Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[X] Princess Edda, to pry for details about her illicit romance with Prince Kazrik.
[X] Prince Kazrik, as he tries to convince Nuln to let him make them fabulously rich.
[X] Gunnars, to see if you can pierce his terse nature.
[X] Titus Muggins, who's returned to farming with every avenue of attack defended.
[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi
[X] Algard, reporting the Skaven Civil War in person instead of in writing.
[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] Princess Edda, on a hunt for weavers across the Empire.


[X] No. Mathilde's dragon skull chair belongs only to Mathilde.

[X] King Belegar, to try to get some idea of where he's at with his crisis of faith.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to be present for the birth of her child
[X] Check in on your fief in Stirland.
[X] Oswald Oswaldson, newly-minted Chief Bombardier of the Undumgi
[x] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi
[X] The Amber College, to see how your donation of Lustrian eggs is going.
[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart, as the new home of the Winter Wolves takes shape.
[X] No. Mathilde's dragon skull chair belongs only to Mathilde.
[X] Princess Edda, on a hunt for weavers across the Empire.

[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi
[X] The Amber College, to see how your donation of Lustrian eggs is going.
[X] Check in on your fief in Stirland.

Picklepikkl makes some very good points. We should invest time and attention in our chosen home and the people therein, not the far flung events of elsewhere.

[X] Prince Gotri, who is enhancing the underground defences of the Karak.
[X] Princess Edda, to pry for details about her illicit romance with Prince Kazrik.
[X] Princess Edda, on a hunt for weavers across the Empire.
[X] Prince Kazrik, as he tries to convince Nuln to let him make them fabulously rich.
[X] Gunnars, to see if you can pierce his terse nature.
People we work with. Thus people we should get to know.

[X] Titus Muggins, who's returned to farming with every avenue of attack defended.
[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi
[X] Oswald Oswaldson, newly-minted Chief Bombardier of the Undumgi
[X] Soizic, sparring partner and possible 'sparring partner' of your duckling Hubert.
People we live near and have at least peripheral connections to via mutual friends and minions.

[X] Check in on your fief in Stirland.
Social obligations are still obligations. We should see if they are getting on ok after all the changes we imposed.

[ ] King Belegar, to try to get some idea of where he's at with his crisis of faith.
We see him often and can't actually help.

[] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart, as the new home of the Winter Wolves takes shape.
Went off to live outside the mountains. Low priority.

[ ] Barak Varr, to watch the progress of the canal.
[ ] Karak Hirn, to satisfy your curiousity about Prince Ulthar.
Distant, unfocused. Leave it for the Rumour Mill.

[ ] Algard, reporting the Skaven Civil War in person instead of in writing.
Thinking about it, while this might be amusing I doubt it would be all that interesting.

[ ] Roswita, as she rides out the chaos of the influx of Battle Wizards.
We did her last turn, she is a distant and we would learn very little by seeing her be disturbed by her allies.

[ ] Kasmir, to see if he rejoined the Council of Stirland.
Did him last turn, distant.

[ ] The Amber College, to see how your donation of Lustrian eggs is going.
I honestly don't care in the least. Favours will show up eventually.

[ ] Anton, to see how his firearm factory is going.
Distant and he has had a lot of attention in the past.

[ ] Wilhelmina, to see how she's going when she's not a terrifying financial juggernaut.
...seriously considered this one as the EIC is an ongoing concern and knowing where it is going would be nice. However we have other, closer, people to see.

[ ] Empress 'Heidi', to be present for the birth of her child
I emphatically do Not want to get embroiled in the social scene of Altdorf.

[ ] Check in on the Gong Farmers and the Niter Factory.
Distant, uninteresting.

Straight-up approval voting every non-dwarf in K8P and a few others I'm specifically interested in.
[+] The Wizards of Karak Eight Peaks (locked in)
[X] King Belegar, to try to get some idea of where he's at with his crisis of faith.
[X] Prince Gotri, who is enhancing the underground defences of the Karak.
[X] Princess Edda, on a hunt for weavers across the Empire.

[X] Titus Muggins, who's returned to farming with every avenue of attack defended.
[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi
[X] Oswald Oswaldson, newly-minted Chief Bombardier of the Undumgi
[X] Soizic, sparring partner and possible 'sparring partner' of your duckling Hubert.
[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart, as the new home of the Winter Wolves takes shape.

[X] No. Mathilde's dragon skull chair belongs only to Mathilde.

Mathilde's dragon skull chair belongs somewhere she can show it off to more than a tightly-controlled list of half a dozen people ever.

DragonParadox said:

Ruunes on metal have to be placed when forging and item. I suspect Johan would object to being melted down. Runic knuckledusters might work though.

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I'm not 100% certain this is the case in DL canon? Wasn't there something in the presentation of the gromril swords about possibly motivating people to support the reclamation even harder in hopes of earning runes like Mathilde's for their swords?

Although I suppose "if that ever happens, melt it down and have a runesmith reforge it" is the obvious answer.

[X] Oswald Oswaldson, newly-minted Chief Bombardier of the Undumgi

[X] Roswita, as she rides out the chaos of the influx of Battle Wizards.

[X] Prince Gotri, who is enhancing the underground defences of the Karak.
[X] Princess Edda, on a hunt for weavers across the Empire.
[X] Prince Kazrik, as he tries to convince Nuln to let him make them fabulously rich.

[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi
[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart, as the new home of the Winter Wolves takes shape.

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

[] Roswita, as she rides out the chaos of the influx of Battle Wizards.
[X] Check in on your fief in Stirland.

[X] No. Mathilde's dragon skull chair belongs only to Mathilde.

BoneyM said:

Except when transformations are as a result of their nature, Vampires gradually revert back to their base form. And the problem with dropping them in the Pit of Shades is you're entrusting their imprisonment to a realm you don't fully understand and can't supervise and hoping it all works out.

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Hmm, I suppose under the normal course of things you don't need to worry, a living creature in the Pit would die before they reemerge, and a daemon would go pop and their essence likely flow back to the Warp, possibly scrambled.

A vampire in the Pit though, would probably be starving for an indefinite period inside whats probably an Ulgu rich environment. They certainly aren't going to enjoy it and would probably not be very sane at the end of the whole business, but yeah given that you can open pits to it, theres probably an outlet somewhere, if nothing else when someone inevitably miscasts the Pit.

BoneyM said:

Everyone's answer is going to be based on their own relationship with Ulgu, and none of them are going to be based on Mathilde's, and most of them are going to be the party line of 'if you think you can handle it, hell yes, if you don't, hell no'. Magic varies hugely from person to person, and the only person who's insight is even slightly relevant to Mathilde is Regimand's because he taught her, and he's spoken his piece.

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Mechanical translation: Battle Magic is going to depend a lot on your traits and preferred strategies. If you don't have any new traits, then Regimand is probably right: the way Mathilde is built she wouldn't find most Battle Magic all that useful to begin with.

There's no mechanical advantage to any of these, so I feel fine just approval voting all of them that I'm okay with winning:

[X] King Belegar, to try to get some idea of where he's at with his crisis of faith.
[X] Princess Edda, on a hunt for weavers across the Empire.
[X] Prince Kazrik, as he tries to convince Nuln to let him make them fabulously rich.
[X] Gunnars, to see if you can pierce his terse nature.

[X] Francesco Caravello, proud leader of the Undumgi
[X] Oswald Oswaldson, newly-minted Chief Bombardier of the Undumgi
[X] Soizic, sparring partner and possible 'sparring partner' of your duckling Hubert.
[X] Sir Ruprecht Wulfhart, as the new home of the Winter Wolves takes shape.

[X] Karak Hirn, to satisfy your curiousity about Prince Ulthar.

[X] Wilhelmina, to see how she's going when she's not a terrifying financial juggernaut.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to be present for the birth of her child

[X] Check in on your fief in Stirland.

Oh, and of course:

[X] No. Mathilde's dragon skull chair belongs only to Mathilde.

[X] Algard, reporting the Skaven Civil War in person instead of in writing.
[X] Check in on your fief in Stirland.
[X] Prince Gotri, who is enhancing the underground defences of the Karak.
[X] King Belegar, to try to get some idea of where he's at with his crisis of faith.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to be present for the birth of her child

[X] No. Mathilde's dragon skull chair belongs only to Mathilde.

[X] King Belegar, to try to get some idea of where he's at with his crisis of faith.
[X] Algard, reporting the Skaven Civil War in person instead of in writing.
[X] Roswita, as she rides out the chaos of the influx of Battle Wizards.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to be present for the birth of her child
[X] Check in on your fief in Stirland.

I've been musing about the social turns this morning. I think that some of the disconnects people are having come from there being several different motivations for seeing a social scene, which I will now attempt to classify as Engagement, Discovery, and Closure.

Engagement
You like something. You know you like it. The opportunity arises to see more of it. You HIT SUBSCRIBE and DESTROY THAT LIKE BUTTON. Pretty straightforward; it is a vote for more engagement with a thing you know you enjoy. Probably if you are Engaged with something, you will continue to be Engaged with it.

Discovery
You are curious about something. You haven't seen enough of it to develop an informed opinion, but you would like to know more so you can figure out if it's something you can set aside or if you want to transition to a pattern of Engagement.

Closure
A thing happened; it might have been recently, it might have been a while ago. An opportunity arises to achieve some degree of resolution, allowing the open question to be tied up. One-and-done.

Last turn, we did these:

• Heidi. I voted for this to achieve Closure -- she was a weird side character who we'd just gotten two back-to-back staggering revelations about.
• Roswita (book scene). Again, I voted for this for Closure. Our dismissal from her service was a major turning point for Mathilde, and having a real conversation with her, about herself, her father, and rulership, was something I was jumping up and down for, to properly bookend that narrative arc.
• Karak Kadrin. I didn't vote for this, but I'd call it Closure/Discovery: it was closure on Alkharad, closure on the tense relationship with the Slayer Keep that people had been wondering about since Belegar's showdown with the High King, and interest in how exactly a grudge-erasing works, since we didn't get to see it at Karaz-a-Karak.
• Kragg the Grim. Pure Engagement. We love Kragg. I love Kragg. I have made no secret of my desire to adopt him as our curmudgeonly grandpa. Like 80% of my desire for Mathilde to have a reproductively viable relationship is so that I can get the scene where we drop a baby on his lap and he reacts to that. I have a hard time not pushing the Kragg button any time it's available.
• Kasmir. Closure. We'd wondered what the hell was up with him for a while.

And the four solid frontrunners this time (there is a gap of 20 votes between 4th place and 5th place, larger than the gap between 1st and 4th):

• Belegar. Engagement. Our boss is having a rough time. We want to understand it.
• Algard. Closure/Engagement. We paid good Favour to get our other boss out here; he is a really neat character that people enjoy seeing, and also this turn we have done something relevant to his interests. Before he goes back to Altdorf and his busy schedule, people want to talk to him about it.
• Heidi. Engagement. People love Heidi. People fear Heidi. Heidi doesn't care. Heidi gives no fucks. Heidi is the Chosen of Ranald. (Also, if this quest keeps going, this baby might be our sovereign one day.)
• Edda. Discovery/Engagement. We've been curious about her for a while, and the situation with the Undumgi is providing fuel for that. Also, people want to engage with the weaving situation.

And the three strongest contenders for fifth place, at time of writing:

• Roswita (battle wizard scene). Engagement. People like Roswita now and are curious about the Sylvanian situation.
• Stirland fief. Closure. We haven't been back since we became a Magister. What's going on? How has our steward done in our absence? Is it still a shithole, or did the economic improvements we paid for make a difference? It's a common question that people have when new to the thread: what happened to the fief?
• Oswald Oswaldson. Discovery, with a hint of Engagement. What is this mad lad's deal? Who is the man behind the memes? What did his cat do to get busted down to Corporal?

From this survey I observe the following two things:

• Discovery is really hard to get off the ground without other hooks. People in this thread are saying "I don't want to spend a social action on someone who just exists near me," and I see where they're coming from. With limited time for the QM to write, we have to decide what to focus on, and selling pure Discovery is basically impossible: it can get support, however, if there is a mix-in of more recent events that questers want to Engage with or get Closure on (cf. the Edda/Karak Kadrin votes).
• Questers will jump hard for social scenes that give rewards/information that they're going to get anyway. Last turn we went to Karak Kadrin, despite the fact that we were getting the Dwarf Favour anyway; this turn we're hanging out with Edda to investigate the weaver situation, despite the fact that the EIC is giving us that information anyway, and we are strongly considering hanging out with Roswita, despite the fact that we're going to get information about the Sylvanian campaign anyway. @noliar made a couple of posts annoyed about this: I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I think he feels it's an action tax, since we already paid EIC actions to get that information and now we're paying social actions to get it slightly sooner. I am not sure what to make of it, other than the hypothesis "if we're going to get rewarded or infodumped, we prefer that it happen onscreen so that we can bask in our awesomeness/smugness."

Now, obviously, I'm generalizing from very few data points, a Statistics Sin for which I will undoubtedly be sent to Science Hell. But this has been nagging at me since I woke up, and as I processed it internally, I figured the thread might appreciate it as well.

notanautomaton said:

Lord Magister Lord Loremaster Mathilde Weber, I think.

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You can call it Super Wizard Grey for short.

[X] No. Mathilde's dragon skull chair belongs only to Mathilde.

[X] King Belegar, to try to get some idea of where he's at with his crisis of faith.
[X] Roswita, as she rides out the chaos of the influx of Battle Wizards.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to be present for the birth of her child

LockedMind said:

Wait, what? Our fief is winning 5th spot? Interaction with goats and a man-with-slightly-larger-herd over Roswita and Oswald?

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It's just...I get it. It's ours. It was given to us by Abelheim, which makes it precious in its own way, the first thing, the most tangible thing, we have from him. This is the man where we wear his spare hat everywhere. He gave us this. We don't look in on it often, but...

[X] Roswita, as she rides out the chaos of the influx of Battle Wizards.
[X] Kasmir, to see if he rejoined the Council of Stirland.
[X] The Amber College, to see how your donation of Lustrian eggs is going.
[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] Algard, reporting the Skaven Civil War in person instead of in writing.
[X] No. Mathilde's dragon skull chair belongs only to Mathilde.

Karugus said:

I honestly assumed it was almost entirely converted animals and humans. No skeezy stuff needed. I mean, I'm pretty sure some beastmen are explicitly just mutated beasts (there is after all the infamous beastmen population density map and Warhammer's Antarctic). It doesn't make sense to not just throw woodland critters at the Herdstones or even just try and domesticate some breeds of animals to expose to warpstone as needed for a sustainable population source.

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Not fucked up enough. That's too standard for fantasy to work in this Grim Darkness of the the past.

BoneyM said:

You pause, so that the possibility of suffering needfully is properly considered. "If it is your choice to reciprocate, I would like to know of Clan Mors."

"There is no such Clan!" Is his immediate answer, and though he's kept himself from moving his frame is suddenly quivering with energy.

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Alliterate said:

We have the same enemies.
This will remain just between us.
You can trust me.

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I am thinking of some more believable lies.
Let's consider the situation:
We got him in confinement for 6 months already. So during our next action he will be anywhere between 6-12 months inside there.
He has likely learned nothing of what happened outside since.

He has only emotionally reacted when we did not call Mors a traitor Clan.

So one day we walk inside looking a bit more harried than usual, though trying to hide it.
Lies:
1) Mors took out Skryre.
2) Eshin is hardpressed since they are now alone.
3) We are now faced with potentially facing a (more) united underground of Mors against 8Peaks.
4) We only want the language to better counteract Mors, promise.

Adjust for factions as necessary depending on what Dreng finds during scouting.

[X] Oswald Oswaldson, newly-minted Chief Bombardier of the Undumgi
Kinda wanna see what's up with this guy.
[X] Check in on your fief in Stirland.

Night said:

It's just...I get it. It's ours. It was given to us by Abelheim, which makes it precious in its own way, the first thing, the most tangible thing, we have from him. This is the man where we wear his spare hat everywhere. He gave us this. We don't look in on it often, but...

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It's not really about Abelheim. I don't really think about him these days, though not in a bad way. I want to see the fief because it's our fief, and benevolent neglect only works if you stop in now and again to make sure that it's staying benevolent, and the steward isn't getting up to anything, or there aren't beastmen on the hills, or nobody's fallen to the ruinous powers, or taken a suspiciously talented and pretty wife who seems to care an awful lot about what sunlight does to her complexion.

[X] King Belegar, to try to get some idea of where he's at with his crisis of faith.
[X] Algard, reporting the Skaven Civil War in person instead of in writing.
[X] Roswita, as she rides out the chaos of the influx of Battle Wizards.
[X] Empress 'Heidi', to be present for the birth of her child
[X] No. Mathilde's dragon skull chair belongs only to Mathilde.

FallenPears said:

Seraphon.

We must steal Malekith's dragon

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We already have an in with nagarythe... Maybe if we crit hard enough to get Alith Anar

picklepikkl said:

I mean, I would classify myself as a cross between that and "I want to see if any minor characters are cool enough to get promoted to major characters, like what happened to Markus, Anton, and Johann."

That said, "more time with favorites" has an obvious structural advantage: there is a central group of popular shiny characters (who are not necessarily the same as the main cast, cf. Heidi), whereas the "more characterization for minor characters" people are, well, spread out among the minor characters. Alas, I do not have a clever solution for this; please do not take my frustration with the natural phenomena at play here with frustration at/criticism of you or how you have structured the voting.

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The solution for this, of course, is for Boney to write more.

Now, hear me out. This is not unachievable. We just need to clone Boney and brainwash his clones...

chocolote12 said:

It's not really about Abelheim. I don't really think about him these days, though not in a bad way. I want to see the fief because it's our fief, and benevolent neglect only works if you stop in now and again to make sure that it's staying benevolent, and the steward isn't getting up to anything, or there aren't beastmen on the hills, or nobody's fallen to the ruinous powers, or taken a suspiciously talented and pretty wife who seems to care an awful lot about what sunlight does to her complexion.

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Honestly, I want to go to the fief in part because
But yeah, a bit of "make sure nothing's caught fire in a permanent way and that our steward is doing their job" isn't amiss. It's closure.