Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Now I have a mental image of Mathilde losing the seed-bearing limb and- amidst her bleeding- watching fascinated horror as another Mathilde regrows from that arm.
"So who's the-"
"Well, I am the one with the Seed."

"So? I still have all of Mathilde's memories and magicks!"
"So do I! Plus: seed."

"... Well, are we at least agreed not to fight to the death to prove the real one?"
"Sure, that would be stupid."
 
[X] Accept as the most senior Wizard present (commanding two Amber Journeymen and one Gold Journeyman).
[X] The Gold Wizard journeymen.
[X] Spend time with your wolf pup, trying to develop a famliar bond.
[X] Deliver last-minute messages for Belegar, trying to scrape together any remaining support to be had before leaving.
- [X] To Dwarfholds of the Grey and Black Mountains.

It's not like we are running out of good options to choose from; we can study the magic juice, work on FoW, a host of characters to talk with and that's all before we enter the hold. As it stands there's no reason to take subpar options just because it's time sensitive when can always take better options.

IC, Belegar has gotten a surprising amount of imperial help already, 50000 troops and a magister is nothing to sneeze at. Asking for more when they have been freshly squeezed isn't going to be that efficient. What's missing are the dwarf cannons and runepriests that Belegar needs, so asking them for aid will be far more useful.

Ooc, Boney mentioned that Belegar rolled badly with the dwarfs but extremely well for various imperial groups. Knowing this, giving Belegar a harder re-roll with humans isn't going to be as effective as re-rolling his dwarf aid request.

That's...very much putting all of your eggs in one basket. There is one person in the entire reclamation effort capable of efficiently dealing with enemy spellcasters. Trusting solely on the Dwarfholds to provide a second dearly-needed dispeller seems like a pretty optimistic outlook on the war situation.
Yes, asking the colleges is time sensitive. This is the sole shot the army has to have a full-fledged member of a College ask them for aid in that capacity, and have the reinforcements arrive on time. If anything it's the more efficient option over asking the dwarfholds, as Belegar will be asking them a second time.
If the dwarves don't come through with artillery and/or a runepriest, will be glad we picked the better option of talking with the journeyman over trying to shore up the army's very obvious weakness by asking the colleges?
 
"So who's the-"
"Well, I am the one with the Seed."

"So? I still have all of Mathilde's memories and magicks!"
"So do I! Plus: seed."

"... Well, are we at least agreed not to fight to the death to prove the real one?"
"Sure, that would be stupid."
"Especially as you've got the Seed."
"Good point."
----
It's one way around not having enough trustworthy Wizards on the campaign to do Dispells.
 
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The fact that they can is sort of an emphasis of the fact that the Empire is not, in fact, much of an Empire; it's a confederation with a lot of internal power groups who are largely autonomous. The Elector Counts literally go to war with one another when they disagree, the nobility rebel at the drop of a hat when their Elector Counts try to assert serious control unless a very tight grip is kept on them, the peasantry hate and disdain the upper classes who exploit and oppress them so much that they're a breeding ground for rebellion, often backed by cults that literally worship gods who mutate their followers into horrible gribblies, the Knight Orders are self-run and decide which wars they fight and which they don't while listening to whichever of their religious and secular rulers they happen to like more at the time, the Colleges of Magic are a class of people hated by everyone but legally difficult to touch and extremely powerful personally who ultimately act as mercenaries to the rest of the Empire's power groups, and the Churches are of the opinion that everyone should listen to them as the highest authority while the Elector Counts feel just the opposite.

All of the above are jealous of their power and do whatever they can to retain it and guard it fiercely from any other of the above.

It's kind of amazing that it works at all.
You think that's bad, you should have seen the Kislevite Polish Parliament towards the end of the Era of Golden Liberty.

The Era of Golden Liberty started pretty well, at a time where the Polish had been very generous in interpreting who was a "noble" (szlachta). All children of a noble were nobles, including half-bloods and bastards. Over time this predictably resulted in most of the population being noble. The king had to respect the rights and privileges of nobles. Think of it as a hack for importing near-present levels of due process and civil rights to ~700 years ago.
Towards the end, though, this had resulted in a system where every noble member of Parliament - in other words, every member of Parliament - had the individual power to liberum veto (lit 'freely forbid') if they were dissatisfied: to say "I refuse, no more of this!" and thereby end the entire current session of Parliament and throw out and annul whatever was being debated, on the grounds that you couldn't just override objecting nobles. Nobles have rights, after all! So the King had to work with the entire Parliament to craft massive compromise bills and laws that had unanimous approval.

You may now begin imagining the amount of compromise and political horse-trading needed to get complete unanimity among several hundred politicians. (Abstentions are fine too.)

The state budget for Prussia from this era includes an item for "bribe cheapest Polish senator who can veto everything".
 
Will the doggo be immersed in Ulgu when we bond with it as our familiar, or will it stay a doggo just with a few perks after we're done?
 
Will the doggo be immersed in Ulgu when we bond with it as our familiar, or will it stay a doggo just with a few perks after we're done?
We can cast spells through it eventually, so probably Ulgu-doggo.

Also, familiars can absorb spells and throw them at other folks, which has some nifty implications.
 
I think you are exaggerating a bit on Elector Counts and nobel rebelling and openly fighting each other on the drop of a hat.
Not particularly as that is the implicit reason an Elector Count who disagrees with a new tax would support it regardless. Because they'd fear their peers would start a civil war over the matter to avoid any legitimacy loss from someone ignoring the edicts of an Elector's Meet, or more realistically human greed.
While I am still sad that Smokey the Chapter Master and the Knights of the Black Bear aren't around, two full orders of Demigryph Knights almost make up for it.

And yeah, I'm hoping if Mathilde manages to send letters to Zhufbar and other Dwarf holds in the mountains, she gets her friends and there Artillery Kings along.

And does anyone else hope if we send out word to Mercenaries then Anerion might show up? Because that would be Amazing.
On one hand he probably has an entire page in the book of grudges so his presence might make a lot of Dwarfs leave, or not join up later due to it tainting the reconquest, but on the other dragon fire is excellent for clearing tunnels, which is probably why they wouldn't allow it as the Dwarfs have a rather massive hatred for dragons iirc.
"So who's the-"
"Well, I am the one with the Seed."

"So? I still have all of Mathilde's memories and magicks!"
"So do I! Plus: seed."

"... Well, are we at least agreed not to fight to the death to prove the real one?"
"Sure, that would be stupid."
Mathilde only has one soul, and regrowth requires a soul to work hence the time-limit, so I'd personally vote to shoot it on the principal that it is almost certainly a daemon.
 
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Nice. Will be Shadoggow soon.

Can we change its name to Shadoggow? I am willing to vote for any future madness anyone comes up with, up to and including Dhar-winism as long as people go for the name.
 
Mathilde only has one soul, and regrowth requires a soul to work hence the time-limit, so I'd personally vote to shoot it on the principal that it is almost certainly a daemon.
But the gun is probably in the Seed Hand, as it's our non-casting hand. In which case, it's Da(m)e-mon Mathilde doing the shooting.
 
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"So who's the-"
"Well, I am the one with the Seed."

"So? I still have all of Mathilde's memories and magicks!"
"So do I! Plus: seed."

"... Well, are we at least agreed not to fight to the death to prove the real one?"
"Sure, that would be stupid."
"Especially as you've got the seed."
"Good point."
''You may want to get something else to wear tough'' said a ramdom soldier.
''...:???::o:oops:''
And that was the day Mathilde mastered the mindhole spell.
 
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I thought there was a chance that the cat familiar bloc or those that want an enormous murderbeast as a familiar would be against the pup.

Is there anything that prevents Mathilde from being inspired by the knights on the campaign. Training up her combat skills and wrestling a Demigryph into submission. Then having a cute wolf pup plus a MMM target mount later?
 
Is there anything that prevents Mathilde from being inspired by the knights on the campaign. Training up her combat skills and wrestling a Demigryph into submission. Then having a cute wolf pup plus a MMM target mount later?
I hope she isn't, a LOT of the people who go into the forest to wrestle demigryphs never come back.
 
First Mathilde: "But now we outnumber her!"
"Outnumber her? You just cut my hand off!"
"No, she cut my hand off! Wait..."

The fact that they can is sort of an emphasis of the fact that the Empire is not, in fact, much of an Empire; it's a confederation with a lot of internal power groups who are largely autonomous. The Elector Counts literally go to war with one another when they disagree, the nobility rebel at the drop of a hat when their Elector Counts try to assert serious control unless a very tight grip is kept on them, the peasantry hate and disdain the upper classes who exploit and oppress them so much that they're a breeding ground for rebellion, often backed by cults that literally worship gods who mutate their followers into horrible gribblies, the Knight Orders are self-run and decide which wars they fight and which they don't while listening to whichever of their religious and secular rulers they happen to like more at the time, the Colleges of Magic are a class of people hated by everyone but legally difficult to touch and extremely powerful personally who ultimately act as mercenaries to the rest of the Empire's power groups, and the Churches are of the opinion that everyone should listen to them as the highest authority while the Elector Counts feel just the opposite.

All of the above are jealous of their power and do whatever they can to retain it and guard it fiercely from any other of the above.

It's kind of amazing that it works at all.
Autonomous Vassals/Minimal Imperial Crown Authority is kind of a downer that way.
 
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Yeah murder birds aren't known to play nice at first and will use everything in their power to kill you until we beat to near unconscious
 
Now I have a mental image of Mathilde losing the seed-bearing limb and- amidst her bleeding- watching in fascinated horror as another Mathilde regrows from that arm.

Funny as this all is, that's not how it works. The seed can rebuild entire new bodies with the origional soul and all. If she gets her arm chopped off, then either the seed will try to reconnect with the still-alive-but-dying Mathilde, or it'll pull the soul out of the old body and stick it in the newly-regrown one. So, if she want to try a fairly shitty version of telepotation, she can rip her hand off and stick it through a hole or throw it really far. Quite the party trick! :V
 
While I get the "time-sensitive" argument for the college help, I think that if you command someone you should probably spend some time with them. If we don't take any "spend time with Journeymen", then it will look mighty strange to them - they are told they have a new boss, but no one seen hide nor hair of her, because she is mustering some extra forces elsewhere (or talking with her wolf, but that's probably considered normal by Amber journeymen)
 
But the gun is probably in the Seed Hand, as it's our non-casting hand.
Fair point, still either storing a backup gun in her hat, or liberal applications of sword should suffice. Although it is entirely possible the battle mage putting it in Mathilde's palm was a ruse meant to make everyone think it is physically stored in there, and the only reason the regeneration starts from that point is that Mathilde believes it should due to the Seed being put in her palm, which is a rather clever security measure that insures you can't even torture the actual* location out of the owner.

*This would be up to the personal interpretation of how the enchanter believes magic works, and given an item of this caliber was almost certainly the work of a wizard lord... it being in the form of a seed was probably part of whatever they did to insure it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands.
 
Dwarf Words for Wizards:

This could be a much longer list, but we will restrict ourselves to the more polite dwarf words for wizards.

Dwarfs, in general, do not subscribe to the 'Winds' metaphor for magic. They see it instead as Zhuf - a raging torrent, treacherous and powerful, that is most useful when 'dammed' behind Runes. Those that manage the foolish and impressive task of wielding it are Zhufokri - Torrent Crafters. When identifying wielders of specific winds, they usually fall into noun-crafters - for instance, Grey Mages would be Mhornokri, literally Shadow Crafters. However, when the derived word already has a meaning, noun-torrent-crafters is used instead. For instance, Gold Mages would be Azulzhufokri, Metal Torrent Crafters, because Azulokri means a blacksmith. Amber Mages would be Gorzhulokri, Beast Torrent Crafters, because Gorokri means an animal trainer.

A slightly less polite (but, arguably, equally accurate) way would be to replace the okri with i - Zhufi for Torrent Person, Azulzhufi for Metal Torrent Person, and so on. This shifts the implication from one who wields magic, to one who is defined by it.
Hmm, so basically the Wizard is considered to be the lunatic trying to channel whitewater rapids by dint of a bucket and/or cleverly wielded pipes rather the sensible thing of building a dam. They can get a lot done very quickly, but eventually the water is going to sweep them away to a bloody death?

A respected career, but an insane one.
Being a Grey Wizard, her magic sense is best at picking up the borders between light and dark. This is something that normal eyes can do quite well, though. If she were blindfolded she could 'see' in a sort of greyscale, and in low-light situations her magical senses would combine with her mundane ones to give her the equivalent of low-light vision. Especially confused people would also stand out to her senses, even through walls or around corners, because that is the emotion that gives rise to Ulgu. The other advantages of advanced mage-sight are currently beyond her.
...I just had the mental image of using Universale Confusion for the purpose of target sighting under a Pall of Darkness.

I assume the Gold and Amber journeymanlings would have similar capabilities for metal and animals respectively IF they develop Windreader?
Yeah, the goldie's gonna flip when they see our Ulgu-based no-equipment alchemy. Let's hope they know some alchemy, our new trait could really shine in the field if we have someone with expertise with us. And if they also know that forge-stoking spell they can recharge our magic fightin' hat for us. This could be the beginning of a beautiful working partnership.

And aren't amber wizards the ones who want to adopt our Matrix but haven't figured it out yet? These two probably wouldn't say no to learning it from the inventor, and it could open up some ridiculously useful doors if scouts and soldiers could carry pre-loaded low-level beast lore magic with them.
While its a cool idea, I somewhat doubt that Amber Journeymen would be doing the conversion rather than college bound Magisters. Odds are good these guys hadn't heard of it yet if they've been Journeying for a while(I assume most non-crazy Journeymen won't join a Hold Reclaimation party without a year or two's experience out there)

We could probably inspire them to figure something out of their own, but don't have too high hopes.

So long as a Knight Order doesn't violate whatever oaths* they've made in addition to the general ones to the Empire they're free to do** as they please, and any Elector Count who tries to curb their rights is liable to see all the other Knight Orders in their province leave in protest at best, or even the start of a rebellion depending on what exactly he/she did.

*They tend to require a lot of funding, and often land within a province, which makes them tend to have oath of some sort with the local elector count, but even Van Hal could only request that the KO dedicated to Morr would join him.
**Within the letter of the law obviously.
Well the thing with Knightly Orders is that IIRC they're legally basically under the same situation as a Free City, they're micronations where the feudal structure is concerned.

In this case their legal rights are clear though:
-Is the Empire as a whole at war with an external party which demands the fulfillment of their oaths? No
-Are they aiding an enemy of the Empire? No
-Are they already committed to an existing task? No

Going on military adventures is allowed(and heck, its encouraged) for Knightly Orders. Though granted most of the time they do bandit hunting or purging dangerous beasts.



We can cast spells through it eventually, so probably Ulgu-doggo.

Also, familiars can absorb spells and throw them at other folks, which has some nifty implications.
Well, there might be a small problem with a larger wolf later on since it can't ride a Shadowsteed...can it?
 
[X] Accept as the most senior Wizard present (commanding two Amber Journeymen and one Gold Journeyman).
[X] Deliver last-minute messages for Belegar, trying to scrape together any remaining support to be had before leaving.
- [X] To the Colleges of Magic.
- [X] To Knightly Orders.
- [X] To Dwarfholds of the Grey and Black Mountains.

On second thought, if this is the last chance to request reinforcements from Empire institutions and our most friendly of Dwarfholds, let's take it.
 
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