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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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I expect Kragg the Grim to have a null favor. Meaning he can nullify any favor he aquires by just not cashing it in. He can already expect to have anything he wants within reason (and some not) available.

Dwarves like Kragg are the sink upon which favors get unmade.

Edit: Oh it seems Dwarven Highkings also do this. Makes sense.
 
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DragonParadox said:
'Border Prince': You can't hang me. I have a piece of paper signed by a dwarf. Only the Empire can judge me.
Bored Imperial official: "Sure we can't your princeliness..." *tears up paper and burns it then hangs the previous owner*
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Ah, but we're not going to use it un a dumb way. If the they guy in question is not able to utilize the legal fiction himself (i.e. wealthy tilean merchant) it'll go like this.

Grey Order Magister: You can't hang that man. He's royalty recognized by multiple Dwarf kings, including my friend Belegar Ironhammer. Only the Emperor himself can judge that man. You wouldn't consider yourself equal to the Emperor, would you?
Bored Imperial official: *sweats*
 
vsh said:
Ah, but we're not going to use it un a dumb way. If the they guy in question is not able to utilize the legal fiction himself (i.e. wealthy tilean merchant) it'll go like this.

Grey Order Magister: You can't hang that man. He's royalty recognized by multiple Dwarf kings, including my friend Belegar Ironhammer. Only the Emperor himself can judge that man. You wouldn't consider yourself equal to the Emperor, would you?
Bored Imperial official: *sweats*
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In that situation the official is scared of the mage, not the paper or the dwarfs since dwarfs are not going to meddle in the Empire's affairs over some umgi with a second hand title.
 
[X] Ulthar's Rangers and Petrescu's marksmen are ranging far to ensure that any greenskin that claps eyes on the Expedition don't live to tell the tale. Assist them.
[X] Have Ulthar handpick his best sharpshooters to be equipped with envenomed bolts.
[X] Master Engineer Durin Wutokri
[X] Marksman Codrin Petrescu
[X] Help Esbern teach Seija to Dispel.
[X] Ask him to teach Johann to Dispel.
[X] Do not purchase the strange Lustrian eggs.
[X] Do not purchase the Helldrake scales.
[X] Purchase the title of a Border Princess (300 gc).

Princess Weber. I kind of like the sound of that. And it probably will open some interesting doors after the campaign is over.
 
DragonParadox said:
In that situation the official is scared of the mage, not the paper or the dwarfs since dwarfs are not going to meddle in the Empire's affairs over some umgi with a second hand title.
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College bullying the man out of imperial custody without any legal fiction is acting in direct contradiction with articles of magic and has grounds to be declared renegade and hunted down. You need both some form of power (i.e. power of Grey College) and legal fiction (i.e. second hand title) to pull off the trick I used as a simple example and you chose to deconstruct by introducing additional details (i.e. that the man in question is quite powerless).
 
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[X] Ulthar's Rangers and Petrescu's marksmen are ranging far to ensure that any greenskin that claps eyes on the Expedition don't live to tell the tale. Assist them.
[X] Marshal Titus Muggins
[X] Help Esbern teach Seija to Dispel.

[X] Purchase the strange Lustrian eggs (200 gc).
[X] Do not purchase the Helldrake scales (100 gc).
[X] Purchase the title of a Border Princess (300 gc).

Part of me is just intrigue at the possible fief! management! we can end up doing, and I'm also quite certain we'd never end up touching the hell drake scales.

So yeah, Mathilde is gonna play the Warhammer version of Harvest Moon. If it works out, I'm sure the collage would appreciate a source of deniable assets the fief would produce.
 
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I want to buy the border prince title solely for having the title. I mean, being a princess would be pretty cool. The only question is whether it's 300gc of cool, and that probably a no. I'd rather buy a neat gun or something for that.

Can someone tell me what the effects of the base runes on our belt are? Like, what would they do in the tabletop/P&P?
BoneyM said:
It means that you could juggle warpstone, hug a demon, and fling Dhar around and just have to deal with your robes getting singed as the corruption burns away rather than sinking into your soul. If you had this in Sylvania you would have just had to deal with occasional minor flashfires on your skin instead of those ominous 'go on, raise the dead, you know you want to' options popping up all over the place. It probably says a lot about Kragg's opinion of manling wizards that he saw that as the main sort of 'protection' you needed.

That said, while it makes you immune to metaphysical corruption it doesn't make you immune to metaphorical corruption; you could still go down a dark road where you become the next Nagash or fall to one of the Chaos Gods through hubris or personality flaws or personal tragedy, but you're not going to get fishhooked into it by mystical means.
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... now I want to read the Liber Mortis. I rather liked the Dreamer omake. Seems like Kragg has a point in his disapproval.
 
[X] Purchase the title of a Border Princess (300 gc).

My rationale is that our kids aren't necessarily going to be wizards so having a hereditary royalty title, however worthless in terms of fief, still adds prestige and legitimizes or reinforces other possessions.

And, ofc, the legal benefits it offers.
 
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@BoneyM By the way, how come we can help Esbern with the teaching, but not Max? Or is the phrasing just different for flavor reasons?
 
vsh said:
College bullying the man out of imperial custody without any legal fiction is acting in direct contradiction with articles of magic and has grounds to be declared renegade and hunted down. You need both some form of power (i.e. power of Grey College) and legal fiction (i.e. second hand title) to pull off the trick I used as a simple example and you chose to deconstruct by introducing additional details (i.e. that the man in question is quite powerless).
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The legal fiction is so flimsy that it would break the moment anyone looks over it, and that includes an hypothetical second opinion the official brings in. The Emperor has not and will never recognize that piece of parchment or the supposed kingship it represents.
 
Satar said:
[X] Purchase the title of a Border Princess (300 gc).

My rationale is that our kids aren't necessarily going to be wizards so having a hereditary royalty title, however worthless in terms of fief, still adds prestige and legitimizes or reinforces other possessions.

And, ofc, the legal benefits it offers.
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Adds prestige to what? The Empire won't recognize it and the rest of the Border Princes are mostly bandit lords also we already are a nobel and a have a fief so our children will own that if we die.

Please don't waste money on this.
 
DragonParadox said:
The legal fiction is so flimsy that it would break the moment anyone looks over it, and that includes an hypothetical second opinion the official brings in. The Emperor has not and will never recognize that piece of parchment or the supposed kingship it represents.
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The Dwarves do. Like, they had to have three levels of verification there so that whoever bought it would know that it was legitimate. The Emperor would recognize it, because to do otherwise would be to call the Dwarves who verified it liars.
 
[X] Ulthar's Rangers and Petrescu's marksmen are ranging far to ensure that any greenskin that claps eyes on the Expedition don't live to tell the tale. Assist them.
[X] Have Ulthar handpick his best sharpshooters to be equipped with envenomed bolts.
[X] Introduce him to the dwarven smiths so he can try to convince them to teach him.
[X] Help him find a place with the dwarf artillery crews so that he can supplement their abilities in combat.
[X] Purchase the strange Lustrian eggs (200 gc).
[X] Purchase the Helldrake scales (100 gc).
[X] Do not purchase the title of a Border Princess.
 
DragonParadox said:
The legal fiction is so flimsy that it would break the moment anyone looks over it, and that includes an hypothetical second opinion the official brings in. The Emperor has not and will never recognize that piece of parchment or the supposed kingship it represents.
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Unless he wants to. You can't save some random schlub, you can buy time for someone you know the Emperor wants to do business with. It's still the weakest possible use of the title.

More likely the Emperor recognises that parchment because it ends up being him or the Grand Theogonist that hands it out - and they bother to hand it out rather than recognising the would be prince unilaterally because that sets their new client kingdom up with dwarf recognition too.
 
Being a Border Prince is little better than being a village eldar because that is what most Border Princes are random people that run small villages that usually don't last longer than a decade why would we waste 300 gold on this shithole when we already have a fief to run and manage?

And if the Empire wanted the borderlands they could have taken it by now but they don't because it's not worth the time or effort to defeat all of the orcs and goblins living there when they could be spending time secureing Sigmar's Empire.
 
Tomio said:
In the immortal words of the narrator of Darkest Dungeon:

"Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer..."
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Amen.
Honestly, Darkest Dungeon wouldn't be all that out of place in the Warhammer Universe. The Ancestor as a Slaaneshi (or maybe Chaos Undivided cultist) would fit just fine.

[X] Purchase the strange Lustrian eggs (200 gc).
[X] Purchase the Helldrake scales (100 gc).
[X] Do not purchase the title of a Border Princess.

Gift the eggs to the Amber College (put them in our Amber journeymanlings' care for now) in exchange for the products of one of the eggs.
Maybe gift the scales to the Gold College.
 
Atam the Ork said:
Being a Border Prince is little better than being a village eldar because that is what most Border Princes are random people that run small villages that usually don't last longer than a decade why would we waste 300 gold on this shithole when we already have a fief to run and manage?

And if the Empire wanted the borderlands they could have taken it by now but they don't because it's not worth the time or effort to defeat all of the orcs and goblins living there when they could be spending time secureing Sigmar's Empire.
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It's not about the land.

This is a royalty title verified by the dwarves.

It's like being an exiled monarch, you don't need to have anything besides a recognized claim for it to matter.

The Grey College lives and thrives on legal fictions. In that sense, this is a masterstroke.

[X] Purchase the strange Lustrian eggs (200 gc).
[X] Purchase the title of a Border Princess (300 gc).
 
A thought on the lustrian eggs, even if we don't personally use them, they would make amazing familiars and we can probably send them off to the Ghur college for some favours.
 
Atam the Ork said:
Being a Border Prince is little better than being a village eldar because that is what most Border Princes are random people that run small villages that usually don't last longer than a decade why would we waste 300 gold on this shithole when we already have a fief to run and manage?

And if the Empire wanted the borderlands they could have taken it by now but they don't because it's not worth the time or effort to defeat all of the orcs and goblins living there when they could be spending time secureing Sigmar's Empire.
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Let me put it like this; when we get back to Stirland, wouldn't it be satisfying to visit the brat and everytime she calls us 'Wizard' or 'Witch' or whatever, insist on being called by the proper royal title. Wouldn't that be just wonderful?
 
[X] Ulthar's Rangers and Petrescu's marksmen are ranging far to ensure that any greenskin that claps eyes on the Expedition don't live to tell the tale. Assist them.
[X] Marshal Titus Muggins
[X] Help Esbern teach Seija to Dispel.

[X] Do not purchase the strange Lustrian eggs.
[X] Purchase the Helldrake scales (100 gc).
[x] Purchase the title of a Border Princess (300 gc).
 
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If we really want to get involved inthe border princes, we could just search out pro-imperial nobles already established there and offer to help, possibly to convince them to join the empire, only problem I see is that that's likely to involve interacting with Sigmarites.

Edit :Also, ideally the eggs will be for tameable large or flying creatures, to fill a hole in the Empire's order of battle.
 
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For what it is worth, Renegade Crowns does estabilish that mages of the colleges can and do sometimes become Border Princes without getting into much political trouble.
 
Er. It's not precisely a full on royalty title. It is property, land. You can call yourself whatever you like in the Border Princes. Her Most Illustrious Queen of Ulgu Mathilde Weber is about as valid as Lord Emperor Baldred the Great of the Kingdom of Bellanoma - both of which could be just, like, tiny villages of 300 people and a single wall and a few farms. The land is the important thing, owning it and maintaining it is entirely another matter. Having land in the Border Princes technically makes you a Border Prince or Princess, but effectively it just means you have land. The deed is, as I read it, acknowledged legitimacy of claim to the land by the dwarfs. They aren't legitimizing a truly royal title, they're giving you land in an area where you're allowed to call yourself whatever you want when you're there. And the legitimate claim to the land is made doubly legitimate by assurance.

Or at least, that's how I read it. I could be entirely wrong! It wouldn't be the first time.
 
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