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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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[x] Stand your ground

Well I guess this is it.
Mostly I think as the distance is short there its only a little better in safety picking "act normal" from a reinforcements POV. I think the main subject is that in act normal the attack may not come right now... which is a good thing but I distrust it.
It may blown up in our faces, but at least we can see the explosion.
 
From memory, the only tags I've added are 'ck2' and 'warhammer fantasy'. Maybe 'female protagonist', I can't remember if someone else added that or only suggested it.
 
BoneyM said:
"Even if I knew anything more - and I don't - I probably wouldn't be able to tell you. The future isn't set in stone, so if you get a glimpse of it and act too dramatically to try to alter it, you could change the future too much for the glimpse you got to be any help to you.
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Huh. I thought it was more the other way around where if you glimpse too much you won't be able to change it, making the foreknowledge less useful.
BoneyM said:
"I fought alongside the Drakwald Patrols in Hochland, mostly minor skirmishes with Forest Goblins and Beastmen. Waaagh and Peace was a great help in the last year of my Journeying, by the way. I also assisted with the administration of the College of Sorcery in Hergig."
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You can really see Mathilde's mindset and low diplomacy here. She goes from Wizard to Wizard and interrogates them, almost completely failing to engage with their attempts to socialize or ingratiate themselves with her, giving neither genuine reaction nor engaging for her own benefit in a manipulatively friendly way. I don't expect her to make any friends until the mutual life saving starts.
BoneyM said:
"Ah," you say, somewhat disappointed. You're rather proud of your Magesight and part of you was hoping you'd be able to spot what others had missed, but if Teclis and the founders of the College had given it their scrutiny and found nothing, that's a pretty clear indication that there's nothing to find. Unless... well, when they visited it, the Great War Against Chaos had only just ended. This area would have been saturated in magical energy from the recent expansion of the Chaos Wastes. Almost two centuries later, perhaps things would be clear enough that you could see what even Volans couldn't.
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Or maybe Teclis just decided to shut up about it for whatever reason.
BoneyM said:
That's the third time you've thought that exact phrase.
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fuck
BoneyM said:
Dwarves wouldn't normally say that. 'Insulator' puts the focus on the magic, not the stone.
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fuck
BoneyM said:
Stone is not that excellent an insulator of magic. After almost two centuries of constant bombardment, even stone would be affected, but it isn't. Ergo that magic isn't being radiated, it's being used. You try to do the mental calculations for what could be done with that amount of power multiplied by one hundred and eighty-five years, and quickly realize that the better question is what couldn't be done, and that's a damn short list. Also short is the list of beings that would be capable of shaping that amount of power, and damn near every entry on it is Chaos-aligned. The word 'portal' comes uncomfortably to mind. And then you realize that whatever original objective this gambit might have had, the Ice Witches going to the trouble of scouring High Pass clean of snow would have announced that some sort of very important target of opportunity would be approaching.

So in summary, someone is doing something with a lot of magic, and the 'someone' is almost certainly Chaos, and the 'something' is almost certainly bad, and the Ancient Widow has announced that there's an excellent target for that badness trundling down the pass this season. You hold your pose of concentration and consider what your next move should be.



[ ] Act normal
- There might be unfriendly eyes on you. Pretend you didn't see anything and return to the Expedition as normal, and decide what to do from there.
[ ] Run like hell
- Every second could count. Return to the Expedition as fast as magic will allow and raise the alarm.
[ ] Stand your ground
- Snorri has a horn, you have Illusion to make the same sound except louder. Asarnil can be here within a couple of minutes, and the Knights soon after that. Stand your ground and if it does anything, you might be able to disrupt it.
[ ] Other (write in)
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fuck fuck Fuck Fuck FUCK!




Edit: Oh and remind me to ask some QMing questions after the expedition is over.
 
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Raikazin said:
I can't dig through all of the comments right now, but has it been suggested that maybe we aren't the target? If we aren't the target for whatever is going on here, would it be worth the risk to what is clearly a long term plan to mess with us? I would think we should try to minimize the value of interfering with the expedition and then quickly move on.
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It would be best not to let a giant summoning ritual (or whatever this is) go off so screaming demon hordes can descend on Kislev.
 
[X] Act normal

I've actually pivoted to "Act Normal."

Because.

Because, while Mathilde expects that whatever this us might be expecting us later on... It might thus be very important not to let on that we have found out about that.

If we react openly and massively and loudly, then -- if nothing happens, if nothing attacks us, then... Then, if something is happening further up north, then we would have given away that we know that something is happening.

Whereas if we act normal? It will think that we are unaware of what is going on. And think that the Dwarf Expedition is walking into an ambush. Whereas really the Dwarfs will be aware that something is up.

So.

I've found that I'd rather retain the element of surprise.

If something is planning on ambushing us later on, I want it to continue thinking that we are still unaware of it.

Or, hell, it might not be an ambush but might just be something that has a 'telephone line' up to Karag Dum. In which case, we don't want to alert it.

So anyway yeah. Maintain the element of surprise. Be subtle. Quietly let people know that need to know.

And maybe Borek'll allow us to investigate the mountain of curiosity. Maybe not. Maybe we'll check it out later. Maybe something will happen as we pass it, or not. Or otherways, we'll probably be able to check on it when we are on our way back regardless, so.
ScottishMongol said:
Folks...check the tags
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Mopman43 said:
Now I'm wondering if that one was Boney. Wasn't up there ~30 minutes ago.

Certainly doesn't mean what it usually would.
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Ericwinter said:
If it was... this is probably going to be very, very important whatever we do.
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Both the pansexual protagonist and stone insulator thing were, in fact, up there about 30 minutes ago.
 
BoneyM said:
As much as the Light Order enjoys their privacy - or at least, enjoys denying entrance to any outsiders - sending a letter in advance saying you are acting with the full authority of King Belegar Ironhammer, King Ungrim Ironfist, and the delegated authority of King Thangrim Firebeard is enough to open even their doors. An Apprentice waits by the appropriate street corner to let you in without having to go through their bizarre entrance ritual, and reality unfolds before your very eyes as the buildings and streets are pushed back to make way for the Light College: a massive pyramid of pure-white marble so filled with ethereal light as to be transparent. And that you didn't immediately mentally question that light made marble transparent, and that you mentally described the light as 'ethereal' rather than 'garish', rather suggests that your initial reaction of awe was not entirely natural. You scowl up at the towering display of magical puissance- No. You refuse. You glare upwards at the overgrown caltrop and dare it to insert any more purple prose into your internal monologue.
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So... not our first experience with a pile of rock making us think things. This one just might be a bit bigger than the last one. :V
 
Raikazin said:
I can't dig through all of the comments right now, but has it been suggested that maybe we aren't the target?
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I feel like there's no other people who this could be aimed at though? The memetic thing only makes sense working on someone who has windsight and understands the magical properties of stone in the context of a wizard.
 
Chlof said:
I feel like there's no other people who this could be aimed at though? The memetic thing only makes sense working on someone who has windsight and understands the magical properties of stone in the context of a wizard.
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My impression is it could be a broad don't look here measure. I don't know why this should be something directed at us.
 
Chlof said:
I feel like there's no other people who this could be aimed at though? The memetic thing only makes sense working on someone who has windsight and understands the magical properties of stone in the context of a wizard.
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That wasn't how I read it. I mean, it affected the Dwarves. They dont have windsight.

Edit: expanding more, the context may affect some more than other but I dont see it as being deliberately targeted
 
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Mopman43 said:
Man, I'm the one who first suggested adding it.



Just a reference.
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Sure, i just noticed him mentioning he was clearing out tags after someone said we were at max, and thought he might have added it because it actually was important. But perhaps that's just my own QM sensibilities kicking in.
 
One possible explanation for why Teclis didn't notice anything is that the Vlag Thing knew of his reputation and dedicated a lot of magical energy boosting the effect to make sure he wouldn't notice but underestimated Mathilde and didn't do the same for her which is why it got caught out.
 
BoneyM said:
From memory, the only tags I've added are 'ck2' and 'warhammer fantasy'. Maybe 'female protagonist', I can't remember if someone else added that or only suggested it.
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Nah, I'm the one who added the "warhammer fantasy" tag, you probably added the plain "warhammer" tag. The "quest" one is also my doing. As a general thing, I do a good amount of that sort of actually-sorta-useful tagging. In fact, I just added the "fantasy" tag because it wasn't there and that's the sort of genre thing that can be useful.

On the whole, tagging on SV is something that needs a rework, and that rework is in the works to some degree as far as I know. In a more perfect world we could just steal AO3's tagging system, because it is legit good.
 
[X] Act normal

The fact that it put the same exact phrase in Snorri's mouth that it kept feeding us, despite that being an out-of-character way for a Dwarf to say it, suggests that whatever is responsible for this effect isn't very "smart" - I think it's reasonable to assume that that element of the defenses is more or less automated. Which means that our poking around may well not have been meaningfully noticed yet. Given that, and the fact that we have no knowledge of this thing's capabilities beyond "lots," I'd rather regroup with the expedition before giving the game away. Otherwise it could either strike at us before backup arrives, or strike at the expedition once neither we nor the backup we called are available to defend it.
 
[X] Act normal

I'm not confidant in saying this expedition is prepared to tackle whatever this problem is. We should go back, and talk this out with the rest of the leadership and send some kind of message to Belegor. Or just keep in on the back burner until we get back. A couple of months to a few years might not make that big of difference with what's going on, and I'd rather come back here with an army to deal with this if we could.

Or it could be narrative casualty and we can interfere with what's going on with what we have on hand. But if that's the case, I'd still rather be doing this after talking to the other leaders of the expedition. Because we shouldn't forget that this isn't our expedition to solve this issue with Karak Vlag, and it would be rather embarrassing if we didn't even make it to the chaos wastes before being eaten by chaos gribbles.
 
After Boney winnowed the tags, I added both the new ones under discussion: the stone one because the meta joke is great, and the pansexual protagonist one because the wordplay amuses me.

Probably we can drop one or both of them at some point, I'm not attached to them and they're both meme tags (though the pansexual protagonist is accurate even without the joke and might be something that people actually filter on, much like protagonist gender, so who knows).
 
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