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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Neshuakadal said:
Don't the dwarfs also elect the High King? If so then that is another safety value for preventing bad high kings.
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The previous High King, Alriksson, inherited the throne from his father, Alrik. He held the Trials to select his successor after his sons died in the Great War Against Chaos, and he himself was dying. Thorgrim won them and became the current High King.

Nix's Warden said:
@BoneyM sorry if you've already made a post on it, but what's the difference between a Internal and External Spymaster and could you edit your answer into the update? Because based on the difference people might swap their votes.
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Spying on enemies inside Karak Eight Peaks vs spying on enemies outside Karak Eight Peaks.
 
BoneyM said:
As-Yet Unnamed Belt: A protective runic talisman made for you in repayment for your actions during the Sieges of the Drakenhofs.
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We should probably get around to naming this artifact- it's been materially helpful in keeping us upright this reconquest.
Now Kragg has at last Noticed Us, perhaps it's time, alongside what seems like a visit to the High Kingdom and Mathilde soon mastering:
BoneyM said:
Khazalid (2/3)
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BoneyM said:
College: You made friends and allies back in Altdorf, and they may be able to help with research and resources, though the road from Wurtbad to Altdorf is long and treacherous.
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The comment about the long hard road wasn't exactly accurate after about turn six, but if you just substitute 'Karak Eight Peaks' for Wurtbad, it'll be accurate again :)
BoneyM said:
lead by Heideck, heister turned priests.
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(Minor thing, but while I'm noticing things, (RIP Wolf) priest, singular)
 
BungieONI said:
I remember from Torroar's quest that Thorgrim makes a reference to Trials and an election by the Clans, but whether that is canon is *hands in air*.
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The election thing is kind of true, yes. In the army book, it goes:

High King Alriksson called for a Council of Kings, something not done in over three centuries. The Dwarf king of every stronghold, along with the most powerful thanes and the royalty of every clan, made the dangerous trek to the halls of the High King. They gathered in the Great Hall, and many oaths of loyalty were repeated before Alriksson announced his plan for succession. There were a dozen suitable candidates — great kings and thanes of royal clans who could claim descent from the Ancestor Gods themselves. Each of these noble warriors would be given a full year to accomplish heroic feats and attempt deeds worthy of a High King, after which they would present themselves to the full assembly and a decision would be made. This plan was readily accepted by the assembly, who answered with many hearty voices that made the Great Hall ring as it did of old.
 
WorldSlayer said:
Realms of Sorcery.
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Thank you! With that i was able to find a pdf, and some of it conflicts a bit with your presentation of things:

Balthasar made his first appearance in the busy port of Marienburg some fifteen years ago, having bought passage on a merchant ship coming from his native land in the Black Gulf. Because he paid for the journey with gold he had transmuted, Balthasar quickly left for Altdorf before the effects wore off. The Golden Order was his destination.
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Balthasar's extensive knowledge of alchemy impressed the Gold Magisters immediately, but it was his natural talent with Chamon that startled them most. Few untrained magic users drew upon only one strand of colour magic without first being trained how to do so, and yet young Balthasar was doing just that and with remarkable control. He was accepted into the College immediately
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Discovering the secret of True Transmutation was the driving force of Balthasar's apprenticeship, and sustained by his immense knowledge on matters alchemical and by his natural talent for manipulating the Gold Wind of Magic, Balthasar rose swiftly through the ranks of the Golden Order, quicker than anyone in the College's history. His inquisitive intelligence and open-minded approach made Balthasar popular with both the College and the lesser alchemist guilds scattered around Altdorf and the Reikland.
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On the contrary, he has risen to the position of Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic, defeating Thyrus Gormann in the ritual duel and replacing the prominence of the Bright Order with his beloved Gold, all before he was a Patriarch of his own College. Since then he has, of course, secured his position as Patriarch of the Golden Order as well, when his immediate predecessor, Magister Patriarch Feldmann, simply vanished one year before the Colleges of Magic were mobilised to resist the so-called Storm of Chaos.
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Eventually Horstmann was made a Magister, and in another two years, he was accepted as a Lord Magister of the First Level. In time Horstmann, whom Verspasian had long respected as a role model, became the youngest-ever Patriarch of the White Order. Verspasian, who had striven to stay hot on van Horstmann's heels, was accepted as a Lord Magister of the Order less than a year later. But all was not as it seemed. By chance, Verspasian learned Horstmann was a secret worshipper of the Daemon God Tzeentch, the source of his incredible rise to prominence. Verspasian felt utterly betrayed. All the respect and trust he had put in Horstmann over the years had been for nothing—worse, it had aided the powers of darkness to infiltrate the very upholder of light. But such was Horstmann's skill at turning the minds of others to his will, many within the College had been corrupted and could not be trusted.
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As an apprentice Chanter of the eighth circle of our Order, Horstmann served under the late and respected Master Chanter Alric, the Saviour of Apesto, who taught him many of the Order's ancient secrets. But all the time he served with the White Order, Horstmann was praying to the Gods of Chaos for the power and knowledge to surpass his peers, which explained his rapid progress through the ranks.
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Mathilde is pretty amazing and ahead of the curve, but i'm skeptical that she's 'literally breaking and setting records on promotion time' tier like both of those...especially when the former was apparently an adult and a deft hand at magic *before* those 15 years started, and arose to his position in part by winning a duel, not just by his reputation (and while i assume he was a Magister Lord before that duel, just not patriarch of the golden order, it doesn't actually say if he was or not), and the latter was apparently empowered by chaos and thus cheating :p

Mind, your overall point stands, it does seem like the lower bound for how long it takes to get to magister lord and the like is lower than i'd thought, especially since whilethose sources also say only a rare few magisters ever become such, i think we all know the only way mathilde won't become one *eventually* is if she dies first :p
 
BoneyM said:
Near half a year ago, you told me you were strollendreki. Seeking a worthy purpose. If you think you've found one, tell me what it is and if it's within my power I'll move mountains to make it so.
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BurnNote said:
Seriously though, we should've gotten that princess title back in Barack Var.
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BoneyM said:
The third is from very close to home: the dented and tarnished crown of a Border Prince, along with a deed on ancient parchment bequeathing a section of land somewhere in the anarchic region to the holder. Accompanying that is a short note from Barak Varr acknowledging the legitimacy of the claim, and another note acknowledging the legitimacy of the acknowledged legitimacy. Standing next to the merchant is an incredibly surly dwarf who says, before you even ask, that the scroll is genuine; since he's wearing the livery of Barak Varr in full sight of the market's guards without being put to some very serious questions, you're inclined to believe him. From what little you know of the region, the kingdom in question is likely to be the incredibly small, utterly poor, claimed by a dozen other Princes and hosting a greenskin infestation for good measure; but then, Princess would be such a nice title to add to your growing list, and it might unlock certain geopolitical options for you...
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BurnNote said:
On the path through the lost BADLANDS, she has discovered her SECRET HERITAGE as a ROYAL PRINCESS.
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Paths not taken, eh. :V
"Say, Belegar, now I've finished helping you reclaim your Kingdom..."
 
Since wizard tower is winning pretty crushingly here, it might be time to start thinking about exactly what our wizard tower will need.

As you may recall, a tower provides bonuses to the purpose for which it is dedicated; when we were discussing building a manor on our fief, a lot of the plans had multiple towers in them so that we could have an enchanting bonus, research bonus, etc. thanks to each having a dedicated area. This is pretty flexible; it can even provide a bonus to reading tomes which of course makes a dedicated reading room mandatory for any place we're planning to settle in for serious research. Building towers was 100g each when we were building a manor but who knows how much it would be in the Karak. Presumably, our plans to move in will involve more than one "tower" room type mechanically even if they're physically more compressed; maybe a large tower has one bonus available per floor or we'd have a suite of rooms in Karag Nar.

The other nice way that a home can provide bonuses is via libraries. Having a relevant library at all is +1, +1 more for Extensive, and +1/+2/+3 for increasing levels of rarity, all of which stack, so an optimized library can give you up to +5 on whatever project you're working on. Unfortunately, getting a library on a topic takes an action and upgrading it by one level does the same, so it takes a staggering five actions to get a full library bonus and that will still only apply to one topic. As far as I know every library action is only 50g no matter what the topic or upgrade level, though.

If we need to outfit each room with 100g and one action each and each library upgrade with 50g and one action each, which is in line with previous costs, it could take us literal years just to finish our home. Most of that would be chasing library bonuses, admittedly, but if we're going to be doing serious magical research we really want those library bonuses.

Avoiding this huge timesink is a high priority, I think. Maybe we can pitch the necessity of having a well-equipped library and tower down in Karak Eight Peaks to the Grey College and get them to assign their librarians+scribes to outfitting our library for us, and one of their numerous apprentices to picking up laboratory necessities? They have a lot of professionals who would be able to fairly rapidly select and then have copied key tomes on the topics we'd be interested in, and we do still have that College Connections trait. I'm thinking that greenskin lore, skaven lore, general magic, enchanting, and grey magic are critical and more specialized topics like waystones and Qhaysh are maybes. Convincing them to do this for us and save the associated action slots might be a good way to spend a large chunk of our wealth; I could easily see us spending 2000g on a quality library and several hundred more on employing their scribes and librarians so that we don't have to spend the action slots.
 
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[X] Travel to Karaz-a-Karak with King Belegar for the striking out of several well-aged grudges.
[X] Scout the rest of the Eight Peaks, to find out what other horrors are waiting out there.
[X] You could help the Undumgi and the Ulricans establish themselves.

I definitely want to stick around, and of the options for that I like these ones the best.
 
[X] Write a series of papers on the magical phenomena you witnessed. Or better yet, get your Journeymanlings to do the actual writing.
This suggests a future of investigation and study at Karak Eight Peaks, and perhaps helping Johann poke at Skaven technology.

[X] There's a lot of prime real estate currently unclaimed. Stake out a prime position for a wizard's tower.
This suggests a future catching up on your pre-existing study topics.

[X] You're going to have a rough time explaining your windfall to the Bursars. Better to get that over with.
This suggests a future performing an assignment the Grey Order thinks is suited to you.

Let me be honest, I want all of them. It's so difficult to choose. In the end, I only chose these three because I really want to get back to studying the snake juice and seeing what we can make of or from it and I don't want the Grey Order on our asses so it's best to appease them however we need to.
 
[X] Travel to Karaz-a-Karak with King Belegar for the striking out of several well-aged grudges.
[X] Scout the rest of the Eight Peaks, to find out what other horrors are waiting out there.
[X] You could help the Undumgi and the Ulricans establish themselves.
[X] There's a lot of prime real estate currently unclaimed. Stake out a prime position for a wizard's tower.
[X] Write a series of papers on the magical phenomena you witnessed. Or better yet, get your Journeymanlings to do the actual writing.
 
DarkLight140 said:
The other nice way that a home can provide bonuses is via libraries. Having a relevant library at all is +1, +1 more for Extensive, and +1/+2/+3 for increasing levels of rarity, all of which stack, so an optimized library can give you up to +5 on whatever project you're working on. Unfortunately, getting a library on a topic takes an action and upgrading it by one level does the same, so it takes a staggering five actions to get a full library bonus and that will still only apply to one topic. As far as I know every library action is only 50g no matter what the topic or upgrade level, though.
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DarkLight140 said:
Convincing them to do this for us and save the associated action slots might be a good way to spend a large chunk of our wealth; I could easily see us spending 2000g on a quality library and several hundred more on employing their scribes and librarians so that we don't have to spend the action slots.
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Mathilde turns up at the College Library.
Dismissive librarian, archiving records "...yes?"
Mathilde: "I'd like to request some copies be made."
Bored Librarian: "Yes? Which books would those be?"
Mathilde: "All of them."
(Motions up the wagonloads of gold)


DarkLight140 said:
College Connections trait
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I'm not sure this has ever done much for us yet. IIRC we wrote them for dirt once, but nothing much came of it. Still, our network of college friends and other apprentices has had time to mature to journeymanlings or maybe even graduate now, too.
 
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[X] Scout the rest of the Eight Peaks, to find out what other horrors are waiting out there.
This suggests a future assisting Karak Eight Peaks with its reconquest, as a Spymaster focused inwards.

[X] Join Karak Azul as they raid and scout in force the other portions of the Karak.
This suggests a future assisting Karak Eight Peaks with its reconquest, as a battlefield wizard.


[X] There's a lot of prime real estate currently unclaimed. Stake out a prime position for a wizard's tower.
This suggests a future catching up on your pre-existing study topics.

[X] All this time away has made you miss your friends. Visit Anton and Wilhelmina.
This suggests a future in Stirland, whether Roswita likes it or not.

[X] You've been out of touch for a while. Head to Barak Varr and then Altdorf, and catch up with what's been happening in the Empire.
This suggests a future seeking employment on the Council of an Elector Count.
 
[X] There's a lot of prime real estate currently unclaimed. Stake out a prime position for a wizard's tower.
[x] Write a series of papers on the magical phenomena you witnessed. Or better yet, get your Journeymanlings to do the actual writing.
 
[x] All this time away has made you miss your friends. Visit Anton and Wilhelmina.

I want to go home, check on our goods, manage our estate. Fuck the Witch Hunters, we earned this land and our place through blood, sweat, and tears, through glory and skill and plain old luck. That shit is ours and I REFUSE to be bullied out of it.

[x] There's a lot of prime real estate currently unclaimed. Stake out a prime position for a wizard's tower.

[x] You're going to have a rough time explaining your windfall to the Bursars. Better to get that over with.

[x] You've been out of touch for a while. Head to Barak Varr and then Altdorf, and catch up with what's been happening in the Empire.

These would also be suitable.
 
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Abby Normal said:
Thank you! With that i was able to find a pdf, and some of it conflicts a bit with your presentation of things:







Mathilde is pretty amazing and ahead of the curve, but i'm skeptical that she's 'literally breaking and setting records on promotion time' tier like both of those...especially when the former was apparently an adult and a deft hand at magic *before* those 15 years started, and arose to his position in part by winning a duel, not just by his reputation (and while i assume he was a Magister Lord before that duel, just not patriarch of the golden order, it doesn't actually say if he was or not), and the latter was apparently empowered by chaos and thus cheating :p

Mind, your overall point stands, it does seem like the lower bound for how long it takes to get to magister lord and the like is lower than i'd thought, especially since whilethose sources also say only a rare few magisters ever become such, i think we all know the only way mathilde won't become one *eventually* is if she dies first :p
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I can confirm that Gelt would have been a Lord Magister, it's a requirement to make the challenge.
Realms of Sorcery said:
any Lord Magister of any of the Orders
can take part in the contest to decide who the next Supreme
Patriarch will be
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DarkLight140 said:
Since wizard tower is winning pretty crushingly here, it might be time to start thinking about exactly what our wizard tower will need.

As you may recall, a tower provides bonuses to the purpose for which it is dedicated; when we were discussing building a manor on our fief, a lot of the plans had multiple towers in them so that we could have an enchanting bonus, research bonus, etc. thanks to each having a dedicated area. This is pretty flexible; it can even provide a bonus to reading tomes which of course makes a dedicated reading room mandatory for any place we're planning to settle in for serious research. Building towers was 100g each when we were building a manor but who knows how much it would be in the Karak. Presumably, our plans to move in will involve more than one "tower" room type mechanically even if they're physically more compressed; maybe a large tower has one bonus available per floor or we'd have a suite of rooms in Karag Nar.

The other nice way that a home can provide bonuses is via libraries. Having a relevant library at all is +1, +1 more for Extensive, and +1/+2/+3 for increasing levels of rarity, all of which stack, so an optimized library can give you up to +5 on whatever project you're working on. Unfortunately, getting a library on a topic takes an action and upgrading it by one level does the same, so it takes a staggering five actions to get a full library bonus and that will still only apply to one topic. As far as I know every library action is only 50g no matter what the topic or upgrade level, though.

If we need to outfit each room with 100g and one action each and each library upgrade with 50g and one action each, which is in line with previous costs, it could take us literal years just to finish our home. Most of that would be chasing library bonuses, admittedly, but if we're going to be doing serious magical research we really want those library bonuses.

Avoiding this huge timesink is a high priority, I think. Maybe we can pitch the necessity of having a well-equipped library and tower down in Karak Eight Peaks to the Grey College and get them to assign their librarians+scribes to outfitting our library for us, and one of their numerous apprentices to picking up laboratory necessities? They have a lot of professionals who would be able to fairly rapidly select and then have copied key tomes on the topics we'd be interested in, and we do still have that College Connections trait. I'm thinking that greenskin lore, skaven lore, general magic, enchanting, and grey magic are critical and more specialized topics like waystones and Qhaysh are maybes. Convincing them to do this for us and save the associated action slots might be a good way to spend a large chunk of our wealth; I could easily see us spending 2000g on a quality library and several hundred more on employing their scribes and librarians so that we don't have to spend the action slots.
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Are you trying to convince us to to just stay at Altdorf because they already have all the libraries and resources at hand? All of a sudden I'm starting to waver from my decision to build up in the Eight Peaks, the College Libraries call to me.

More seriously I think doing this (setting up libraries and stuff) could all be a part of setting up a Chapter House and also scoring that tasty Lordship. We do know Eight Peaks is a great spot for a chapter house both politically and magically so as you mention it should be easy enough to convince the College to help provide supplies, especially if we're paying.
 
How about having some sort of death insurance for mercenaries, so when they die their daughters, wife or sons can claim their payment and some extra?

It will make hiring more attractive?
 
[X] Travel to Karaz-a-Karak with King Belegar for the striking out of several well-aged grudges.

[X] There's a lot of prime real estate currently unclaimed. Stake out a prime position for a wizard's tower.

[X] You could help the Undumgi and the Ulricans establish themselves.
 
[X] Write a series of papers on the magical phenomena you witnessed. Or better yet, get your Journeymanlings to do the actual writing.
This suggests a future of investigation and study at Karak Eight Peaks, and perhaps helping Johann poke at Skaven technology.

[X] There's a lot of prime real estate currently unclaimed. Stake out a prime position for a wizard's tower.
This suggests a future catching up on your pre-existing study topics.

[X] You've been out of touch for a while. Head to Barak Varr and then Altdorf, and catch up with what's been happening in the Empire.
This suggests a future seeking employment on the Council of an Elector Count.
 
[X] Travel to Karaz-a-Karak with King Belegar for the striking out of several well-aged grudges.

[X] You could help the Undumgi and the Ulricans establish themselves.
 
WorldSlayer said:
Are you trying to convince us to to just stay at Altdorf because they already have all the libraries and resources at hand? All of a sudden I'm starting to waver from my decision to build up in the Eight Peaks, the College Libraries call to me.
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It is admittedly strictly mechanically better to conduct virtually any magical research action in Altdorf using the College facilities and libraries than to do them on our own. There are other reasons to do it elsewhere in some cases, mostly secrecy and rapid crisis response; for others "I'm not traveling for months just for a +5!" would apply but Mathilde can be there and back in a week so she's strongly disincentivized from investing in her own facilities. If we want to have the best possible roll for looking into snake juice, refining Mathilde's MAP down to a Lesser Magic so that it's usable by other winds, and so forth, then we should be living in the Colleges for a research turn.

That said, if we're building up our own libraries we can draw not only on the College institutional knowledge but also dwarf institutional knowledge. Does the Grey College library have military histories of the dwarf campaigns against the greenskins in the Time of Woes, written in the original Khazalid? What about two thousand year old prospectors' maps of the Badlands in their geography section? Treatises on inter-clan banking policy for those curious about economics? I don't think so!
 
Holy crap, this is literally the first quest I've seen where someone actually robbed the Orcs/Orks of their Waagh field. Freaking amazing.
 
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