Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
We will have to rematerialize him once we are at the gates, so that he can poke things. That's the riskiest part, I think.
Not sure we have some sort of trick to deal there; maybe have explosives with us, prepare them and light 'em and and escape under our Pall of Darkness(or what was the AoE darkness spell) if we are spotted? But it's an escape if spotted, and we do not have good tools to ensure dwarf is not spotted when examining gates. Or I don't recall any, at least.
He can interact with things without materializing.
An orc carrying a huge bag as large as it is wll be noticable, so Take No Heed shouldn't function.
That's debatable. However Doppelganger, Shadowcloak and Mindhole will work. Plus, we can use Substance of Shadows on ourselves too.
 
Same way we kept doing every time we had to infiltrate things. Dwarf balloon complicates things, but being invisible, soundless and almost intaglible makes it less of an issue than it could be.
If it were someone more capable of being on high alert - Skaven or more orderly Chaos worshippers or, god forbid, Lizardmen - it would have been riskier. Orks are not good at spotting stuff at best of times, and right now Citadel is severely weakened, explicitly, so it's even worse than usual. Them being Black Orks compensates for that to some degree, but I still am willing to bet on it being easier infiltration than some we've performed in the past.

It's not utterly free of risk, although I would put riskiest part squarely at "dwarf has to physically poke walls and examine them to figure it out" part, not any of the parts where we are basically dragging dwarf balloon around. But no plan is without risk, and I doubt it is riskier than casting a big spell with indeterminate amount of counterspellers in caldera and a high chance of every ork being alerted (by shamans who probably can notice the spell which turns huge shadow into a pool of acid) if we either fail or are dispelled.

The dwarf is invisible and intangible, but the giant bag that's keeping him in the dark is fully visible and noticeable. Every other time we infiltrated we weren't carrying a bag as big as Mathilde, or bigger.

The riskiest part will be at both the entrances, as there are probably orcs there standing guard who will be curious about anyone trying to come in with a giant bag, followed by any mustering points or kitchens we have to pass through. We can chose to let him out in away from orcs, but we can't choose not to pass through places where we can be pretty sure multiple orcs will be.

That's debatable. However Doppelganger, Shadowcloak and Mindhole will work. Plus, we can use Substance of Shadows on ourselves too.

Substance of shadows fails if there's any illumination, which there's likely to be in the fortress owned by a race that can't see in the pitch black.

Mindhole only works if we only ever encounter orcs one at a time, which is a heroic assumption to make about orcs. Doppleganger doesn't help as much as usual, as orcs will happily 'invesitgate' (read, try to steal) from a lone orc that seems to be carrying a huge bag of something that's probably interesting, as if one orc wants it they probably will as well..
 
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I'd still have some hope that a Doppelganger plus Take No Need combo could let us pass through the Citadel with a reasonable level of non-being-bothered, in the event straight up sneaking isn't working.

And can I say Substance of Shadow remains weird as hell. :V
 
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I'd still have some hope that a Doppelganger plus Take No Need combo could let us pass through the Citadel with a reasonable level of non-being-bothered, in the event straight up sneaking isn't working.

And Substance of Shadow is weird as hell. :V

Look at the write-up:

K / Take No Heed: Makes you very easy to ignore - it would take an act of willpower to even notice you unless you draw attention to yourself, and those few that do notice you will have difficulty remembering anything about you. Lasts a few minutes.​
- Please note unless you draw attention to yourself. If the presence of a member of your (apparent) species would be unusual, this spell will break. If you do something that only certain individuals should be allowed to do, this spell will break.​

Even for an orc in the Ciatdel, carrying a giant, dwarf-sized, bag draws attention to yourself, so the spell has a fair chance of not working. Look at the last clause, most orcs wouldn't be allowed to walk straight into the Citadel with a giant bag full of potential food, loot, or beer. The fact that Mathilde's bag would actually be full of orc chow just reinforces this.
 
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Mindhole only works if we only ever encounter orcs one at a time, which is a heroic assumption to make about orcs. Doppleganger doesn't help as much as usual, as orcs will happily 'invesitgate' (read, try to steal) from a lone orc that seems to be carrying a huge bag of something that's probably interesting, as if one orc wants it they probably will as well..
And Shadow-cloak? That's a straight up stealth boost. At the end of the day, Mathilde is stealthy enough, dangerous enough and has enough options to bypass most challenges.
Even for an orc in the Ciatdel, carrying a giant, dwarf-sized, bag draws attention to yourself, so the spell won't work. Look at the last clause, most orcs wouldn't be allowed to walk straight into the Citadel with a giant bag full of potential food, loot, or beer. The fact that Mathilde's bag would actually be full of orc chow just reinforces this.
Worst comes to worst, we'll cast mockery of death on the dwarf and claim he's dinner.:V
 
Even for an orc in the Ciatdel, carrying a giant, dwarf-sized, bag draws attention to yourself, so the spell won't work. Look at the last clause, most orcs wouldn't be allowed to walk straight into the Citadel with a giant bag full of potential food, loot, or beer. The fact that Mathilde's bag would actually be full of orc chow just reinforces this.
What's up with dwarf-sized bag? SoS makes the dwarf invisible, why carry him in a visible giant bag?
 
And Shadow-cloak? That's a straight up stealth boost. At the end of the day, Mathilde is stealthy enough, dangerous enough and has enough options to bypass most challenges.

Worst comes to worst, we'll cast mockery of death on the dwarf and claim he's dinner.

Shadowcloak doesn't help when you're walking through occupied areas in mid afternoon. It helps you avoid being spotted, but it's nothing like invisibility, but she has to walk through the gates during daylight. At that point it might even be a liability, as it would make her stand out further.

Mockery of Death is a worst case scenario, as then the other orcs will literally want their cut, and they'll be willing to scrap with her to get it. Mathidle could probably get away, but she'd have to let the engineer be carved up for dinner before her eyes. Also, they'd probably wonder why she was spellcasting in front of them unless she'd done so in advance.

What's up with dwarf-sized bag? SoS makes the dwarf invisible, why carry him in a visible giant bag?

Substance of Shadows is immediately cancelled if light touches him, at which point the dwarf becomes visible again. As a result you have to hide the invisible dwarf in a giant bag if you want him to stay invisible. What substance of shadow is for isn't to hide the dwarf, it's to remove his and his explosives and gear's weight and inertia so Mathilde can carry him. It doesn't do anything extra to hide him, as the bag would do that anyway.
 
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Mockery of Death literally is a worst case scenario, as then the other orcs will literally want their cut, and they'll be willing to scrap with her to get it. Mathidle could probably get away, but she'd have to let the engineer be carved up for dinner before here eyes. Also, they'd probably wonder why she was spellcasting in front of them unless she'd done so in advance.
That was a joke.
 
Shadowcloak doesn't help when you're walking through occupied areas in mid afternoon. It helps you avoid being spotted, but she has to walk through the gates during daylight.

Mockery of Death literally is a worst case scenario, as then the other orcs will literally want their cut, and they'll be willing to scrap with her to get it. Mathidle could probably get away, but she'd have to let the engineer be carved up for dinner before here eyes. Also, they'd probably wonder why she was spellcasting in front of them unless she'd done so in advance.



Substance of Shadows is immediately cancelled if light touches him, at which point the dwarf becomes visible again. As a result you have to hide the invisible dwarf in a giant bag if you want him to stay invisible. What substance of shadow does isn't hide the dwarf, it's remove his and his explosives and gear's weight and inertia so Mathilde can carry him. It doesn't do anything to hide him, as the bag would do that anyway.
I can see you're invested in this, but presumably the bonus of having five QM curated plans is that they're all plausible and won't auto-fail based on one particular interpretation of spell wording.

They'll all be given a chance to succeed or fail based on dice, just like everything else in the quest.

This is meant in the spirit of reassurance, not censure, so, well, sending good feelings over.
 
Shadowcloak doesn't help when you're walking through occupied areas in mid afternoon. It helps you avoid being spotted, but it's nothing like invisibility, but she has to walk through the gates during daylight. At that point it might even be a liability, as it would make her stand out further.
Honestly, I trust Mathilde to figure it out. She's the intrigue 20 Shadow Wizard.
 
Basically, I think explosives is one of those plans that sounds superficially attractive until you stop and think what actually has to happen, stage by stage, and what she has to do. The orcs need to be lucky once, and Mathilde and the engineer have to be lucky every time, and Mathilde has already used this half-year's divine intervention.

I can see you're invested in this, but presumably the bonus of having five QM curated plans is that they're all plausible and won't auto-fail based on one particular interpretation of spell wording.

They'll all be given a chance to succeed or fail based on dice, just like everything else in the quest.

They'll not auto-fail, but they can have asymmetric risk-reward profiles. Some options can be flat worse than other in all ways. For example, one could have a sixty percent chance of success and if it succeeds blocks access to the Citadel and also kills many thousands of orcs, and if it fails Mathilde can exfiltrate herself relatively easily on her own. Another could have a forty percent chance of success and if it succeeds blocks the Citadel, and if it fails then Mathilde can only exfiltrate if she abandons the dwarf engineer to be eaten.

Honestly, I trust Mathilde to figure it out. She's the intrigue 20 Shadow Wizard.

She's quite literally not. She's Intrigue 17.

If Mathilde could manage this then the Night Prowler aspect of the Coin would be useless to her, as she'd be so good she didn't need it. She's good, but I don't think she's good enough to walk up to the gate of the citadel with a dwarf in a bag and be that confident nothing will go wrong with blagging her way in with the Diplomacy 10, then doing the same at every point across the Citadel where she meets a bunch of other orcs, and then doing it again at the west gate. And then, after placing explosives, she goes back through the Citadel and does it all over again, still carrying a giant bag, ending with finally persuading the orcs at the east gate that they should let her walk out carrying the giant ba they saw before, all the time avoiding them insisting on knowing what's inside.

Without the bag, sure, I'm confident she could pull it off easily thanks to Take No Heed. Without it, sure it's possible, but it seems pretty risky. the rewards also seem lower than for Shadow, as the explosion doesn't actually kill a meaningful number of orcs.
 
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She's quite literally not. She's intrigue 17.
17 then. Point is, she's really good at this. If an orc discovers her, it has to survive being mind-holed or just straight up murdered. She's snuck into an orc stronghold several times now, and she knows exactly what to do. This is no different from sneaking into Karag Lhune, the East Gates and Karag Nar. If we can sneak past in these situations despite all of the sabotage we did, we can drag a invisible dwarf with us as well.
 
17 then. Point is, she's really good at this. If an orc discovers her, it has to survive being mind-holed or just straight up murdered. She's snuck into an orc stronghold several times now, and she knows exactly what to do. This is no different from sneaking into Karag Lhune, the East Gates and Karag Nar. If we can sneak past in these situations despite all of the sabotage we did, we can drag a invisible dwarf with us as well.
well, dwarf balloon makes it harder i guess

but I still have zero clue as to how doing thing we did more than once before can be appraised as more difficult than casting caldera-sized spell and hoping not a single shaman cares about it or any other failure modes
 
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The unstructured vote was something of a failed experiment, largely due to my own absence rather than any failure of those that did their best to work with it, so I've boiled the currently leading plans down to a few conventional voting options. Voting will be open for the traditional 24 hours after this post. If you've got a different approach you want added to these options, let me know.

[ ] Fire
Set as much of the buildings in the caldera on fire as possible, hopefully driving the greenskins away from the Citadel. The downside will be that there will be time between the start of ignition and a properly raging fire that the greenskins may use to reach the Citadel.
[ ] Shadow
Use Burning Shadows on the Citadel itself to prevent the greenskins in the caldera from reaching the Citadel. However, this would require delaying the battle until tomorrow morning, when the currently sky-high morale of the human mercenaries may have faded somewhat.
[ ] Thorns
Have Panoramia use a channelled Father of Thorns to fill the entrance to the Citadel with a large, thorned plant capable of defending itself. This will be a fairly onerous task for a relatively inexperienced Journeywoman.
[ ] Explosives
Infiltrate the Citadel with a Dwarven expert to set gunpowder charges to destroy the entrance to the Citadel. This does rely on your own infiltration going smoothly, and if caught you risk alerting the greenskins.
[ ] Projectiles
After the ranged weapons caches are destroyed, have archers and crossbowmen rush to line the edge of the caldera and fire on the approach to the Citadel, supplemented by caltrops launched from catapults.
[ ] Other (write in)
As a possible write in is it plausible to just say fuck subtlety? From what I understand each of these is mutually exclusive because we want to try to and surprise the greenskins and block reinforcements while simultaneously attacking the Citadel.

As an alternative can we just say go for massive greenskin chaos instead? For example Shadow to burn and keep heads down + Fire to make a wall of impassable fire + Projectiles to keep the leftovers away + Artillery + Kragg. Sure it's not subtle at all but it'll be hard as hell for the greenskins to get any decent reinforcements past that kind of terrifying stopping power.
 
You know, I was reading about Ranald and this came up:
A true devotee of Ranald uses the dagger and stiletto, only
amateurs and the slow-witted need armour and long swords


So as much as Mat is sometimes irritated by Ranald, so too does she irritate him back.
"Oh this?" points to Greatsword on her back.
"This is just a large dagger." Mat notes, of the blade nearly longer than she is tall.
 
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