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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Glau said:
Given the route, I was figuring there'd be three or four similar things: large concentrations of enemy forces that our survival strategy was to avoid aggroing. A chaos dwarf throng or a kurgan warband or an old dwarfhold being used to fuel a ritual: all of them are scary enemies that we have to leave on our path of retreat because slipping by is how we actually do our mission.
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There arent any alternate land routes along which you can drive a steam wagon the size of a ship. The canon expedition used an airship.

You can hide from a kurgan warband with guile and magic.
You can outrun a chaos dwarf throng. You can outfight a demonic summon with prep and good luck. You cannot avoid an old dwarfhold that sits bang on your path, and controls the one must-pass mountain pass on the route to Karag Dum, and has an unknown mastermind behind it.

I mean, look at the size of the military expedition. Six steam wagons, 13 wizards, several thousand people and a dragon. Thats significanly larger than the canon expedition, which IIRC was one airship. We made deals with the kurgan for safe passage and to either hunt or trade for food along the way. We had an Ice Witch use a fairly significant application of magic in order to secure our route of passage.

This is not Matty on a solo run with her fanny pack and Shadowsteed.
This is a small army with more wizards than were involved in the expedition to Eight Peaks, and a dragon in tow.
There are limitations to stealth.

And its worth remembering that we dont actually know who or what is behind this effect.
We are coming at it blind. Presuming that we can bluff an unknown actor whose chracteristics are completely unknown to us is very much not how Maria has ever done things.

Glau said:
This isn't something in the middle of the empire that needs dealing with. This is the first of many obstacles to be avoided.
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1) The amount of magic in play is, in the considered opinion of the Lady Magister who is our PC, enough to have Major Effects.

Big ritual tier, in a setting where big rituals include stuff like Nagash murdering the Nehekaran gods and raising the dead. Or the Skaven fucking the Underway. Or the Great Maw skullfucking the Ogre homelands. Hell, lesser magic feats have produced threats like the vampires which plague the Old World. Or the origin of the skaven.

The idea that you can simply turn a blind eye because it MIGHT not have immediate effects on you personally is dubious.

2)You do not leave a hostile effect behind you along your route of access. That's how you get mousetrapped and murdered. If we could have avoided passing through this spot, we wouldnt have had to bargain with the Ice-Witches to clear the mountain passes, and pay the rather large favor that we are paying for that service; to wit, infiltrating a Kurgan warband to fuck with a Chaos artifact.

picklepikkl said:
There's the route they took in canon, which is an insane route involving a more time spent in the deep Wastes even though it's shorter in terms of overall distance.
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They flew though.
Which allowed them to bypass all the landbased threats of that particular decision. Attempting to navigate the deep Wastes on land with limited food and fuel seems like a deeply suboptimal choice.
 
uju32 said:
They flew though.
Which allowed them to bypass all the landbased threats of that particular decision. Attempting to navigate the deep Wastes on land with limited food and fuel seems like a deeply suboptimal choice.
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You're thinking of the second expedition, the one that actually got there. There was the first, failed expedition where Gotrek was one of the only survivors; that one went the stupid route overland.
 
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picklepikkl said:
There was the first, failed expedition where Gotrek was one of the only survivors; that one went the stupid route overland.
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Or maybe we're about to find out it was not-so-stupid... 😱

I think I've made my mind up, between the uncertainty and the "don't tip your hand too early" foreshadowing, gonna go with-

[x] Act normal
 
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Humbaba said:
We're in Kurgan territory after all, and they almost certainly have their own (dark) magic users who pass by the mountain on a semi regular basis.
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High Pass is between Kislev and Zorn Uzkul, the latter of which is a Chaos Dwarf versus Clan Moulder no-man's-land.

DiceOfStupidity said:
@BoneyM, speaking of infohazard and things thought and known 'out of nowhere' - did Mathilde actually read description of Karak Vlag detailed enough to know placement of gates and what was drawn on them? Or is it something that she 'just happened' to think about?
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She's only read it a few times, but she's heard it at least several dozen. Bemoaning the loss of Karak Vlag is a constant among Dwarves.

Klaus said:
@BoneyM
Assuming that there is a large magical attack/portal from the mountain targeting the expedition for us to disrupt, is there anything to be gained by rounding up the other wizards and trying to disrupt the attack together? Are we meaningfully capable of cooperation? How much would the distance back to the expedition reduce our ability to disrupt something?
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Harmony is only required if you want to make it fail in a specific way. If you just want to disrupt it as hard as you can, coming at it from a bunch of directions at once would actually be more effective.

dpara said:
Question do we have an alternative return route? I dimly recall there being two possible routes.
(I can't find the threadmark with the maps grml)

I think we had an alternate route using Peak Pass?

Other idea, how hard is it to turn the steam wagons into something that can swim again? ..uh and boat around Norsca
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I'll increase the scope of the map to show Peak Pass. As for boating around Norsca, uh, even if you do it absolutely perfectly they're still riverine vessels, not ocean-going. The good (?) news is that most of that route is actually frozen, the bad news is that means even the Norscans without boats can reach you.
 
picklepikkl said:
You're thinking of the second expedition, the one that actually got there. There was the first, failed expedition where Gotrek was one of the only survivors; that one went the stupid route overland.
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There was a first expedition? That tried to go through the deep Waste ON LAND?
Jesus Christ.
Alliterate said:
Or maybe we're about to find out it was not-so-stupid... 😱
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They tried to pass through the Deep Waste on land.
Its going to be a very hard sell to make that look anything other than incredibly stupid.
 
uju32 said:
There was a first expedition? That tried to go through the deep Waste ON LAND?
Jesus Christ.

They tried to pass through the Deep Waste on land.
Its going to be a very hard sell to make that look anything other than incredibly stupid.
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We're currently part of the first expedition that tried to reach Karag Dum by land. The existence of Mathilde has altered the route and added significant forces to the expedition but still.
 
Alliterate said:
Have you considered what the absolute best case Ranald-blessed outlier outcome here does to the Dwarf Favour economy? :V
🏔
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We already have more dwarf favor then we have ways to effectively spend. At least on ourselves. We might start doing silly things like examining the Phoenix Kings crown and such. Might even ask if it is possible to get an improved version of our belt and wouldn't that be an awkward conversation.

The more useful result would likely be the dwarf rep. Many uses of dwarf favor seem to be gated behind having sufficient dwarf rep. They don't tell you secrets unless they trust you to keep them secret. Also maybe joint enchanting rune projects.

Edit: Maybe if Karag Dum Runemasters are as good as they claim to be by there title. I expect that they might be more open to kick flipping join projects.
 
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dpara said:
Question do we have an alternative return route? I dimly recall there being two possible routes.
(I can't find the threadmark with the maps grml)

I think we had an alternate route using Peak Pass?
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Southernmost blue route would be the third possible return route to the Old World. Note the interruption - that's because you'd have to figure out how to descend from the Zorn Uzkul plateau into the much lower Badlands when you get there. You could also keep pushing southwards until you reached one of the three southern passes, Karaz-a-Karak's Silver Road, the Border Princes' Mad Dog Pass, or even Karak Eight Peaks' Death Pass.
 
Can't believe I am doing this, but I am switching my vote. I want to make use of all the everyone.

[x] Act normal
 
@BoneyM : We were told that our belt takes 12 hours to recharge the spellburner rune. Is that an absolute time or the average time for the usual wind levels and we can expect it to recharge faster as we go north?
 
Out of curiosity, has it been suggested that the big magical effect going on is, like, some sort of dimensional cage? I've seen some people mentioning that maybe the dwarves are using the Waystone to power some Ancestor Artifact to hide them away, but... what if it wasn't the dwarves? What if instead, someone hijacked the Waystones and did this to them, and now it's just maintaining that effect?
 
BoneyM said:
Southernmost blue route would be the third possible return route to the Old World. Note the interruption - that's because you'd have to figure out how to descend from the Zorn Uzkul plateau into the much lower Badlands when you get there. You could also keep pushing southwards until you reached one of the three southern passes, Karaz-a-Karak's Silver Road, the Border Princes' Mad Dog Pass, or even Karak Eight Peaks' Death Pass.
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Ouf, that's what i call a thunder-run, straight between some of the most Ork and Skaven infested parts of the Worlds Edge Mountains and the Chaos Dwarves, and I don't think the Dark Lands have enough Trees to keep our Steam Engines going through foraging.
 
BoneyM said:
You serve the Trickster, yha?"

Apparently not very well if she already knows that. "I do."
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I wonder if Mathilde's avatar-ness is as well-hidden to divinity-aware priests and wizards as her magic is.
BoneyM said:
You slide four aces across the table towards him, and he frowns at them and starts rifling through the deck in his hands. When he looks up again, you're gone.

"Greys," you hear him say with a sigh, and you smile as you slip away.
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Mathilde: <fleeeeeeEEEEEEEXXXXXxxxxx on the celestials>

Hmm. A mile isn't all that far away, especially in the mountains where there's plenty of bare rock to reflect sound. @BoneyM Could Mathilde's Illusion get comprehensible words across that distance? Or could she flare enough magic to otherwise guarantee that Deathfang and Asarnil arrive in three minutes with a payload of war-ready wizards?
 
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