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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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[X] Barak Varr, to watch the progress of the canal.
[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] 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.

@BoneyM would meeting Anton also give us an update on his search for love? I want my next dose of quasi-medival romcom.
 
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[X] Loremaster: Expert on beekeeping

[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.
[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] Roswita, as she tries to wrap her head around the influx of Battle Wizards.
[X] Karak Kadrin, presenting them with the skull of an old enemy (but not to keep).

[X] The best reading chair ever.
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
Are there any Gold Magisters rich enough to be running around with solid gold staves?
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Assuming a cylinder at standard quarterstaff dimensions (1.25 inches thickness, 6 feet in length), a solid gold staff would weigh 62 pounds -- 28 kilos for people with better units.

I know they have spells for becoming stronger, but are they able to casually carry that much weight around in one hand?
 
[X] Loremaster: Expert on beekeeping
[+] The Wizards of Karak Eight Peaks (locked in)
[X] Princess Edda, to pry for details about her illicit romance with Prince Kazrik.
[X] Prince Kazrik, as he tries to pry a shipwright loose from Barak Varr.
[X] Kragg the Grim, who you could likely convince to start gloating.
[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi
[X] Karak Kadrin, presenting them with the skull of an old enemy (but not to keep).
[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] Check in on your fief in Stirland.

[X] On display in the Duckling Club.
The things we actually killed are hidden, the things we want people to think we killed are not, Deceiver will be proud :)
 
Alectai said:
I'm pretty sure that @BoneyM told us "Mathilde won't suffer poison or corruption from using dhar, but running dhar through your mind as you need to to manipulate it is going to leave a mark"

But in the end, even if our immunity is absolutely comprehensive, we Still shouldn't touch it, because it's a breach of Article Seven, and at this point we can't let our legacy be cast into doubt.
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First, I absolutely agree on not using dhar. The only time I would agree on using anything other than the second secret would be if the empire somehow approved of is learning it or the empire somehow ceased to matter.

With that out of the way, this is the WOG concerning the affects of using Dhar besides corruption.
BoneyM said:
The mindset to channel Dhar takes you to a dark place. But so does the mindset to channel Shyish. The mindset to channel Aqshy gives you temper problems. The mindset to channel Ulgu gives you a flexible view of the truth and a hazy grasp of boundaries.

If Mathilde spends all her time channelling Dhar for a week, that'll put her in a messed-up headspace, just like if you spent a week researching serial killers or something. The Colleges teach Wizards how to ground their sense of self in companionship and small joys, the same way they teach them to ground rogue magic in copper and iron.
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Ignore the part that links dhar and serial killers for a second.

Instead focus on the bolded bit that explicitly compares the mindstate produced by dhar to shyish and then the other winds. Then read the second bolded point that explains that the college already taught her how to deal with this.

Now if researching serial killers still seems like a big thing, let me remind you that Mathilde just murdered over 40 human beings this turn. She is not a modern day person like you or me. War and death is a part of her life, and she already deals with it. She's not going to become a serial killer just because she researched serial killers for a week.

Tldr it's no more dangerous than wielding ulgu to Mathilde personally. It's still dangerous for those around us and for our reputation.
 
BoneyM said:
No.
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Hrm, fair enough--I guess because the specific properties and the intuitive nature of what we're doing sort of eliminate that as an option, huh?

Would the ten favor gacha at least have a guarantee of "It's good for Ulgu", and the table just determines the origin and specific properties that we then need to work around for our design?

Or is ten favor gacha just "You get a roll on the Exotic Material Gacha, no promises if it's something good for Ulgu though?"
 
Mopman43 said:
The wiki is suspect of course, but as far as I can tell from it, Nordland never actually ruled Marienburg in any capacity, they just had dynastic claims on it from when it still had a Baron.

As far as I can tell, Marienburg has been a full province of the Empire since at least Magnus the Pious.
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Lots of places are provinces of the Empire. Nuln is a separate province of the Empire to Wissenland, but they have the same ruler and Elector Count. The Nordland Elector Count claimed that they were the legitimate heirs to the Barony of the Westlands.

THe real problematic precedent was set by Magnus, who dissolved the Barony and appointed new leadership. That precedent is a threat to any Elector, as the Emperor could refuse to acknowledge his heirs and appoint someone else to rule in their place, as the current Emperor has just done in Stirland.
 
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Oh yeah, @BoneyM as you asked, I'm repeating the question: Would an item of Birona's Timewarp be similar to Speed of Light, in not having deleterious effects to Mathilde but being a short-burst long-recharge kind of thing?
 
Alectai said:
Would the ten favor gacha at least have a guarantee of "It's good for Ulgu", and the table just determines the origin and specific properties that we then need to work around for our design?

Or is ten favor gacha just "You get a roll on the Exotic Material Gacha, no promises if it's something good for Ulgu though?"
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The former.

TotallyNotEvil said:
Oh yeah, @BoneyM as you asked, I'm repeating the question: Would an item of Birona's Timewarp be similar to Speed of Light, in not having deleterious effects to Mathilde but being a short-burst long-recharge kind of thing?
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Being infused with Light Magic to such an extent that Mathilde would be 'freed from the passage of time' is a terrible idea for all sorts of reasons.
 
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noliar said:
It was not necessarily instant between Gabriell A getting ganked and Gabriell B taking her place. It could have been a few years before "Heidi" found out about the opportunity and there must have been some time for the countess's courtiers to forget some details/ get desperate enough for someone to take the place that they'd overlook them.

As far as pregnancy goes, she can be well under 40 and the Imperial Consort has Jade wizards in her rolodex by definition.
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It could be a "Dread Pirate Roberts" situation, where the current "Gabriella" chooses the most competent and trustworthy underling to become the next one.
TotallyNotEvil said:
Are there any Gold Magisters rich enough to be running around with solid gold staves?
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Everyone beat me to the "They are already running around with solid gold bodies" so I'll have to dig deeper into the reply pool and claim that, if they are smart, those bodies already come with a staff included.
I imagine it competes for the slot with a grounding rod tho.
 
Even though this isn't really on topic to anything, I just want to say that my mental image of the Second Secret use has basically been that it's just M.D. Device for Dhar.
 
Alratan said:
The Nordland Elector Count claimed that they were the legitimate heirs to the Barony of the Westlands.
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Yes, but that doesn't mean that they actually get to have it. Talabecland laid claims to it as well.

If they never actually ruled it, than you can't claim that Dieter IV stole it from them. Especially given that Magnus seemed to have settled the matter 100 years earlier.
 
Mopman43 said:
Yes, but that doesn't mean that they actually get to have it. Talabecland laid claims to it as well.

If they never actually ruled it, than you can't claim that Dieter IV stole it from them. Especially given that Magnus seemed to have settled the matter 100 years earlier.
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As far as they're concerned, they owned it, which is what's relevant here.
 
[X] Loremaster: Expert on beekeeping
The one most likely to understand the We, at least as much as a Longbeard can.

[X] Kragg the Grim, who you could likely convince to start gloating.
This sounds hilarious. Also we should tell him how the rune of hammerspace performed.

[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi
We should keep an eye on this prominent but non-council individual. Also his cat.

[X] Roswita, as she tries to wrap her head around the influx of Battle Wizards.
While I'm not particularly interested in improving relations beyond what has been achieved I feel not taking this would be leaving the job half-done.

[X] Empress 'Heidi', to see if you can snatch a private moment to speak honestly with her.
This needs investigating for so many reasons.

[X] Try to find Kasmir in Sylvania.
He was a friend and should not be forgotten.

[X] On display in the Duckling Club.
What is the point of a bragging item if you don't display it?
 
Alectai said:
Yeah, my impression now is that she isn't a vampire, she's just Literally Ranald's Chosen One, the shit she's pulled maps very cleanly on someone who pushes all four of his aspects equally.

The scamming, the protection of others, the tricking everyone, and the balls to do this to people who could snuff her out with a literal gesture.

And he blew his winnings on putting her as the Empress-Consort, which is a pretty fucking good play when you think about it in terms of "Getting legitimacy in the Empire and being respected as the other sanctioned Order Gods". In other words, like all gamblers, he takes his winnings and lets them ride for an even bigger score.

Though in this case, I'd call it an investment, he's taking a transitory winning and is trying to convert it into actual income.

Now, having finished reading the Liber Mortis? It seems pretty clear that the real prize at the end was learning how our primary enemies (Witches and Black Magisters) and their magic works without having to actually experiment and breach Article Seven. Plus, the warning at the end is pretty unambiguous.

"Yeah, it doesn't matter how talented you are, what precautions you take. If you do this as anything other than a Vampire or similarly unalienable creature, you will break. So Don't"

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. (Hell, based on the description? His degregation? It sounds like he did have such a charm, because he lived long and healthy enough that his madness is what got him killed, not him being corrupted into some troglodyte as is the typical consequence of fucking with Dhar--mostly because you die before it drives you fundamentally mad)

Now, the Second Secret? There is technically a way to use it without actually practicing Dhar in itself, but it would require a Counterspell based Trait to do so.

Because it would just be using a Colored Wind to latch onto a Dhar Construct and shove it just so, causing the enemy construct to detonate using its own energy. Pretty much a Battle Magic tier counterspell.

The Necromancy Dispel Support was the grand prize here, as is the clinical knowledge of how it works so we can devise legitimate means of countering such Necromancers, and support our paper writing on their abilities. The warning at the end makes it very clear that the earlier insights though are just a well baited trap that'll devour the greedy and ambitious. And I am very thankful we didn't experiment until we read the whole thing and got to that warning.
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And this I think is a good jumping off point to make my own post about the Second Secret since I broadly agree barring details about the immunity thing.

So we've spent a long time talking about the second secret and the will we/won't we use it question. After thinking about it for a while, I changed my mind from "Might be worth experimenting with" back to my original reasoning for reading the Liber Mortis which was "Read the entire book front to back for the magical theory and any hints of Nehekharan practice". I changed my mind before we got to this update but never had a particularly good time to raise it until now and the new information changes some of what I have to say so I might as well get it out there. (Caveat, I can't know if other people have changed their minds on it unless they say so since I can't peer into their mind but I assume some have and some haven't.)

We got less magical theory out of it than I wanted, but that's okay because we got Necromantic Insight out of it and we can do a boatload with that since Boney said it was safe here.

BoneyM said:
Abhorsen said:
@BoneyM : Would using Necromantic Insight violate the Articles or obviously show that we violated the Article in the past?
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No.
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Thus with me changing my mind like I have, for me voting for using or studying the Second Secret would be going down the slippery slope and take up time we can use for other research options like clearing our paper backlog. And its straightforward to avoid this slope on my own part. But that's me and I completely understand that some folks think its worth experimentation with. (Obviously this isn't pointed at you Alectai.)

From my perspective there are however some things to consider which I think significantly lower the priority of it and which I hope can convince some folks to think about where exactly they want to put it in that priority and perhaps come to something similar to my opinion.

The first thing after the Necromantic Insights is the description of the Second Secret, followed by a quote by Boney on its aftereffects:

BoneyM said:
Second Secret of Dhar: Dhar could be made more unstable. A tiny nudge in just the right way and Dhar unravels in just the right way to unravel more Dhar, and so on until nothing remains.
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BoneyM said:
See the edit. A patch of Dhar-contaminated ground is preferable to a zombie but when everywhere is zombies it's time to find a new continent.
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For context the quote was part of an answer to Nix Warden's question about mass release of the First and Second and what would happen. The second secret leaving contaminated ground is a logical consequence. The Dhar has to go somewhere after all and it discorporating into a giant explosion isn't sustainable for the caster of the second if they want to live a long life.

It might do that too but that is a side quality.

So this impacts every strategic use of the Second Secret mentioned so far. Often it gets mentioned that we might want to go into the Skaven held tunnels and caverns and use it on their warpstone deposits to break their currency and technology. Examples of Nagash doing something similar in Cripple Peak in the End Times are sometimes brought up.

With this quote though what would happen if we can break down warpstone is that we'd contaminate the tunnels the Dwarves want to reclaim with Dhar. We currently have no means to purify Dhar except some method the Jade's are working on and burning it with the belt which holds its own issues, and it'd be below ground and thus not on a mountain top where it can blow away. The dwarves have some runic work to drain magic or burn it with Belt like runes of course but that takes a very large amount of effort and expense that could be spent on fortifying the Hold.

(Specifically the belt issues are that it does it by burning surrounding Dhar in Mathilde's immediate proximity and Mathilde is not immune to smoke inhalation in a cramped tunnel. This means that we can only clear out little pockets before having to retreat often due to smoke and fire and go it alone since other people aren't immune to fire. That sounds like a Seed and healing people constantly situation, but slanted more towards actually being improbably difficult.)

Together what this adds up to is that if we can destroy warpstone with the Second, we are left with contaminated tunnels that take a stupendous amount of effort to clean when we want to live there and actually reclaim them with some rapidity. For strategic security, if nothing else.

We also don't know if we can actually use it to destroy Warpstone, given there has been no mention of Van Hal using it to destroy the meteors in his diary and its debatable if its a construct and not just an amalgamation like Evil Play-Doh. And given that now we've read the entire thing we have no real indication he used it on warpstone at any point which seems a bit odd unless you conclude he couldn't or really really didn't want to for some reason.

We would have had a similar problem in Sylvania. You can break the constructs and spells with the Second Secret and such but you're left with Dhar contaminated ground which doesn't actually solve the Sylvania problem, simply adding to one of its factors by breaking down another. Kicking the can down the road until the Jade's or Sigmarites can fix it if they ever get the inclination to.

You'd still have wandering spontaneous dead who are dumb as rocks waiting for a Necromancer to grab control of them. The ambient Dhar levels, either way, also contribute to mutations in the population so that problem isn't getting fixed either.

It'd still be a very attractive prospect for Necromancers and Vampires to migrate to so long as that Dhar exists.

But now with the Big Wizards with Battle Magic moving in, its going to rapidly become a place that isn't safe to use it in because of all the witnesses and lots of explosions. And the Battle Mages have it in hand going by the trust the Emperor is putting in the Colleges.

In terms of damaging Dhar based infrastructure we also have better alternatives on hand in the Belt and Branulhune. Skaven tech for example we can sabotage before it is pulled out while on our enthusiastic walks by stabbing it and having the Belt burn off Dhar. (We'd want to be on Shadowsteed and running so we don't die of smoke inhalation or make other preparations to deal with that) And we can do this without having to use the secret at all. Similar would have applied to Sylvania's problems but the Battle Mages invalidate that in my opinion.

As to the ethical and legal and character progression questions related to the Second I'll note two other things:

My post here where I outline some of the things that can happen, where in sum if we don't mess with it where we can be caught or at all we'll have an easier time convincing people not to blast our heads off at the neck.
BungieONI said:
Now on another, more divisive topic. The Second Secret.

I'm in the boat of read the book first, for the very simple reason that the Liber Mortis contains context we haven't read yet. To frame this in a different way, the Liber Mortis is a holistic guide to Necromancy as a fully functional and interconnected Lore of magic so it makes sense things in it build on other things in it. Ergo, we can study it with what we have on hand right now with our currently lesser understanding or we can read it all and bend a greater understanding of Necromancy to practicing the Second Secret.

Furthermore in the book there may be secrets we like better and given our limited time its a better use of our time to have them all laid out so we can decide which one we want to pursue if we want to pursue any of them instead of dumping time on one we find we don't like as much. This is on top of the issue that there's a large majority which put it at lower priority than Vitae research and Ranald shenanigans with possible Theurgy. Understandably so as well to me, I'm one of them.

There's also another chunk of undefined size who never want to use it for a multitude of reasons, some of which I kinda agree with.

So that leaves the book itself. The Liber Mortis presents two threats to Mathilde's person and her plans. One is the physical book itself, which would get her killed or tortured by the colleges and churches. The other is the knowledge contained within. Together these create a couple of threats and solutions to them.

Being caught with the book:
-We get executed or otherwise tormented. Chance of survival slim to none, predicated on escaping and might cause another big battle in the streets of Altdorf.
-A solution of read the book and then anonymously dead drop it to the Colleges: we could have done this in the epilogue and it was explicitly pointed out as impossible to trace to her.

-A solution of read the book and then seal it in the King's Armory or our own vault: More of a pushing the problem down the hill, but to the point that it gets pushed out of relevance. It is extremely unlikely they'll go looking until long after Mathilde dies, even with an extended lifespan. In return for this bit of wiggle room in the problem coming up, we don't have to trust the Colleges to keep it secret and safe.
--As an addendum to this solution, if we read the book and store it and we advance to Wizard Lady or Matriarch on the back of seriously impeccable political reliability and capital we can burn a lot of that to save our hide. A reason to make Wizard Lady fast. This addendum becomes much harder if we use anything from the book in a way that leaves evidence.

Being caught using any of the Secrets:
-We get labeled a Black Magister and die. Chance of survival is zero unless we want to tear the colleges apart in another big battle in the streets of Altdorf.

-A solution is to read the book and never use it's Secrets or practice them where others can see. This comes with the issue that we only need witnesses to be lucky once, and that it takes a lot of actions when we don't have a lot of available actions to use and using Overwork on it is a poor idea, and that it pushes Mathilde's character in directions some don't want.

-A solution is to read the book and never use the magical Secrets at all. Actually pretty easy all told since the biggest uses so far are blasting Sylvania, which has competent people handling it and a simpler solution to the problem, and popping Skaven tech which has the problem of lots of witnesses from all our colleagues and that decaying warpstone with it is going to cause runoff Dhar contamination in the tunnels the Dwarves would eventually want to move into or otherwise use. See Boney's mentions of Karak Seven Peaks in regards to poking the Big Warpstone in Kvinn Wyr. This also pushes Mathilde's character in directions some don't want, I figure.

-A solution is to read the book and only use or practice the secrets when all simpler solutions are impossible and there are no witnesses. A variant solution inspired by the Sylvania problem having a simpler solution in the vein of stabbing with Branulhune till things stop twitching we place the Secrets in the mental vault labeled "When all simpler solutions fail". This solution exposes us to the least risk besides never using them because the list of situations in which we would need to pull it out are very small. And it is more nuanced than the first option of never using them when witnesses are around because not having witnesses around is a much wider field. It also husbands time more carefully and drives Mathilde to pick other options which aren't a threat to her livelihood and good standing with her friends. This also pushes Mathilde's character in directions some don't want, but I figure most people are going to land somewhere near this solution.

As a bit of a note with these solutions is how they interact if we get to Wizard Lady or Matriarch. Functionally given the way catastrophes have been pretty dang rare so far and other things that might fit on the short list of "all simpler solutions have failed" the second and third solutions are almost entirely identical because its very unlikely for something to come up on the short list that would require Mathilde to use it in the time it takes her to get to Wizard Lady. The other one has greater risk of us being witnessed using them as a Magister.

Anyway that's me tapped out on these topics.
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And the second thing now that we've finished the book is that we know there aren't any more Secrets which might have been more interesting to study and we have a rather good point raised by Vlad. He's a total monster I don't hold a lot of sympathy for, but he's right in his warning. We might be the best of mortals, with a belt that makes us physically immune to Dhar poisoning but we still hold questions about the mindset of using Ulgu to wield the Second Secret and no one else is immune like we are and we have no tools besides burning things with the Belt to actually solve the consequences of using this ability.

Now if you want to study the Second Secret, you might get a benefit from Necromantic Insight and having read the entire thing from front to back since Necromancy is a fully formed and functional Lore, its features should tie into each other and interweave back and forth. So getting a context bonus makes sense if we can use it as a reference. But I don't really see this as outweighing the other issues I've raised for myself and my own decisions regarding it.

Regardless the final point I have to raise is that we can spend time not spent on studying the Secret on working through our papers, making sure the Ducklings all stay alive and healthy, and other research projects that we can actually share beyond blowing up skeletons. And other things like figuring out how Ranald Shenanigans/Theurgy will work, if it will work at all.

Quest said:
Ignore the part that links dhar and serial killers for a second.

Instead focus on the bolded bit that explicitly compares the mindstate produced by dhar to shyish and then the other winds. Then read the second bolded point that explains that the college already taught her how to deal with this.

Now if researching serial killers still seems like a big thing, let me remind you that Mathilde just murdered over 40 human beings this turn. She is not a modern day person like you or me. War and death is a part of her life, and she already deals with it. She's not going to become a serial killer just because she researched serial killers for a week.

Tldr it's no more dangerous than wielding ulgu to Mathilde personally. It's still dangerous for those around us and for our reputation.
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The bigger deal to me is that she isn't immune to mental corruption via handling Dhar. Like the scale of effect exists, but is fundamentally not a part of my concern because the questions I use to judge its safe use are; is she physically immune? Yes. Is she mentally immune? Depends if Ulgu tongs work, but generally not if she just grabs it. Are others immune? No, not even Vampires in enough quantities.
 
So we've all been going on about how Heidi can't be a vampire, but it occurs to me there's an outside shot we're overlooking.

Heidi could be Genevieve. Drachenfels or at least his castle is apparently a going concern here, so...
 
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