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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Zero Gravitas said:
Hmm... armor with a rune of sorcery would be worth it if the Winds could be selectively filtered.

Otherwise... well there's the shadow armor which is pretty good at Magic 8.
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Well, shadow armour is ok mundane armour, but it's not twenty five point runic armor. Assuming one rune had to be applied to make it possible to freely cast spells while using it, and that soaked up all the extra favour above a basic item, a Master Rune of Adamant and a Rune of Preservation would make Mathilde enormously more survivable. Under old table top rules, T10 just made you immune to the attacks of insufficiently strong enemies.

Zaratustra said:
Again, you are moving the goalposts and simultaneously ignoring half of that conversation to state you opinion as absolute fact, the thing that brought up that passage was this :


It wasn't a batlant hint on the protector, but him trying to explain why we didn't get favour before people inevitably asked about it.
Answer lack of aundience, the thing Protector solves, because the whole favour mechaninc is based around groups being awere af how much they owe us, and the protector makes everyone perfectly aware of how much they owe us isntead of it fading into obscurity.
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I'm not moving the goalposts at all. I also note how you're stripping the formatting which emphasises dwarf and assassination. Given that emphasis, we have no reason to believe that it's about the lack of audience rather than about what dwarves think of assassination, seeing as the post saying nothing about an audience, and a lack of audience should apply equally as much to any other species, as they can't give credit for something they're unaware of, so wouldn't be a reason to underline and bold the word dwarf.

I also encourage you to read what I wrote, and note how words like 'seems' appear in it, and consider what that means in terms of whether I'm stating something as absolute fact.
 
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Zaratustra said:
It wasn't a batlant hint on the protector, but him trying to explain why we didn't get favour before people inevitably asked about it.
Answer lack of aundience, the thing Protector solves, because the whole favour mechaninc is based around groups being awere af how much they owe us, and the protector makes everyone perfectly aware of how much they owe us isntead of it fading into obscurity.
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Did you just ignore emphasis on "dwarf" and "assassinations"? Different groups have different level of appreciation for different deeds. Dwarfs don't really like assassinations and thus don't give a lot of favor for them.
 
My thoughts on next turn's plan:

Max - Have him help Johann with Skaven Guns. He's a trained engineer in a way Johann isn't, and he's patient, which is likely to help with slow methodical testing.
Johann - Undecided
EIC - Handlers, or maybe K8P Undumgi focus if the situation there shifts for the worse.
Ducklings - Help Johann/Max with the Ratling Gun, or help Adela get an engineering teacher. Gotri's super radical, he'd go for it.

Mathilde 1: Give the Tower night/storm capabilities. Already discussed at length, and it's our assigned task.

Mathilde 2: Learn Shroud of Invisibility. Not the double partial action, because to be frank we want to pick up Shroud eventually anyway, and it has a lower DC to learn. I want to minimize chances of a flub leading to a negatrait.


Mathilde 3: Learn Queekish. We need to start showing results from our captive, and with the Coin, we should be able to make good progress.

The Coin: Deceiver
• The Grey College already has a Queekish translation, but due to politics and her rivals, Mathilde has not been given access.
• The fools at the College refuses to believe her account of the situation with Mors, even as she tries to convince them to wipe them out while they're cut off from support.
• Mors is currently recovering quickly, and it looks like there is less fighting between them and the Black Krag than expected.
• If she could read the documents she captures from Mors, she could better direct the dwarves to crush them. She would have to hide her aquisition of Information beyond her clearance level from the College.

Mathilde 4: "Free Action". Current candidates are:
• Expand the shrine into a temple of the Gambler.
• Teach Wolf to talk.
• AV research.

Construction: Secure our rooms before eshin knifes us to death and steals all our stuff.
Serenity: Vampire Mists, since refreshing Waagh info is easier than Vampire info.
 
vsh said:
I assure you I'm not missing this particular point. It's true that dwarves of today would be safer and more comfortable living in Everpeak. Still, Everpeak subscribes to "going out with a bang" philosophy: there is no future in mortal lands for those clans if Thorgrim has its way. You can't grow the seeds of hope in Karaz Ankor that exists today; or if you can, against the wishes of higher-ups, K8P is still a better place to do it.
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One big thing K8P allows for is that its king could conceivably compete with the king of Everpeak for the position of Dwarf High King. Rather than having it go to Grudgebearer's successor when he dies with no question, Belegar could stand forth as a prospective High King.

It would require him to gather a lot of favour amongst all the holds, but it would put him in a position to truly give the dwarfs a future.
 
For next turn, I'm considering that we should just tell Johann to keep on punching.

This is for three reasons.

The first is that him being a better combatant will make it easier to bring him with Mathilde on looting expeditions.

The second is that I want Johann to stick around long term, and building this kind of relationship with a dwarven institution encourages that.

The third is that it's hilarious, and seeing what a Gold Magister, from a wind associated with state transformations, with a focus on the physical could do with dwarven martial arts training could go in all sorts of hilarious directions.

Long term, if he can leverage a connection with the priests of Grungni into one with the priests of Smednir, that could be really interesting, as the path of magical transhumanism that Johann has embarked on would seem to be pretty directly applicable to the lore of the smelter of ore, particularly if there are sub-sects of his Cult that try to smelt themselves into a finer form.
 
If "have Johann continue his punching lesson" is an available action next turn, then it's one of the strongest candidates, yes.

The only question is if we have to explicitly vote for it or if they now count as part of Johann's "free time".
 
Redshirt Army said:
My thoughts on next turn's plan:

Max - Have him help Johann with Skaven Guns. He's a trained engineer in a way Johann isn't, and he's patient, which is likely to help with slow methodical testing.
Johann - Undecided
EIC - Handlers, or maybe K8P Undumgi focus if the situation there shifts for the worse.
Ducklings - Help Johann/Max with the Ratling Gun, or help Adela get an engineering teacher. Gotri's super radical, he'd go for it.

Mathilde 1: Give the Tower night/storm capabilities. Already discussed at length, and it's our assigned task.

Mathilde 2: Learn Shroud of Invisibility. Not the double partial action, because to be frank we want to pick up Shroud eventually anyway, and it has a lower DC to learn. I want to minimize chances of a flub leading to a negatrait.


Mathilde 3: Learn Queekish. We need to start showing results from our captive, and with the Coin, we should be able to make good progress.

The Coin: Deceiver
• The Grey College already has a Queekish translation, but due to politics and her rivals, Mathilde has not been given access.
• The fools at the College refuses to believe her account of the situation with Mors, even as she tries to convince them to wipe them out while they're cut off from support.
• Mors is currently recovering quickly, and it looks like there is less fighting between them and the Black Krag than expected.
• If she could read the documents she captures from Mors, she could better direct the dwarves to crush them. She would have to hide her aquisition of Information beyond her clearance level from the College.

Mathilde 4: "Free Action". Current candidates are:
• Expand the shrine into a temple of the Gambler.
• Teach Wolf to talk.
• AV research.

Construction: Secure our rooms before eshin knifes us to death and steals all our stuff.
Serenity: Vampire Mists, since refreshing Waagh info is easier than Vampire info.
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I really do not like those ratling gun actions. It's classified and I don't think Max or any other journeymen should be thrown at that problem. If we are not telling them about something in the weekly action I think it's safe to say they shouldn't be involved in it. We can likely drag Max or Johann into helping us with getting our tower night/storm ready.
 
Redshirt Army said:
If "have Johann continue his punching lesson" is an available action next turn, then it's one of the strongest candidates, yes.

The only question is if we have to explicitly vote for it or if they now count as part of Johann's "free time".
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Just because something is listed doesn't mean it won't get worked on if we don't order it.
 
kingreaper said:
Just because something is listed doesn't mean it won't get worked on if we don't order it.
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It certainly means that it will get worked on an awful lot less though. I think that employees are expected to put at least half if not more of their time into their tasks. Training under a dwarven punch master seems like a full time job as well, not something you do in your time off when you can fit it in.
 
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Walliseatscheese said:
Max has put that aside to have someone he can pout on in regards to not being able to shoot magic from a gyrocopter due to lack of targets.
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True, but Max might be more irritable now on account of his second time staring into nothing from a gyrocopter thanks to lack of targets. Still, having the two of them work together in a controlled environment would be a good test of professionalism, but having them work on something as volatile as ratling gun is probably not ideal.
 
Redshirt Army said:
The Coin: Deceiver
• The Grey College already has a Queekish translation, but due to politics and her rivals, Mathilde has not been given access.
• The fools at the College refuses to believe her account of the situation with Mors, even as she tries to convince them to wipe them out while they're cut off from support.
• Mors is currently recovering quickly, and it looks like there is less fighting between them and the Black Krag than expected.
• If she could read the documents she captures from Mors, she could better direct the dwarves to crush them. She would have to hide her aquisition of Information beyond her clearance level from the College.
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I agree with most of this, but I am kind of concerned about using Deceiver to make falsifiable assertions about the strategic situation (the third bullet here). I worry about the documents blowing a hole in our story.

Apart from that, I like your plan as a whole, and the variant of it with the Temple to Ranald in the flex slot gets my vote.
 
Alratan said:
It certainly means that it will get worked on an awful lot less though. I think that employees are expected to put at least half if not more of their time into their tasks. Training under a dwarven punch master seems like a full time job as well, not something you do in your time off when you can fit it in.
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It also means that if we tell them to train, our employees aren't actually doing the job we hired them for. 😕

They are then a net drain on our office.
 
Quest said:
It also means that if we tell them to train, our employees aren't actually doing the job we hired them for. 😕
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I doubt that training under a Punch master is costing Johann 3AP every turn....

Infact, if the thread plans on hitting the Skaven hard after we get the Tower up, we should probably see if we could get Johann another 2 more Martial, so we can continue two-manning deep into Clan Skyre and Eshin territory.
 
Alratan said:
I'm not moving the goalposts at all. I also note how you're stripping the formatting which emphasises dwarf and assassination. Given that emphasis, we have no reason to believe that it's about the lack of audience rather than about what dwarves think of assassination, seeing as the post saying nothing about an audience, and a lack of audience should apply equally as much to any other species, as they can't give credit for something they're unaware of, so wouldn't be a reason to underline and bold the word dwarf.

I also encourage you to read what I wrote, and note how words like 'seems' appear in it, and consider what that means in terms of whether I'm stating something as absolute fact.
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LockedMind said:
Did you just ignore emphasis on "dwarf" and "assassinations"? Different groups have different level of appreciation for different deeds. Dwarfs don't really like assassinations and thus don't give a lot of favor for them.
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How do I put this, I think this is fundamental misunderstanding of what the Favor Mechanic represents.
There is a reason favor is closely tied to reputation, is a representation of how much of a group in general is awere of us, apreciates what we did and believes they owe us.
The reason we don't get favor for assassiations is because of how dwarves perceive them, but is not because they value the deeds less, but because they can't lionize it like other deeds.

Remenber it is a measure of how much the masses perveive us, if we kill a warboos in full view or honest combat that is something that spreads in song and dance, if we assassinate they don't quite have the value framework to judge it, the leader may be aware but it doesn't spread and so we get no favor.

And that is why Protector would be very helpfull here since it bypasses this whole thing and makes the masses aware of exactly what we did and how much it helped.
 
Redshirt Army said:
Max - Have him help Johann with Skaven Guns. He's a trained engineer in a way Johann isn't, and he's patient, which is likely to help with slow methodical testing.
Johann - Undecided
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If you're having Max help Johann as work, you might as well give Johann permission to devote all his time to it as well. The tower doesn't need either of them.
 
Quest said:
It also means that if we tell them to train, our employees aren't actually doing the job we hired them for. 😕

They are then a net drain on our office.
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You know, when we send people who work for me on training courses, I actually consider their professional development as part of their job, and the fact that they'll be better at their job as a result to be an advantage that makes it worth it, even ignoring morale benefits. When you send a rising star on an Executive MBA for a year, it's not a net drain, it's a net gain, as your investment in them should pay off in superior performance on their return.

If you see investing in your professional staff as a drain, you're making a mistake.

Andmeuths said:
I doubt that training under a Punch master is costing Johann 3AP every turn....

Infact, if the thread plans on hitting the Skaven hard after we get the Tower up, we should probably see if we could get Johann another 2 more Martial, so we can continue two-manning deep into Clan Skyre and Eshin territory.
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For thematic appropriateness, training under a punch master should really be costing him something like 7 AP a turn. In lots of media, becoming the apprentice of martial arts master is a 110% commitment, not something you fit in around your day job.

Personally, I'd lie to get Johann up to Martial 20, the impressive grade, as then he'll really be a punch wizard.
 
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Redshirt Army said:
• The Grey College already has a Queekish translation, but due to politics and her rivals, Mathilde has not been given access.
• The fools at the College refuses to believe her account of the situation with Mors, even as she tries to convince them to wipe them out while they're cut off from support.
• Mors is currently recovering quickly, and it looks like there is less fighting between them and the Black Krag than expected.
• If she could read the documents she captures from Mors, she could better direct the dwarves to crush them. She would have to hide her aquisition of Information beyond her clearance level from the College.
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I think the fourth lie is going too far. What if he asks to see these information?

The second and third also seen like jumping the gun. We have no reason to bring Mors into this, especially in the context of humans attacking the under-empire. It might trigger him and there is no need for that.

We just need to convince him that teaching us Skeevish isn't very dangerous which the first lie does.
 
Something else I'm considering about Johann's training, is that he's learning to make himself not into a weapon, but into a tool. A tool that can be a weapon, but something broader than that. Given that magic seems to be related to one's conception of oneself, I wonder what that would do to his relationship with Chamon and his Inflexible Magic Trait. It would be amusing for example, if, with his Gilded body, Johann can works out how to use Chamon to perform internal alchemy. I can imagine all sorts of self-buffs that a martial artist gold magician who has transformed their body into a tool of magical gold could invent.

There's also the distant possibility of further transhumanist rituals that build on a completely gilded body inspired by dwarven lore. Even though this may not happen, just the chance of it makes me think the investment is worth it. And, even better, if Johann works on this while on the clock and succeeds, part of the credit for what would be a radical new path for Gold Wizards would go to her.

All this would could be of significant strategic benefit to Karak Eight Peaks as well. A College-Monastery of Gold Wizard Martial Artists could be a rather useful thing. Particularly as there's a fair chance we'll be seeing a Cathyan monk or two passing through at some point.

But still, even disregarding all the above, I think that getting Johann's Martial to an impressive level opens up enough options for the future that it's worth doing it. He gained three martial this turn. If he can repeat that performance twice more then he'd be a force to be reckoned with - and I quite like the idea of Mathilde influencing her subordinates in Karak Eight Peaks so that it develops as a place for martial wizards.
 
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NuclearConsensus said:
Is this a good idea given that Max doesn't get along with Johann? Or is it some kind of test to see if they can put differences aside to work on important stuff?
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As mentioned this has been put aside, but did we ever actually figure out what it was Johann did to piss of Max?

Cause I'm kinda hoping it turns out that Johann is actually Max's master and after sending off his apprentice to journey the world and gain experience, proceeded to fuck with him by following like some golden troll of a mother hen.

'He knows what he did' indeed.

If the reason Max forgave Johann was that Johann is now a Magister 'again', I think the timing fits? Main problem I can think of is apparent Johann's age but, well, wizard.
 
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