you've just got to unpack it all and set up your laboratory.
-[X] Qhaysh Juice: Whatever it is, it's dripping out of the box at a steady rate. You've got several gallons of the stuff and it's still coming out. It's got to be good for something.
--[X] Ranald's blessing
I like it.
- Location
- Aotearoa
Just avoid the whole issue. Find some other way to help the Purge that doesn't involve hoping we just happen to be with the right group of guys with spears who find the Vampire Lord. We aren't a battle wizard, and Boney has cautioned us against expecting we'd make any real difference anyway. Paraphrasing Boney, Any involvement with the Purge is for us to learn.
If we hadn't told Van Hal to ignore the vampire countess the way we phrased it, I'd suggest we investigate her, to make sure there are no threats to the army supply lines or worse. As it is, we'd look pretty stupid whether we found something or not.
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Wilhemina finds a way to honour the cheques Anton is writing she should get a barony!
BTW, the EIC owns quit a lot of livestock. Livestock generate much piss. Milking sheds, barns and slaughterhouses are all sources of feedstock for the saltpetre works that can be collected relatively efficiently.
BTW, the EIC owns quit a lot of livestock. Livestock generate much piss. Milking sheds, barns and slaughterhouses are all sources of feedstock for the saltpetre works that can be collected relatively efficiently.
- Location
- Not Telling
[X] Plan Snake Juice
-[X] Yes. Don't be unrealistic. The paper communicates the concept and construction of Mathilde's Mystical Matrix without inducing unconsciousness or migraines. That's a win. Take the win.
-[X] Write-in: Try to find out where, how and why your money drained away into the coffers of Flensberg court affiliates like tossing coins down a well. Enemy action seems likely, rather than your entire new network deciding to turn on you without prompting.
-[X] In Wissenland, there are a number of techniques in use to derive saltpeter from urine. It would take a great deal more effort than selling to tanneries, but saltpeter could be exported to Nuln for fantastic profit, or used to start gunpowder production in Stirland.
-[X] Enchantment: You've finally got the equipment, now you've just got to unpack it all and set up your laboratory.
-[X] Qhaysh Juice: Whatever it is, it's dripping out of the box at a steady rate. You've got several gallons of the stuff and it's still coming out. It's got to be good for something.
--[X] Ranald's blessing
-[X] Yes. Don't be unrealistic. The paper communicates the concept and construction of Mathilde's Mystical Matrix without inducing unconsciousness or migraines. That's a win. Take the win.
-[X] Write-in: Try to find out where, how and why your money drained away into the coffers of Flensberg court affiliates like tossing coins down a well. Enemy action seems likely, rather than your entire new network deciding to turn on you without prompting.
-[X] In Wissenland, there are a number of techniques in use to derive saltpeter from urine. It would take a great deal more effort than selling to tanneries, but saltpeter could be exported to Nuln for fantastic profit, or used to start gunpowder production in Stirland.
-[X] Enchantment: You've finally got the equipment, now you've just got to unpack it all and set up your laboratory.
-[X] Qhaysh Juice: Whatever it is, it's dripping out of the box at a steady rate. You've got several gallons of the stuff and it's still coming out. It's got to be good for something.
--[X] Ranald's blessing
- Location
- Asia
Anton. Again, bloody Anton.
Not infiltrated. Exposure risks go up. One reason for upping Gong Farming is that to get away with shoving it into the Watch budget we need the Watch to turn a profit first, or Wilhelmina will have Words
Functionally the same. In any case, you've only asserted that nebulous risks will increase with no justification. I don't know how that's supposed to be convincing.