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I would expect them to have hand guns considering that this expedition is going for best equipment possible.
I'm pretty sure that high-class dwarven crossbows are about as good as high-class dwarven guns. At least, the dwarves think so.

So going for guns would be a sidegrade, not an upgrade.
 
We didn't pull on her death magic iirc. We pulled on the actual dhar.
Yes, but doing so required knowledge of Shyish that we would not normally have without our big secret.
The normal procedure when a student miscasts is to stand back and pray, but recently you've done a fair bit of reading and thinking on the topic of unruly Shyish and you have no fear of Dhar. As the curdling energies within her start to concentrate in her jaw and reality begins to fray, you reach out and press your hand against her cheek, your will unable to prevent the magic from rebelling but able to at least command where it goes. As two awestruck students watch, you tear the miscast spell from Gretel's head and clutch it in your fist, where it immediately comes under the influence of Dwarven Runecraft and ignites into sullen purple flames.


Perhaps we have observed enough of wind of metal and life to be able to do something with them, but others are unlikely.
 
It doesn't take very long to learn to use a gun.
fictionfan, there is a massive difference between what you can achieve with several decades of practice with a crossbow versus a few months of practice with a gun. There is not a single possibility that it'd be worth throwing away that sheer amount of skill and experience for whatever advantages a handgun has over a crossbow.
 
From my experiences in Sylvania, it will make spells trickier to control and make them go bad worse than they otherwise would. And remember - don't touch the bad magic. There's no circumstance so bad that Dhar can't make worse. Questions?"
If a wizard uses dhar in some desperate situation do you think that we could dye their hair orange and hope they die before the end of the expedition?
 
If a wizard uses dhar in some desperate situation do you think that we could dye their hair orange and hope they die before the end of the expedition?

If they do it once in extremis and don't run from the consequences it's not necessarily a death sentence, otherwise it'd be pushing everyone that makes a mistake into going full Black Magister. Mathilde's responsibility in that scenario would be to bring them back to the Colleges to be judged.
 
[X] Lead only the Wizards

Between herself and the whole pile of wizards, representing six of the other colleges, this seems like it might be one of the biggest concentrations of spell power in history. So I worry that dividing her attention would end badly even if one of the wizards wasn't potentially a face eating monster from hell , and even if she wasn't walking into a place where magic and the laws of physics might start to behave in new and exciting ways.
 
[X] Lead only the Wizards

Between herself and the whole pile of wizards, representing six of the other colleges, this seems like it might be one of the biggest concentrations of spell power in history. So I worry that dividing her attention would end badly even if one of the wizards wasn't potentially a face eating monster from hell , and even if she wasn't walking into a place where magic and the laws of physics might start to behave in new and exciting ways.
Except for the last war against Chaos. Or the Night of a Thousand Arcane Duels. Or what has been happening in Sylvania after we shut down the College of Necromancy. Or pretty much any major war involving Elves. Or Nagash on a warpath. Or a Slann doing anything ever.

Also, it's actually 7 colleges that are being represented here.
 
What's the primary reasoning against leading the Knightly Orders? People want to be more actively involved in the field ops, so would rather have less day to day responsibilities? I thought people we're planning on focusing on socials during the trip: if so the leadership position is probably really good for that.
People are scared of responsibility and having to make decisions.
 
People are scared of responsibility and having to make decisions.
I'm on the pro Knightly Order side but I think you're being unfair here, we already have commanding the Wizards and the Ice Witch's fetch quest on our plate on top of using Rite of Way to help the expedition across difficult terrain. Many people are concerned that if we take on more duties Mathilde may be unable to give those duties the attention they require as well as diverting attention from our current responsibilities.

In addition to that is the fact that Boney has been adamant that our choices cannot increase the amount of words written, only what those words are about. Every word Boney writes about the Knights is a word not about something else, and if people would rather vote for something other than Knights to ensure the the Wizards or Asarnil get more screentime then that's a perfectly valid choice.
 
What's the primary reasoning against leading the Knightly Orders? People want to be more actively involved in the field ops, so would rather have less day to day responsibilities? I thought people we're planning on focusing on socials during the trip: if so the leadership position is probably really good for that.

I'm not really interested in leading them, they have perfectly good leaders who can do their jobs. There is nothing in the leading of monstrous cavalry that requires Mathilde's skills. By contrast the wizards need us to keep them out of trouble and the elf is a Calandorian dragonlord could probably use a buffer when interacting with the cankerous dwarfs.
 
People are scared of responsibility and having to make decisions.
Have you considered that people can have different opinions than you without being [redacted]?
As someone who voted for all the leading, I don't think that's fair. It's more like a decision between General Weber and Special Agent Weber. Both are cool and nice to see.
Thank you for describing it better than I could.

I am in fact currently trying to figure which of those I would prefer to read about.
 
The thing is we're not deciding between General Weber and Special agent Weber, that's a misunderstanding of the situation or rather a misframing. We're deciding on a lot more than that and those particular options and routes are not remotely mutually exclusive. A smart leader ensures that their presence or lack there of on a short term basis can be worked around which is what we would need to engage in our special agent shenanigans Mathilde with her martial skill and stats should have no problem doing that.

What were deciding here is who is essentially going to be directly given a voice at the decision making table or rather whose voice will be used to do that.

Asarnils thoughts can still be relayed to the decision making table, the same for the knights and the wizards, what it means is that all of those things are filtered by Mathilde before being relayed onwards yes we would have responsibility for those groups on the expedition if we take on all of them but like so what.

Taking the leadership for all three groups invests a lot more control over the expedition in Mathildes hands which given we know Borek might you know be a touch suicidal is pretty important. I don't think it's cowardly to not take full leadership here but it is a mistake, it drastically limits our options with regards to control of the expedition and means a lot of future scenarios and possibilities become more fraught in the future, and the only real benefit is that we'd essentially have less responsibility and maybe less time spent in martial management but a good chunk of that can be delegated any way.

[X] Lead only the Wizards

Between herself and the whole pile of wizards, representing six of the other colleges, this seems like it might be one of the biggest concentrations of spell power in history.

I disagree whole heartedly, we have three battle magic capable wizards on this expedition and whilst the wizard to normal human density is pretty high it's not even close to that large of a concentration of spell power. The Sylvania campaign happening right now has drastically more fire power given the majority of the empires battle wizards are engaged in it. There's a decent chunk of magical firepower here but that's really it. I also think you're underestimating or rather overestimating the task of leading that many wizards.
 
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