Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Pronouns
- It/They
It could also be nagash's new vacation home?
Ericwinter
Definitely not a Skaven Infiltrator
- Location
- America
So, out of rampant curiosity, how likely actually is an Ulgu dragon being responsible? Because it's been mentioned, and that would be absolutely awesome, but... I'm not sure If people are being serious or not.
SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
[X] Stand your ground
Asheram
Not quite altogether
- Location
- Δ Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground
The idea of an Ulgu dragon is somewhat memetic since one of the possible traits for it is that you can't remember it. That said, a perception filter that covers an entire mountain might be up there to what said theoretical ulgu dragon might do.
But in this case I'd put that at a low possibility.
NexusEye
Aspiring God
- Pronouns
- She/Her
We don't know how common Ulgu dragons are because so far there has been no evidence that Ulgu dragons exist. On the other hand that's exactly what you'd expect to find if Ulgu dragons did exist.
- Location
- some computer lab
6 Nagash's new vacation home
6 seems unlikely because Nagash is currently dead, and even if he wasn't, why would he want a new vacation home so close to the Chaos Wastes when he's alread put so much work into the black pyramid? And why would he settle for an ignore me field when he has demonstrated the ability to cause memetic effects that drive people insane?
Ulgu Dragons are not known to exist, but if they did, their lair looking indistinguishable from an uninhabited mountain would be in their wheelhouse, but that doesn't explain what its using the magic for
Not very likely at all, there is no record of such a thing even existing, and realistically if it did someone would have found them already, because Ulgu or no dragons are inclined to gather treasure and sleep on it. That is the kind of thing that draws general attention. To give a comparison, Mathilde's friend back in K8P is a being of Hysh, yet it does not spend all his time meditating and seeking answers to life's questions, therefore a hypothetical Ulgu dragon would not spend all its time hiding.
Ericwinter
Definitely not a Skaven Infiltrator
- Location
- America
Sure, I'm just mostly wondering if people who say it's one of the possibilities are just throwing it in there as a meme and to show how unlikely it is anything except Chaos is responsible, or if they're actually considering that Ulgu dragon might be the case. Everything else, after all, are legitimate possibilities as unlikely as they seem, but Ulgu dragons don't even exist in canon, so... I don't know, it just seems weird to keep mentioning it like that.
NexusEye
Aspiring God
- Pronouns
- She/Her
In this context it just seems to be a meme suggestion, Boney hasn't even hinted that it might be an Ulgu dragon and all we have to go off of it that it isn't incompatible with the facts, not that we have any reason to actually believe it. Chaos seems massively more likely.
Asheram
Not quite altogether
- Location
- Δ Hidden Forbidden Holy Ground
Let's put it like this. I wouldn't be surprised if Boney had a table he rolled on and one of the higher numbers with the more outlandish explanations was an Ulgu dragon. It's not likely, but that's how we got Anton to recruit Asarnil.
- Location
- Classified
Coming across an Ulgu dragon just after we made our new gear would be pretty memey, so I now fully believe that's what it is.
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Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
[X] Act normal
[X] Act normal
Not 100% on any option but this at least seems interesting to read about.
Not 100% on any option but this at least seems interesting to read about.
[ ] Act normal
-Deal with the problem with the full expedition.
-Will have to face it later, we don't have another pass to pass through.
-Spellcaster will have time to pivot to deal with us if they noticed us, but less likely to notice us.
-Gives up initiative, if we come back to investigate they KNOW we spotted something.
[ ] Run like hell
-Deal with the problem with the full expedition.
-Will have to face it later, we don't have another pass to pass through.
-Spellcaster will have less time to pull out some bullshit on us if they already noticed us, and it is more likely that we'd be noticed.
-Gives up initiative.
[ ] Stand your ground
-Deal with the problem now.
-Spellcaster has no time at all, they must overwhelm Asarnil with whatever they have on hand while we investigate the ritual or let us investigate unopposed.
-Note that even a Journeyman can blow up a battlewizard. Working with vast amounts of magic makes you more vulnerable to disruption, not less.
[X] Stand your ground
I think fundamentally when dealing with large motions of magic, you don't want to let them have time to adjust. You want to flip the table on them so they need to reposition while most of their attention is still on their big working.
And most crucially - the other two options puts Mathilde far from where she can actually observe and investigate the magic. That means more or less letting the spell complete and either bulling through or hoping you can deal with whatever it produces.
-Deal with the problem with the full expedition.
-Will have to face it later, we don't have another pass to pass through.
-Spellcaster will have time to pivot to deal with us if they noticed us, but less likely to notice us.
-Gives up initiative, if we come back to investigate they KNOW we spotted something.
[ ] Run like hell
-Deal with the problem with the full expedition.
-Will have to face it later, we don't have another pass to pass through.
-Spellcaster will have less time to pull out some bullshit on us if they already noticed us, and it is more likely that we'd be noticed.
-Gives up initiative.
[ ] Stand your ground
-Deal with the problem now.
-Spellcaster has no time at all, they must overwhelm Asarnil with whatever they have on hand while we investigate the ritual or let us investigate unopposed.
-Note that even a Journeyman can blow up a battlewizard. Working with vast amounts of magic makes you more vulnerable to disruption, not less.
[X] Stand your ground
I think fundamentally when dealing with large motions of magic, you don't want to let them have time to adjust. You want to flip the table on them so they need to reposition while most of their attention is still on their big working.
And most crucially - the other two options puts Mathilde far from where she can actually observe and investigate the magic. That means more or less letting the spell complete and either bulling through or hoping you can deal with whatever it produces.
Another thought. Consider how the investigatory excavation is surprisingly shallow. Does anyone believe that a dwarven expedition looking for Vlag that was in their right mind wouldn't have dug all the way down to the heart of the mountain to check?
I think the cognitohazard tries to block multiple forms of investigation, which suggests it has something to hide. We want the Expedition here to extend the tunnel with us reminding them to keep going and not let the cognitohazard persuade them to stop.
I'm also now sceptical that the previous investigation did find what they think they did in the mines, rather than simply being made to think they did.
More broadly, my concern is that if Mathilde leaves or falls for what the Cognitohazard wants that will be in some way accepting it, and the next thing we know we'll be heading north on the expedition with no memories of what she found, instead content that stone is an insulator.
As a side thought, we should also consider what kind of magic user would even use terminology like 'stone is an insulator'. A Kurgan Shaman wouldn't, and it seems very unlikely that a pre-Collegiate hedge wizard would. This is a quasi-scientific term, suggesting they came from such a tradition. And we do know someone who visited this site around the right time from the right background... of course, I've no idea why he'd do this.
I think the cognitohazard tries to block multiple forms of investigation, which suggests it has something to hide. We want the Expedition here to extend the tunnel with us reminding them to keep going and not let the cognitohazard persuade them to stop.
I'm also now sceptical that the previous investigation did find what they think they did in the mines, rather than simply being made to think they did.
More broadly, my concern is that if Mathilde leaves or falls for what the Cognitohazard wants that will be in some way accepting it, and the next thing we know we'll be heading north on the expedition with no memories of what she found, instead content that stone is an insulator.
As a side thought, we should also consider what kind of magic user would even use terminology like 'stone is an insulator'. A Kurgan Shaman wouldn't, and it seems very unlikely that a pre-Collegiate hedge wizard would. This is a quasi-scientific term, suggesting they came from such a tradition. And we do know someone who visited this site around the right time from the right background... of course, I've no idea why he'd do this.
- Location
- Washington
Why wouldn't it! It's been going at this for two hundred years, why on earth would our little expedition be the thing it thinks it's worth blowing that on. That much energy is geographic in scale, and our expedition is not.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
[X] Run like hell
It's probably choatic, it's big, it may have noticed us.A human wizard and some dwarfs ranger, even with the help of a dragon, can probably not face it and survive.
It's probably choatic, it's big, it may have noticed us.A human wizard and some dwarfs ranger, even with the help of a dragon, can probably not face it and survive.
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Ericwinter
Definitely not a Skaven Infiltrator
- Location
- America
we know that, sure, but all this theoretical enemy would know is that the expedition was apparently important enough for a goddess to hold back winter. That sort of thing doesn't happen for just any intrepid band of adventurers.
- Location
- Washington
No, that's not all this theoretical would know. To even know we specifically are here requires some form of scouting, and then it can look at our numbers, and confirm "indeed, not geographic in scale."
It might be that the meme given are variants of stone blocks magic - Mathilde would probably be talking with Snorri in Khazalid.
Not sure what's the best between Act Normal or Stand Your Ground but this needs to be dealt with now or monitored by several LMs and Kragg to ensure the Expedition has a safe path on the way back. Heck, whatever is happening can be just as important as the Expedition.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Obsessive-compulsive aqua vitae experiments?
Ericwinter
Definitely not a Skaven Infiltrator
- Location
- America
Not really? Mathilde even reasons it out in character. As someone with exceptional experience with the divine and large magical projects, she reckons that what the Widow did is enough to garner attention from something pulling this much power. It knows that something is coming, not necessarily who or what, and could do any number of things to stop that something. Some of them might include scouting, yeah, but when you've got that much magical power to hand you're more likely to make large, sweeping actions. Or, at the very least, send some sort of force to eliminate any possible threat, no matter how small it may be.
Like, you're trying to argue that this thing will completely ignore us if we ignore it, when the in-universe expert disagrees. Forgive me if I take Mathilde's side.
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario(occasionally)
Yeah, Okay, this makes me feel more secure in leaving my vote as-is.
If it's a choice between giving whoever's setting this up extra time to react(either as a result of noticing us when we come back, or noticing us when we run for it), but having other wizards with us, or not giving them any extra time to react, but having to do the spell disruption on our own, I'd choose to go for messing up the superior spellcaster when they're not expecting it over trying to gather up enough magical force to match them out of the handful of decidedly-less-than-legendary wizards we've got with us.
When facing a legendary spellcaster the only advantages we're likely to have are surprise, the spellburner rune, and the rune on Branalhune which strips away buff spells. Adding in more magisters and Journeymen isn't going to make a huge difference, mostly just a better chance to save against failing to mess with superior magic, rather than a way to get to the caster and defeat them before they can try something else screwy.