Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

BoneyM said:

The Colleges only new the very basics of what an Anvil

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knew

BoneyM said:

Skaroki seems to agree, finding that the view your lenses offers are stronger than his distrust of magic.

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"is more tempting than" or something like that?
Also the fist/first thing mentioned by someone above.

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Mathilde already very strongly implied her devotion to Ranald the Protector when she had the entire Stirland Watch put up shrines for him and threatened to punish everyone when they were taken down. It's not exactly a secret back home, I imagine. This talk of being obliged to keep her worship secret is not supported by the quest so far in my opinion.

Ranald fits the Grey Wizards so well I imagine many of them are already assuming him to be her god. Also, I imagine that stealing from enemy gods is one of the few examples where even Sigmarites might reluctantly agree that it was a good deed.

BoneyM said:

[Codrin's archers: 8+15=23.]

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He won't be happy that his adventurers did so much better than the archers he likes.

BoneyM said:

[Mathilde's watchful eye: 87]

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"What, you thought that hiding behind a bush on a mountain while I was off fighting greenskin on a differernt mountain would let you hide from me? Think again!"



[X] You'd have done the same once. Tell her you understand, but treat her to a lecture on the risks and dangers of miscasts.
[X] This is a matter between Wizards, and while you're not of the Jade Order and cannot directly punish her, etiquette dictates that you report this matter to them.

Mathilde took an advisor / liaison role for them. I don't want her to take on the responsibility for them disobeying her. I'm tempted to tell her College, though. Voting for it but not expecting it to win.

[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork.
[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork and strengthening of Ranald.

EVA-Saiyajin said:

There's also the issue of telling them we'd been a conduit for Waaagh energies. I don't want Kragg to march up to us and start poking and prodding...the idea of him marching at us period is terrifying enough.

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Eh, I wouldn't mind him poking around, but he is not a Wizard. Might influence one of the next items he crafts, though. Retaking power for their gods just as the dwarves retake their homes.

EVA-Saiyajin said:

And they are here, in great numbers, as important and valued commanders who will eventually return to the Empire saying that we are a Ranald worshiper who claims (with varying levels of thoughts on our sanity) to have helped Ranald steal power from a Greenskin god in a faraway Karak.

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As mentioned above, anyone investigating Mathilde already knows she likes at least Ranald the Protector. Given her proclivities, the other aspects are probably already assumed.

Omegahugger said:

But if we assume, like reasonable people, that Mathilde has to move on from her past love and not keep chasing a Shade

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I've actually seen that more as a girlish crush for the badass boss who looked as if he just stepped out of one of her novels… More might have developed, but he was something like twice her age, wasn't he? She was actually worried whether his daughter would be the same age as her…

[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork.
[X] You'd have done the same once. Tell her you understand, but treat her to a lecture on the risks and dangers of miscasts.
[X] The residents are weakened, taking the Citadel is now a possibility.

[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork.

Inserted tally

[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol.
[X] You'd have done the same once. Tell her you understand, but treat her to a lecture on the risks and dangers of miscasts.
[X] The residents are weakened, taking the Citadel is now a possibility.

I haven't quite seen a counter-response from those that vote for us to hide that fact we hurt Mork by interrupting the ritual, Option 2, at least painfully enough that he threw a divine tantrum against those who vote for Option 3. I believe the initial argument for Option 2 was that there was no solid proof for us to be believed, an argument that was responded to by several pro Option 3 posters pointing out that Mork was clearly raging out there in the battlefield with his fists and lashing against his own fleeing soldiers. And if we are believed, I doubt we are going to piss off the Dwarves nor the humans, since that ritual clearly was bad news and had to be stopped and no-one on the expedition would want to find out what happened if it succeeded.

So why are we exactly worried about at least reporting that we hit Mork hard by disrupting the ritual? Especially since weakening one of the racial enemies of the Dwarves happens to be very strategically important intelligence, that we shouldn't be hiding from our allies?

[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork.
[X] She disobeyed a superior Wizard and her commanding officer. Lecture her harshly but inflict no punishment.
[X] This is a matter between Wizards, and while you're not of the Jade Order and cannot directly punish her, etiquette dictates that you report this matter to them.
[X] The Citadel should be destroyed before we can consider our position secure.
[X] The residents are weakened, taking the Citadel is now a possibility.

torac said:

I've actually seen that more as a girlish crush for the badass boss who looked as if he just stepped out of one of her novels… More might have developed, but he was something like twice her age, wasn't he? She was actually worried whether his daughter would be the same age as her…

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Yeah, it didn't actually go anywhere. But with him dead, the narrative that Mathilde had lost the love of her life is much stronger than her having an unrequited crush on her now-dead boss, even if we have no way of knowing which of those two things would have ended up being true if she actually tried to start a relationship with him. There's also the tendency for quest protagonists to only ever have a single romantic interest, and never have anything go wrong with them other than one person dying or having been a spy all along, so even the slight possibility of romance we saw in the text gets people feeling like it's a done deal, that as soon as Mathilde got around to asking he'd admit to feeling the same way and they'd live happily ever after. So when he died before that could happen, people feel like something was taken from them.

[X] The death of the Warboss and the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol.
[X] She disobeyed a superior Wizard and her commanding officer. Lecture her harshly but inflict no punishment.

Again, there's a difference between 'I strongly believe in and am trying to rehabilitate one aspect of a legal deity I follow' and 'I sawed off part of a deity of one of man's (and dwarf's) and fed it into the god of chance, theft, revolution and protection.'

The sheer risk and gamble of what we did, which is going to be evident in elaborating in 'I hurt a god' is going to force the Dwarfs at the very least to re-evaluate the risks and gambles we're willing to make. And I'm skeptical they'll be particularly sanguine about it, considering to some extent we were betting things that weren't ours in the first place. You and I know the risk of Karak Nar exploding had mostly passed by the time we gambled, but will anyone hearing the story be certain of that?

As for the claim that Mork's tantrum is proof or even compelling evidence we hurt him, the idol's destruction could have riled him up- or the Greenskins failure after such a great opening. The Orkish gods are definitely pretty capricious. The biggest argument for actually disclosing the weakening of Mork imo, is if we think Kragg is going to call us out on it, and whether coming clean will ameliorate that.

I kind of want to see if there are some of the adventurers and vagabonds among Codrins forces that we maybe should save. At the very least, they did good here.

And I suspect that Pan might have an even stronger Brave trait than we do (or did, before it got tempered by survival instinct).

[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork.
Other people have made good arguments for this. I assume it will contain a decent bit of "I think", "I believe" and "I would conjecture", and not just stating "Mork is weaker now".

[X] You'd have done the same once. Tell her you understand, but treat her to a lecture on the risks and dangers of miscasts.
This is the only one that, to my eyes, reads more as we're worried about her and want her to be reasonably safe (given that she's a mage and in a warzone), and less as "respect ma authorita". Then again, I also want her to tag along on our further travels/whatever we end up doing next, so...

[X] The residents are weakened, taking the Citadel is now a possibility.
Yeah, we can take more, and taking the Citadel would be darn nice. I kind of want to keep going until the Eastern Valley is secured (so Citadel, Troll Mountain, and anything in between), and possibly the route home is safer as well.

To be honest, regarding Panoramia's actions, I'm just disappointed. I was going to try and have Ulthar talk to her and tell her that her work saved lives by helping take the mountain that much quicker, but after seeing what she just pulled that seems incredibly inappropriate.

We need to trust that the journeymen will follow our orders, and there were some really good reasons for the orders we gave Panoramia. A miscast at that time could have had terrible consequences, not just for Panoramia, but for the halflings and the greater expedition. We don't need the inherent volatility of magic put on display for the expedition since they need to be able to trust that when the wizards say they can do something, that means they can do it.

I don't know, I think expulsion from the expedition is far too punishing for what she did, but I also feel that there needs to be some level of punishment and accountability.

[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork.
[X] The residents are weakened, taking the Citadel is now a possibility.
[X] You'd have done the same once. Tell her you understand, but treat her to a lecture on the risks and dangers of miscasts.

Karugus said:

Again, there's a difference between 'I strongly believe in and am trying to rehabilitate one aspect of a legal deity I follow' and 'I sawed off part of a deity of one of man's (and dwarf's) and fed it into the god of chance, theft, revolution and protection.'

The sheer risk and gamble of what we did, which is going to be evident in elaborating in 'I hurt a god' is going to force the Dwarfs at the very least to re-evaluate the risks and gambles we're willing to make. And I'm skeptical they'll be particularly sanguine about it, considering to some extent we were betting things that weren't ours in the first place. You and I know the risk of Karak Nar exploding had mostly passed by the time we gambled, but will anyone hearing the story be certain of that?

As for the claim that Mork's tantrum is proof or even compelling evidence we hurt him, the idol's destruction could have riled him up- or the Greenskins failure after such a great opening. The Orkish gods are definitely pretty capricious. The biggest argument for actually disclosing the weakening of Mork imo, is if we think Kragg is going to call us out on it, and whether coming clean will ameliorate that.

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The only thing we risked is Mathilde's life and Ranald's. Blowing up Karag Nar would have been the the dwarf or wizard options.

Karugus said:

god of chance, theft, revolution and protection.'

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I feel it necessary to point out it's "chance, theft, lies and revolution." Since protection and revolution are the same face probably not important but I do find it funnier.

As we know that the rolls in one update can act as revealing truths about the setting that can have long term effects, I thought it might be interesting to look at repeated rolls, as that's more likely to manifest as a modifier in future rolls or influence decisions, amongst other outliers:

First, the Greenskins, as the new black orc warboss needs to die:

[Greenskin reaction to magical attack: 100.]
[Greenskin leadership: 71+25=96.]
[Greenskin leadership: 84+25=109.]
[Greenskin leadership: 29+25=54.]
[Greenskin leadership: 30+15=45.]
[Greenskin leadership: 74+10=84.]
[Greenskin leadership: 44+10=54.]
[Greenskin leadership: 43+10=53.]
[Greenskin leadership: 5+10=15.]

So, what can we judge from that. First, it seems that the orcs found themselves a new general with Martial 25, who started off strong but was then hit with increasing penalties of first -10 and then -15. We really want to kill that orc as soon as the meeting finishes.

As far as rolls go, apart from the Nat 100 generating a martial genius to lead them, the orcs rolled an average of 47.5, well within the normal range, so apart from the new warboss, I think this series of rolls won't generate anything special.

Next, the artillery:

[Dwarvern artillery: 92+20=112.]
[Dwarvern artillery: 43+20=63.]
[Dwarvern artillery: 67+20=87.]
[Dwarvern artillery: 62+20=82.]

Fewer dice, so less of a trend, but the dwarf artillery lived up to its reputation. An average of 66 over four dice is really pretty good. You have an approximately 15% chance of doing that well overall, which while not impossible, might suggest the practice the artillery have been getting here, or the good emplacement they now have, means we'll be seeing them get a bonus on something in subsequent attacks.

Edit inspired by Thor's Twin: Johann was with the artillery, so IC their superior performance may be related to his help by casting Trial and Error. If we're very lucky that critical might justify him Mastering the spell. At the least if he was there and did help then he's probably earned a decent amount of Dwarf Favour.

Then Kragg:

[Kragg the Grim: 3+30=33.]
[Kragg the Grim: 46+25=71.]
[Kragg the Grim: 90+25=115.]
[Kragg the Grim: 27+25=52.]
[Kragg the Grim: 16+25=41.]
[Kragg the Grim: 87+25=112.]
[Kragg the Grim: 84+25=109.]

Firstly, 'miscasting' on that first roll when he knows multiple human wizards will have been watching will have been excruciatingly embarrassing for him. Let's be extra polite for the next little while, Overall, while he had a mixture of high and low rolls, his average was almost literally average, being 50.4 compared to the expectation of 50.5. Shouldn't expect anything else from Kragg the Grimm than that, I suppose.

Now, the humans, starting with the archers:

[Codrin's archers: 18+15=33.]
[Codrin's archers: 63+15=78.]
[Codrin's archers: 12+15=27.]
[Codrin's archers: 29+15=44.]
[Codrin's archers: 39+15=54.]
[Codrin's archers: 8+15=23.]

An average of 28 over six rolls. That's, frankly, dire. There's a 2.8% chance that this overall result would happen naturally. Some difficult questions need to be asked of Codrin at this point. It might be innocent, but at those odds there's a fair chance that either his archers aren't as good as they should be or someone is playing games.

Edit inspired by Thor's Twin: Maximilian was meant to be here. We should also talk to him to get his perspective on what happened. He's not a battle mage so can't be expected to have major strategic effects on the battlefield, but he still hasn't covered himself in glory. Law of Logic should at least make him an astonishingly good sniper, for example. We may need to have a talk with him about how he can best help on the battlefield. He could probably do with a pep talk in general, and we don't want him getting too close to Codrin if we're suspicious of him.

Moving onto the mercenaries:

[Codrin's mercenaries: 91+10=101.]
[Codrin's mercenaries: 98+10=108.]
[Codrin's mercenaries: 47+10=57.]

An average of 79 over three rolls. That's top 5% performance. Even with some of it fluffed as Kragg's intervention (and boy that must have pained him to use one of his runes on humans), it's still enough that we might see some long lasting effects. Humans are famously mutable, so I could see there being some after effects with hitting them with a rune that imbues them with some of the character and strength of the dwarves that almost certainly wasn't intended to be channeled through frail human flesh and soul. The mercenaries have collectively earned MVP in this battle, I think. This is the kind of intersection of death, heroism, legend, and funky magic from which it seems possible for a human hero to emerge. I wouldn't be surprised if at least a few of the next generation of genuinely heroic adventurers have this battle on their CV, with ten times as many claiming they were here. If we're lucky one will have gained a strong enough reputation from this to emerge as a named character. After this performance they deserve a leader who isn't Codrin.

As a side note, Mathilde should probably (have the Journeymanlings) sweep the adventurers for any latent magical talents that might have been jolted to life by this. Quite a few of the mercenaries/adventurers are probably teenagers or young adults still in the College's recruitment range. Very few humans will ever be the target of magic such as this, and studying that might be an interesting project for both the Gold and Jade College.

As for other notable rolls, the only one that stands out is the White Wolves top 8% performance in scattering the routing orcs, which might have some consequences.

We should undoubtedly tell the dwarves of Mork's weakening, as it is extremely relevant to them, but telling them that Ranald was also strengthened is definitely reveling to much, and much more than they need to know.

[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork.
[X] You'd have done the same once. Tell her you understand, but treat her to a lecture on the risks and dangers of miscasts.
[X] The residents are weakened, taking the Citadel is now a possibility.

To be frank, regardless of how "optimal" is it, Mathilde enjoys bragging and being Powerful And Mysterious. We established it via at least her spell naming.


So hiding the fact of STEALING POWER FROM A GOD sounds like a very boring and not Mathilde choice. Its not like witch hunters can object to stealing Mork's power anyway. Small amount of suboptimality is well worth bragging rights, at least because Mathilde has a vain streak. If she were a kind of Grey Wizard allergic to public it would have been different, but as is....


[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork.
[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork and strengthening of Ranald.

[X] You'd have done the same once. Tell her you understand, but treat her to a lecture on the risks and dangers of miscasts.

[X] The residents are weakened, taking the Citadel is now a possibility.

DragonParadox said:

The only thing we risked is Mathilde's life and Ranald's. Blowing up Karag Nar would have been the the dwarf or wizard options.

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Would outside people hearing the stories believe that fully? These people are not dealing with the objective facts you or I now have after the fact. For all we know Mathilde might believe that the Karak exploding was still potentially possible.

VillaininGlasses said:

I feel it necessary to point out it's "chance, theft, lies and revolution." Since protection and revolution are the same face probably not important but I do find it funnier.

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i thought I was misremembering and that Protection was worse than I was implying. But yes, Ranald is a controversial god, who's portfolios I doubt Dwarfs will be inclined to respect.

Karugus said:

Would outside people hearing the stories believe that fully? These people are not dealing with the objective facts you or I now have after the fact. For all we know Mathilde might believe that the Karak exploding was still potentially possible.

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Fair enough, but it's not like she would have any reason to believe the wild godly energies of the Waagh couldn't have blown up the mountain on their own. The one who introduced the element of 'mountain explosion' was not Mathilde it was Mork. She just had to decide what to do about it.

[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork.
[X] The residents are weakened, taking the Citadel is now a possibility.
[X] She disobeyed a superior Wizard and her commanding officer. Lecture her harshly but inflict no punishment.

[X] The death of the Warboss, the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol, and the weakening of Mork.
[X] The residents are weakened, taking the Citadel is now a possibility.

I wonder how much xp we're gonna get for the Expedition?

Killing the goblin warboss and doing that thing with the trolls were certainly very impactful, but it didn't really require great levels of skill; we shot a single bullet into an unsuspecting target without cover and chucked a couple of minor spells at some wooden floorboards. Not the kind of challenging stuff that generally takes one into a greater level of skill.

Successfully stealth killing every one of the priests in Karag Nar, on the other hand, was legit skilful work. Never got caught, took out every target clean, no muss nor fuss at all in that regard. As for the stuff with Mork's energy, I doubt we'll get much from it in terms of skill or physicality. As the GM said, the onrush of Waaagh energy meant she's lucky to keep her strength, so it wasn't like training weights, more like arsenic. Wasn't really doing anything with magic and such either. However, I'd say it's very likely to push up our Piety, for obvious reasons.

The nat 100 that got us our MAP is easily the greatest source of skill-based XP we earned. I don't think it's enough to have levelled anything up or gotten us a trait since it was just a single learning experience, but it would've definitely made a very decent amount of progress.

[X] The death of the Warboss and the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol.
[X] You'd have done the same once. Tell her you understand, but treat her to a lecture on the risks and dangers of miscasts.
-[X] She will also volunteer for dish cleaning duty.
[X] The residents are weakened, taking the Citadel is now a possibility.

While communicating the weakening of Mork would be cool and all, I'm having trouble identifying how we could do so safely without alluding to the dangerous game of divine chicken we played. And while the knowledge that the weakening of Mork is what drove the greenskins into a frenzy, it's also not actionable intel. It already happened, and knowing why the Greenskins rushed out of defensive fortifications to assault the Expedition is not particularly important in trying to hash out the aftermath of the Karag Nar assault.

As for the Panoramia option, I feel that there needs to be some form of punishment, but that a harsh lecture won't go over well with Panoramia's attitude regarding this expedition. She is 1/5 of our entire command, and so I believe that taking her personality into account for the discussion is appropriate for this. If it was some random dude from a whole group of random dudes than harsher punishments might be appropriate, but this is not that situation. Again, I'm just disappointed with Panoramia right now. Light punishment duty seems appropriate, and the cleaning of pots and pans needs to be done.

As for the next choice of the expedition, we should be careful not to over-extended ourselves. As such, I think that taking another Karag full of trolls would be a mite too ambitious. However, we have an incredible opportunity in front of us. With the citadel's forces weakened, taking it should be possible (especially if we get sneaky and assassinate their leaders). Taking the citadel will allow the expedition uncontested control over the eastern valley, as well as a strong outpost by which to observe and decimate the Greenskin town in the caldera.

It will be a risky venture, but with proper scouting and sabotage, it should be perfectly possible. And securing the citadel would be much more preferable to destroying it out of hand.

[X] The death of the Warboss and the shattering of an Almost-Rogue Idol.
[X] You'd have done the same once. Tell her you understand, but treat her to a lecture on the risks and dangers of miscasts.
-[X] She will also volunteer for dish cleaning duty.
[X] The residents are weakened, taking the Citadel is now a possibility.