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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Omegahugger said:
Then we remake it as Umbramancy! Good idea too, the Necromancy brand has a lot of negative associations to it.
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Umbramancy is pretty weak. Why bother sticking Dhar in for its own sake when we can get stronger and more reliable benefits without it?
guyfromtheplace1 said:
Set it to Protector whenever not trying to scout or steal that artefact the Ice Witches want?
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It's not that variable. We'll have it on one setting for the entirety of the expedition, unless we get stuck in.

(The protector is still the best choice despite that, of course.)
 
[X] A Picnic in the Fields
[X] A Scenic Hike

We already know she's okay with Ranald, which reduces the major argument for dice. I'd recommend somewhere private-ish so they don't have to worry about being overheard or something, which argues against taking her out to dinner. Past that I'd lean toward a picnic in the fields because that'd be more comfortable for her, but I don't think it's a huge problem if the hike wins.

Brainstorming other options:

[] Book-Hunting

Join forces to ransack the Karak's newest bookstore. "Look what I found" is the perfect excuse for almost any topic of discussion, including romance.

Rationale: It's also a good way to find out what she'd actually want in a relationship. What does she like in a partner? Will our frequent business trips bother her? Will she worry about us risking our life constantly?

[] Black Ops

Help her prank one of her halfling coworkers. You need to figure out if your sense of humor actually annoys her or if she's mugging for your benefit.

Rationale: Exactly what it says on the tin. I think she's playing along when she rolls her eyes at our jokes, but a lot of others read that as her being "no fun" or think she's trying to "puncture Mathilde's ego". This would be a good way to dig into what appears to be one of the thread's primary complaints with a Panoramia romance option.

@BoneyM Date suggestions!
 
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Vebyast said:
[X] A Picnic in the Fields
[X] A Scenic Hike

We already know she's okay with Ranald, which reduces the major argument for dice. I'd recommend somewhere private-ish so they don't have to worry about being overheard or something, which argues against taking her out to dinner. Past that I'd lean toward a picnic in the fields because that'd be more comfortable for her, but I don't think it's a huge problem if the hike wins.

Brainstorming other options:

[] Book-Hunting

Join forces to ransack the Karak's newest bookstore. "Look what I found" is the perfect excuse for almost any topic of discussion, including romance.

Rationale: It's also a good way to find out what she'd actually want in a relationship. What would she want in a relationship? Will our frequent business trips bother her? Will she worry about us risking our life constantly?

[] Black Ops

Help her prank one of her halfling coworkers. You need to figure out if your sense of humor actually annoys her or if she's mugging for your benefit.

Rationale: Exactly what it says on the tin. I think she's playing along when she rolls her eyes at our jokes, but a lot of others read that as her being "no fun" or think she's trying to "puncture Mathilde's ego". This would be a good way to dig into what appears to be one of the thread's primary complaints with a Panoramia romance option.

@BoneyM Date suggestions!
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They both fit as 'fun ways to spend time together' and might reveal more about Panoramia as a person but they're not really date-y.
 
BoneyM said:
They both fit as 'fun ways to spend time together' and might reveal more about Panoramia as a person but they're not really date-y.
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Hmm. Fair. I guess save those for a later round, then.

Hard to come up with classically date-y options that'd dig into her sense of humor.

[] Theater

A troupe of halfling thespians has come to the Karak with their most recent play.

Rationale: Basically going to the movies together. I have no idea if the Halflings have invented the rom-com, but romances and comedies are both foundational forms, and either of them could prompt an interesting scene that'd reveal useful information about Panoramia as a person. edit: Since you can choose the plot of the play with almost no constraints, this is an excuse to dig into effectively any topic you want to.

@BoneyM Better?

Edit: I suppose you'd already thought of that one, on further thought. /shrug
 
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BoneyM said:
Belegar's personal quarters are in a state of uncertainty, as debate amongst Clan Angrund is focused on whether the Royal Clan should be housed in close proximity to the current de facto Throne Room in Karag Lhune, the original de jure Throne Room under the Citadel, or somewhere else to establish a completely new beginning for the reborn Karak.
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Dwarves can act decisively, but one of the places they dither forever is when trying to figure out, "But what would our Ancestors have done?" I sort of think the religion of the Ancestor-Gods fails in one vital respect. For each of the Ancestor-Gods, there should be a parable or story about the time that God made a mistake and had to correct themselves.

Huh, I wonder if that's the Ancestor-God "heresy", the secret story of the time they messed up, passed carefully between acolytes who know the greater population would never accept it or the lesson they're trying to teach.


Princess Edda is..." he hesitates. "...talented in her niche, but less flxible than perhaps she could be. But as the price for Karak Izor's assistance, it's a deal I don't regret.
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Haha, I posted something very like this not too long ago. (But less delicate.)

Speaking of politics, Belegar has one major card left to play when it comes to alliances... marriage. I'm sure he's thinking about it and thinking hard, but understandably it's probably something he discusses only with the elders of his own clan. It's not something where you want to start rumors.

Still, I can understand why he's waiting by looking it from the other side. The more years pass with K8P still standing, the longer it seems like the reconquest is real and that Belegar is king to stay. Nobody wants to send their daughter off to marry into a doomed kingdom. Give it a couple of decades and he looks like a more valuable match, which means that he can get a better marriage alliance. Though you have to balance that against, everyone wants him to have an heir.

(Sorry, I know that's all only tangentially related to the Turn update, but the thoughts they sparked.)

"Least favoured, hah. And then what happens once there were only two Princes left... there's something rotten in the foundations of that Clan, and I pray the Ancestors give Ulthar strength enough to root it out, and that Alrik manages to rediscover his honour long enough to shave his head and let the Throne pass to Ulthar.
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It would be kind of interesting to see King Alrik someday. I've always suspected there must be dwarves who are like, "Regaining your honour is great, but you know what's better? Being alive." It's an ethos.

Last we heard from Kraka Drakk, they had collapsed the mountain itself to take as many of the hordes with them as possible. And Karag Dum had been founded right at the line between the steppes and the Chaos Wastes, but the Great War had pushed that line as far south as Praag and it still shows no sign of receding. As for Karak Vlag... we still don't know. It's as if it was never founded. Not even the watchtowers that used to line the pass remain, nor any sign they were ever built. So not only did we lose our newly rediscovered kin, but we lost major Holds for the first time since the fall of Karak Azgal, and we didn't have enough influence in the world to even know their final moments, or who to level the Grudge against. Thorgrim's Age of Vengeance stopped being about hope and started to be about..." He sighs. "Settling our affairs as best we can before we disappear forever, and have to answer to the Ancestors for what has become of the Empire that They left us."
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I looked up Karak Vlag on the wiki. What happened to it was pretty damn grim. Hey, you know what sounds great? Moving south.

You nod solemnly, having seen that attitude yourself, from Thorgrim himself and from Kragg and from so many others. A sense of doomed fatalism, that doing all in their power isn't enough to turn back the tide, and all it will accomplish is being able to meet their Ancestors without too much shame. "So the assumption is that Karag Dum is doomed," you say. "Zhufbar and Karak Kadrin will do their duty and invest expertise and resources, but not many Dwarves, because that is the one loss they can least afford."

"If all I had at my disposal were Dwarves, I'd do the same," Belegar says frankly. "But for all the bravery and artifice of the Dwarves, it was men that held the line at the Battle of Karag Nar and the Battle of the Citadel, it is men that hold Death Pass and keep us connected to the Karaz Ankor, and it was a joint project between the Runesmiths and the Colleges that shattered Waaagh Birdmuncha. If the Karaz Ankor has a future, it is alongside the men of the Empire, as High King Kurgan Ironbeard decreed so long ago. So I sent you."
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After all, the Colleges can make another Mathilde in just a few decades.

There's still a lot of distance to cover vertically and horizontally, especially since the route carefully skirts the ruins of Karak Varn. But so far everything is going exactly as planned. The tricky part will come when it comes time to design the mechanisms to allow boats to make the trip between the Aver Reach below and the Black Water high above, especially since every supervisor seems to have his own answer for how to accomplish that. Lock flights or staircase locks are the most obvious solutions, but others are championing inclined plane canals, boat lifts, caisson locks, and shaft locks, and each champion is able to come up with a long list of drawbacks to every solution but theirs. The ultimate problem seems to be that this is a joint project between Barak Varr and Zhufbar, and both consider themselves to be the ones best suited to overcoming the technical problems: Barak Varr as champion of the rivers, and Zhufbar as the foremost technologists of the Karaz Ankor. You hope that something is able to be worked out soon.
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Yeah, seems like a problem if they can't decide how to actually make the jump. I notice the update didn't mention a timeline either... not that I expect any of this to be fast. A project like this can take decades easy. I wonder if Wilhelmina quite understood that when she got into this. After all, she's no engineer.
 
[X] Drinks and Dice

People are going on and on about Ranald this and Ranald that - but dicing is only half of the matter, and Drinks are just as important. Am I the only one who remembers a bunch of people going ga-ga over the possibility of getting into a deeply involved discussion over the finer merits of this or that ale/stout/etc with Belegar?

Sure Panoramia isn't Belegar, but that doesn't mean she wont have some neat insights to share!
 
Vebyast said:
Hmm. Fair. I guess save those for a later round, then.

Hard to come up with classically date-y options that'd dig into her sense of humor.

[] Theater

A troupe of halfling thespians has come to the Karak with their most recent play.

Rationale: Basically going to the movies together. I have no idea if the Halflings have invented the rom-com, but romances and comedies are both foundational forms, and either of them could prompt an interesting scene that'd reveal useful information about Panoramia as a person. edit: Since you can choose the plot of the play with almost no constraints, this is an excuse to dig into effectively any topic you want to.

@BoneyM Better?
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This would inescapably cost me several days as I dig up my book of Medieval miracle plays to construct a reference that nobody on this side of the Treaty of Westphalia is likely to get. Also it would mean that most of the spotlight would be on the Halflings, rather than Panoramia and Mathilde.
 
BoneyM said:
But when we're speaking of Old Holds, Karag Dum was definitely an Old Hold, and even Karaz-a-Karak considers them arrogant. Even in desperation, their envoy only treats with Karak Kadrin and Zhufbar and Karaz-a-Karak - he even snubbed Barak Varr, as Karag Dum considers them weakened by their dependence on trade.
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Er, @BoneyM, is the envoy mentioned here Borek or someone historical?

BoneyM said:
As for Karak Vlag... we still don't know. It's as if it was never founded. Not even the watchtowers that used to line the pass remain, nor any sign they were ever built.
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Something that came to mind... so, the whole hold disappeared, right? And any sign it had ever even been built. Did any coins they had minted that were in other holds disappear?


[X] A Scenic Hike
 
BoneyM said:
This would inescapably cost me several days as I dig up my book of Medieval miracle plays to construct a reference that nobody on this side of the Treaty of Westphalia is likely to get. Also it would mean that most of the spotlight would be on the Halflings, rather than Panoramia and Mathilde.
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Siual and I had an extended discussion with reference to Grotius (1625) on the laws of war as they might apply to Abelhelm's Sylvania campaign earlier in this thread, so I think that's at least two people who might get jokes on the other side of the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) :D
 
Mopman43 said:
Something that came to mind... so, the whole hold disappeared, right? And any sign it had ever even been built. Did any coins they had minted that were in other holds disappear?
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This one is canon and you can look it up on the wiki. Basically, everyone inside the hold got sucked into hell to be tortured and enslaved forever. The dwarfs who were in battle outside the hold when it happened tried to make their escape, but they got cut off by Chaos armies and killed to the last dwarf so that no one lived to tell the tale of what happened. I mean, could always be different in the quest... but it probably isn't.
 
Briefvoice said:
This one is canon and you can look it up on the wiki. Basically, everyone inside the hold got sucked into hell to be tortured and enslaved forever. The dwarfs who were in battle outside the hold when it happened tried to make their escape, but they got cut off by Chaos armies and killed to the last dwarf so that no one lived to tell the tale of what happened. I mean, could always be different in the quest... but it probably isn't.
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I was aware it disappeared, I was unaware that it was ever revealed what actually happened to it?

Edit: You say to look it up on the wiki, but the wiki doesn't say any of that?
 
Briefvoice said:
It would be kind of interesting to see King Alrik someday. I've always suspected there must be dwarves who are like, "Regaining your honour is great, but you know what's better? Being alive." It's an ethos.
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Sadly from what I an get from the Wiki that is not Alrik as all, he is noted for being an extremely devoted traditionalist even more than his traditionalist father before him. From what I can tell Alrik is probably an extreme example of the phenomenon discussed of "Young Hold's acting super traditionalist because Old Holds shame them" he makes a big deal about keeping their traditions despite having to trade with other races who come their.

This is at least probably part of his problem with the 'least favored prince' who instead of being highly traditionalist like him became a ranger which is basically as non-traditional as a dwarf is allowed to be without being thrown out of the hold. Then to top it all off that Ranger ends up being a part of the greatest bit of Dwarven reclamation in the last several thousand years if not ever because which succeeds in large part because of non-traditional ways.

Then he ends up the only heir he has left... I don't think he is very happy right now to say the least.
 
masterofmadness said:
Sadly from what I an get from the Wiki that is not Alrik as all, he is noted for being an extremely devoted traditionalist even more than his traditionalist father before him. From what I can tell Alrik is probably an extreme example of the phenomenon discussed of "Young Hold's acting super traditionalist because Old Holds shame them" he makes a big deal about keeping their traditions despite having to trade with other races who come their.

This is at least probably part of his problem with the 'least favored prince' who instead of being highly traditionalist like him became a ranger which is basically as non-traditional as a dwarf is allowed to be without being thrown out of the hold. Then to top it all off that Ranger ends up being a part of the greatest bit of Dwarven reclamation in the last several thousand years if not ever because which succeeds in large part because of non-traditional ways.

Then he ends up the only heir he has left... I don't think he is very happy right now to say the least.
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Whatever the reason for his refusal to abdicate and go slayer, the situation at Karak Hirn gets more and more concerning the more we learn about it. It's one thing to know that people disapprove of Alrik's decision, but to have someone like Belegar- an incredibly radical and non-traditional dwarf- admit that there's something rotten with whole clan and wish he'd just hurry up and go slayer is a major warning sign. It indicates levels of discontent that would mean declarations of war or open rebellion if humans were involved, and while dwarves don't traditionally go for that sort of thing even they have limits. We've all talked about a potential dwarven schism between Thorgrim and Belegar, but I'm increasingly wondering if Karak Hirn might be the flashpoint for such a thing instead.
 
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NSMS said:
Whatever the reason for his refusal to abdicate and go slayer, the situation at Karak Hirn gets more and more concerning the more we learn about it. It's one thing to know that people disapprove of Alrik's decision, but to have someone like Belegar- an incredibly radical and non-traditional dwarf- admit that there's something rotten with whole clan and wish he'd just hurry up and go slayer is a major warning sign. It indicates levels of discontent that would mean declarations of war or open rebellion if humans were involved, and while dwarves don't traditionally go for that sort of thing even they have limits. We've all talked about a potential dwarven schism between Thorgrim and Belegar, but I'm increasingly wondering if Karak Hirn might be the flashpoint for such a thing instead.
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We could always assassinate Alrik, pin it on Eshin. Dwarfs are not very good at intrigue and a Young Hold would not have the sort of runic defences that a mage might have to worry about.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
a skaven already made lore of Sneaky-Sneak.

face it, there just isn't any good real-estate in the dhar part of the warp left.
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The Lore of Sneaky-Sneak, yes.

The Lore of blurring the lines between life and death, memory and reality, past and present to make a semi-real apparition* shaped by what people thought a person was by making the world itself forget that they ever died, no.
*literal apparition

chocolote12 said:
Umbramancy is pretty weak. Why bother sticking Dhar in for its own sake when we can get stronger and more reliable benefits without it?
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Under normal circumstances Dhar is horrifically powerful, but unreliable and unstable.

But with the First Secret, you ignore everything after the "but".

ninjafish said:
This is a good idea, now vote for it.
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How exactly am I supposed to do that, this is just a date vot-!!!

[ ] Past loves rekindled - Take Panoramia on a trip to see if a combination of Ulgu and Ghyr( = D h a r) can remake images of past love stories in the real world, starting with the most infamous couple to ever grace Eastern Stirland.

This is like going to the movies to see a romcom except in real life, with dark magic and statistically speaking fewer lives are ruined!
 
I like the drinking and dicing because it introduces an important part of Mathilde's life, and I would very much like to see how Panoramia reacts to it. Also also because maybe we could find out what Ranald thinks of her.
 
NSMS said:
Whatever the reason for his refusal to abdicate and go slayer, the situation at Karak Hirn gets more and more concerning the more we learn about it. It's one thing to know that people disapprove of Alrik's decision, but to have someone like Belegar- an incredibly radical and non-traditional dwarf- admit that there's something rotten with whole clan and wish he'd just hurry up and go slayer is a major warning sign. It indicates levels of discontent that would mean declarations of war or open rebellion if humans were involved, and while dwarves don't traditionally go for that sort of thing even they have limits. We've all talked about a potential dwarven schism between Thorgrim and Belegar, but I'm increasingly wondering if Karak Hirn might be the flashpoint for such a thing instead.
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Why though? Everyone Mathilde heard talking about it thinks that Alrik is the one in the wrong here, why would Thorgrim get into conflict over this? Because he doesn't force a King to abdicate? ( a power that I suspect Thorgrim only theoretically possess)
 
I would legitimately be up for spending some AP figuring out what's happening in Karak Hirn, since it seems to be approaching the threshold where a "tragic accident" might be a legitimately helpful thing to arrange.

After the expedition, of course.
 
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