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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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picklepikkl said:
We never came clean to him in the quest. There was an omake in which we did, though.

My bet is that H is human, W is Willing, BM is Blackmail, L and vC are the vampire lineages of those initials.
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NSMS said:
Pretty sure 'BM' is 'BlackMailed', personally.
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Well, it's been a year, I was bound to hallucinate some things. That, and forget others; I seem to recall this interpretation being brought up at the time, though I'd forgotten it, and it does still make more sense than my current interpretation.
 
DragonParadox said:
Theurgy is still the grand prize for me too, but we might also be able to manipulate other Winds with Ulgu.
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I'm still hoping to work out how to manipulate snakejuice with Ulgu. That seems like it would potentially be much more versatile than the Winds.

After all, while Thaumaturgical alchemy is a really neat trick and can be exploited very effectively, it's still limited.

Briefvoice said:
The implication here would be that the original Countess Gabriella von Bundebad was indeed a vampire, but that since '62 (it is now '80 so 18 years ago) a mortal took over and faked being her. If true, that mortal would be the supposed "Countess Gabriella" we met back in Sylvania and who is now the Emperor's wife.

A Chosen Priestess of Ranald with access to miracles from Ranald would seem just about the sort of person with the magical mojo and Intrigue ability to pull that off outside of a Grey Wizard.
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I'm not sure she could pull off the looking younger than Mathilde bit though.
 
NSMS said:
Yeah, while it is possible she's a vampire all the signs point towards her being human. She doesn't display any vampire weaknesses despite being a position that would heavily expose her to them, didn't show a Dhar vortex, a powerful and well informed vampire told us she was human, and she has the blessing and support of a god that will not play well with some of the most basic aspects of vampirism. Any one or two of those could be explained away by her being skilled at concealing herself, lacking those weaknesses, etc, but all of them?

It's technically possible, but I doubt it.
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Even if she were, If she acts in accordance with Ranald's laws I would be ok with her as well.
Regardless of the other choices we really need to meet with her, we are natural allies and it would be hard to get a friend in a higher place than Empress.
The seeds for a Ranaldian takeover of the empire are already here, Sigmar will rue the day he didn't go out of his way to serve our needs.
 
Alratan said:
When Electors vote for a candidate, the previous Emperor is dead. That's why there's a vote.
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Which does nothing about the Emperor spending favors before he dies so that when he does, Electors vote for his heir. Sure, you can disregard repaying that, but then everyone remembers that you're an asshole that doesn't repay favors, and no one offers them to you, and that makes politics much harder.
 
Alectai said:
Assuming something Kragg basically knocked off in a week is a cheat code that Vlad could never possibly pull something out of his stash to match seems to be incredible folly to me. And he had every reason to try and make this work as part of his experiment--if he had access to such a protective charm, he'd have made sure Van Hal got it.
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Let's stop this train before it even starts. We are absolutely and unambiguously immune to the corruption of dhar. There have been multiple explicit WOG on this. I don't support learning dhar ourselves, but there are no ifs and buts about it.

This just means that our belt is far better than anything Vlad had access to in the Dhar protection area. Maybe he should have hit up the dwarves rather than messing about in Sylvania. It certainly worked for us.
 
I almost pity Belegar. Speaking to Mathilde must be an adventure. Either she's handing you more problems, solving all your previous problems, creating out of context problems that are also a benefit, or a mix of all three. If she cackled madly at least she'd fit the wizard stereotype. And seeing Gabriella is what dealing with Mathilde must be like for everyone elee.

'How was your trip, Mathilde?'
'Oh, not bad, Belebro. I ended a necromantic college, caused battle wizards to be unleashed, got to wallow in my own crapulence a little with spite- and I got two new skulls! Also Karagil is ripe to collapse into infighting, just let me know when you're ready for that to kick off. Have you seen Kragg? I need to show him sketches of a Vampire's face when they bounce off his work. Oh, and I made sure it was all done in your name.'

[X] Anton, to see how his firearm factory is going.
[X] Kragg the Grim, who you could likely convince to start gloating.
[X] Titus Muggins, who's returned to farming with every avenue of attack defended.
[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi
[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart, as the new home of the Winter Wolves takes shape.
[X] Loremaster: Expert on Forest Spiders

[X] The best reading chair ever

If reading chair wins, and Mathilde eventually digs down and has a multiple section library, the skull chair shouls be there. With dire warnings that anyone sitting in it to read who isn't Mathilde will be made to act as her personal assistant.
 
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NSMS said:
Yeah, while it is possible she's a vampire all the signs point towards her being human. She doesn't display any vampire weaknesses despite being a position that would heavily expose her to them, didn't show a Dhar vortex, a powerful and well informed vampire told us she was human, and she has the blessing and support of a god that will not play well with some of the most basic aspects of vampirism. Any one or two of those could be explained away by her being skilled at concealing herself, lacking those weaknesses, etc, but all of them?

It's technically possible, but I doubt it.
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She is either human or Neferia herself.
 
SITB said:
Whioe I broadly agree with you on dhar, and the lack of use thereof, I wanna point out that having knowledge on how to manipulate the winds using other winds is useful to Mathilde. Probably for theurgy, and if that's a bust then trying to assimilate specific spells from other winds using Ulgu.
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Yeah, it's not bad as an intellectual document, but it only tells us that it is possible.

Like, the Secrets are pretty much "We can't actually use these or we breach Article Seven", though the Second might, if we learn the right traits and become a Magic 10+ Learning 40 Matriarch level expert, we can potentially figure out how to get the effects purely out of Color Magic--but it'd absolutely be a bitch of a Battle Magic spell to do it that way, as opposed to being able to do it honestly pretty easily as long as you just use Dhar to do it with.

The "Manipulate magic at a remove" stuff might be useful for developing Theurgy--but as has been established and made absolutely clear in the postscript. There is no safe way to use Dhar while still being a mortal. Only methods that will make you die slower and do more damage on the way out.
 
DragonParadox said:
Theurgy is still the grand prize for me too, but we might also be able to manipulate other Winds with Ulgu.
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I kinda think that manipulating other winds will turn out to be a dead end (barring a few tricks), though I could be pleasantly surprised, but theurgy is the real winner because of how Ranald intersects with Ulgu and the fact that the most dangerous spellcasters we are gonna see will be Skaven grey seers who use theurgy as well.
 
[X] Kragg the Grim, who you could likely convince to start gloating.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.
[X] Roswita, as she tries to wrap her head around the influx of Battle Wizards.
[X] Roswita, to present her with a copy of the book her late father contributed to.
[X] Anton, to see how his firearm factory is going.
[X] A bathtub, an even better place for reading.
[x] Loremaster: Expert on beekeeping
 
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Briefvoice said:
I'm not saying we want to blackmail the Empress exactly. I'm just saying we have access to damaging information that could destroy her if we decided to throw it around.
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Do we?

We have no proof and IIRC, everyone of importance who could corroborate our story is either dead or elsewhere.

There's no discernable difference between us accusing her because we're speaking the truth, and us accusing her because we went insane.
 
agumentic said:
Which does nothing about the Emperor spending favors before he dies so that when he does, Electors vote for his heir. Sure, you can disregard repaying that, but then everyone remembers that you're an asshole that doesn't repay favors, and no one offers them to you, and that makes politics much harder.
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Or everyone thinks that you're not an idiot and the dead Emperor was, because it's such an obviously bad idea to have a hereditary Emperor if you're an Elector.

picklepikkl said:
I don't have sourcebooks, but does Ranald have any divine miracles for altering your appearance? Maybe she's his priestess, not just a secular chosen one as we are.
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No. He can make people forget your appearance, but not change it.
 
[X] Loremaster: Expert on beekeeping

[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi
[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart, as the new home of the Winter Wolves takes shape.
[X] Karak Kadrin, presenting them with the skull of an old enemy (but not to keep).
[X] Roswita, to present her with a copy of the book her late father contributed to.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.

[X] The best reading chair ever.
 
[X] Loremaster: Expert on beekeeping

[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi
[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart, as the new home of the Winter Wolves takes shape.
[X] Karak Kadrin, presenting them with the skull of an old enemy (but not to keep).
[X] Kragg the Grim, who you could likely convince to start gloating.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.

[X] The best reading chair ever.
 
chocolote12 said:
Hey, I know this is, like, a year late, but I just came up with my own take on the initials; BM is Black Magister, H is for human, and W is for witch. They were counting us as black because they weren't sure how we were compromised, presumably (Abelheim apparently took us off the kill list when we came clean, if I didn't hallucinate us coming clean to him).
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You did hallucinate it. We never told him. The thread of the conspiracy that he had and we didn't was which faction had putting us on his council as the price of their support. Follow up questions: why this particular new journeywoman? and how do they have their hooks in someone who must have been in the college since young childhood?

GW must be Grey Wizard.
H must be human.
-W I think is willing and -BM is blackmailed.
 
Robotninja said:
She is either human or Neferia herself.
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Neferata would have been hit with all of Nagash's original curses. She'd have to be a later vampire from a line whose weaknesses mutated into something else.

Briefvoice said:
There's women in real life who can pull that off!
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065tdsa said:
Aging gracefully, good makeup, the right attitude and a pinch of magic could do that.
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Not and also be old enough to be capable of impersonating a vampire eighteen years ago in quest. Also, good makeup requires knowledge that hasn't been developed yet. Look at what Renaissance makeup could actually do. It's very artificial looking.
 
Alratan said:
Or everyone thinks that you're not an idiot and the dead Emperor was, because it's such an obviously bad idea to have a hereditary Emperor if you're an Elector.
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They still do it all the time. There's plenty of cases of Emperors sons being voted to succeed them. (Like, again, 4 Emperors in a row for Karl Franz' line in canon)
 
10ebbor10 said:
Do we?

We have no proof and IIRC, everyone of importance who could corroborate our story is either dead or elsewhere.

There's no discernable difference between us accusing her because we're speaking the truth, and us accusing her because we went insane.
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I suppose if she has an absolutely adamantine hard cover that's true. But that's hardly likely. It seems much more likely that she's lying about a lot of things that would eventually collapsed if determined investigator started poking at them... and I assure you, an accusation from a Grey Magister would definitely be enough to get a serious investigation started even if not provoke action on its own.

We might not be able to prove she was Countess Gabrielle, but proving that she's lying about being wherever she claims to have been during the period of time she was actually ruling in Sylvania is certainly much more doable.

But on the other hand, I don't see why it would so hard to prove she was Countess Gabrielle. I'll remind you,, Gabrielle wasn't a recluse! She openly held court on a daily basis, settling the complaints of sheep farmers and townsfolk. There are literally thousands of people who could testify, "Yeah, the Empress looks exactly like our former Countess!"
 
[X] Roswita, as she tries to wrap her head around the influx of Battle Wizards.
[X] Roswita, to present her with a copy of the book her late father contributed to.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.
[X] Try to find Kasmir in Sylvania.
[X] Write In: Our former Master, to share whatever infiltration stories we both have that the other has the clearance for
 
Also, we were told not to come up with any clever plan for getting more loot, yet the dwarven crew did to get a bitchin' dragon skull, proving that the entire universe is nothing but background rolls for "Dwarf Quest: Gyrocopter Driver" :V

This is meant to be a humorous comment, I respect and appreciate BoneyM's measures to keep powercreep in check, even if it means restraining my hoarding and roleplaying instincts.
 
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Alratan said:
Or everyone thinks that you're not an idiot and the dead Emperor was, because it's such an obviously bad idea to have a hereditary Emperor if you're an Elector.
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The Habsburgs managed to pull it off in real life. 360 years of Austrian monarchs on the elected throne of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Empire of Man is very obviously an HRE pastiche.

Also, as people have pointed out, in the fiction of the setting this happens all the time: runs of Emperors who are the child or brother of the previous Emperor.
 
[X] Loremaster: Expert on beekeeping

[X] Kragg the Grim, who you could likely convince to start gloating.
[X] Roswita, to present her with a copy of the book her late father contributed to.
[X] Anton, to see how his firearm factory is going.
[X] Wilhelmina, to see how she's going when she's not a terrifying financial juggernaut.
[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi

[X] On display in the Duckling Club.
 
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