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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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GrimTheMad said:
We don't have a supply line, gunpowder is very limited.
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It's not something we want to piss away, I agree, but do they know that? How familiar with firearm logistics are these tribes? How many men are they willing to lose to little effect shooting at monitors that shrug off arrows? My point is that they can certainly be a problem for us, but following us around and shooting arrows at us all day is a really ineffective way for them to do that.


Mopman43 said:
She does favors for Shallyans until they rewind her clock, so to speak.
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Thanks.
 
For reference, here's what Heidi said about it:

BoneyM said:
"But that was in '62. You must be..."

She feigns horror. "You ask a lady about her age? How gauche!" She grins. "Literally the oldest trick in the book - or at least, in our book. Do nice things for Shallyans, turn up the charm, and a few miracles later you're back in the flower of your youth. Then again, considering how much I had to do it could be argued that they played me instead of vice versa. Not that I minded terribly much. If you do it right, you can please Shallya and the Protector all at once.
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And what Mathilde saw when observing her, note that this is post-Avatar:

BoneyM said:
You observe her very carefully as you approach, with more senses than even most Wizards could boast. Your impression from years earlier is unchanged, she's definitely no Vampire, but there are hints of energies to her that definitely aren't normal. Two types of energies, actually, swirling around each other in a way sure to result in Dhar if they were the Winds you were familiar with. But these are even more exotic; they have the tang of the Divine, one very familiar, one not.
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Valmond said:
I have no reason to remain, i see nothing of use coming out of it.
There are no dwarves to evacuate, reinforcements are not desired, we are done.
People keep talking about divine artefacts, which metagamey as fuck, and not even certain because one was already gone according canon, and we have no idea what they might have done with the other, if not both, in quest.
People want runelore, and they sure as fuck are not going to hand us their secrets.
Some want to, somehow, make them allies, which is not only pointless as they are too far to be aided, but also likely to get us branded as a heretic, or a fool at best.
Or just make all this somehow ok and not grudge worthy, which, again, i doubt is possible and might end up destroying our rep and lethally embarrass lot of dwarves we like.

Other than pure curiosity, which i share, i see nothing of value to be had here, and every moment we remain adds to the risk, to us, and the the expedition, we have hundreds of people we are risking the lives of by staying here.
Unless there is an actual, acchievable, useful, goal presented, and so far there has not, i can't vote for anything except leave.
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If the dwarves are dead, there's loot.
If the dwarves are alive, there's diplomacy.
If the dwarves are neither alive nor dead, deploy the mirrorcatch box.
Either way, there's knowledge to be gained.
Valmond said:
I'm fairly confident in saying they don't want help, and we can't provide any that would make a meaningful difference.
We have no tanks, the cannons are useless without powder and shot which we have not much of to give.
Any runic specialist from here is likely facing death if they come to Karaz Ankor, and they are not giving us any of their secrets.
And helping with a fight or two will do jack shit long term to them, and might be the end of us.
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Maybe they need the help of someone who can magically drag a Karak out of the hands of the Thirsting Gods.
 
I have been convinced not to poke the Kurgan. I would still prefer leaving, but doing as little to provoke a fight as possible is better than nothing.

[X] Leave
[X] Fortify here and see if anything interesting happens over the next day
 
Guile said:
If the dwarves are dead, there's loot.
If the dwarves are alive, there's diplomacy.
If the dwarves are neither alive nor dead, deploy the mirrorcatch box.
Either way, there's knowledge to be gained.
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If the dwarves are dead, then we still need to deal with Cor Dum who seems to have been here for generations.
If the dwarves are alive, they don't want to talk to us, and we still need to deal with Cor Dum.
Knowledge is no use for the dead.
Guile said:
Maybe they need the help of someone who can magically drag a Karak out of the hands of the Thirsting Gods.
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You are drinking so much our own cool aid we could float a dreadnought on it if you are making this argument seriously.
 
[X] Fortify here and see if anything interesting happens over the next day
[X] Approach the Kvellige camp peacefully and attempt to discuss the Karak with them
 
DragonParadox said:
Apart from the word is an admitted liar there's also the fact that being a servant of 2 gods should, by everything Mathilde knows about magic, drive one insane with contradicting mentalities.
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Byzantine said:
Most likely that doesn't apply when the divines in question are very carefully doing it intentionally.
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I mean, Mathilde has Ranald and Ulgu just fine, and if Cython is to be believed there may well not be a fundamental difference of kind between the two. Now, admittedly Ulgu and Ranald have a lot of overlap in mindset, but that just means it isn't always easy.
 
I am entirely unconvinced by @Prime 2.0's arguments.

He declares that Morghur's actions are signaling to stay away from Karag Dum. I disagree with concluding that. Some degree of recognizing Karag Dum dwarfs are "friendly" is almost entirely certain. Assuming that Morghur's posturing is of the "please back down" sort rather than the "come at me so we can fight on my preferred battlefield" sort is not one I am willing to make. Assuming the threat of facing Morghur and his horde in battle is anything less than 100% real is not a good assumption to make.

He is making a large assumption that Borek is representative of the current populace of Karag Dum and that they are going to care about what Borek has to say. It's probable that all but a select few of them weren't even born when Karag Dum became completely isolated.

He's making an assumption that they'll be open to considering the expedition as friendlies. They've been under siege by the forces of Chaos for almost two centuries. Mathilde has already seen firsthand the kind of suspicion that engender. Mathilde has also seen firsthand the sort of deceptions the forces of Chaos can weave even on the battlefield, and that wasn't deep in Chaos Wastes. Anything the residents of Karag Dum see, they're going to take with a bucket of salt.

He's making assumptions about function of the Coin and essentially trying to actively metagame it. Neither we nor Mathilde know the exact way the Protector face of the Coin will operate. I consider it to be metagaming because he is proposing taking an action with the specific intent IC and OOC of using the Coin to signal to those in Karag Dum, which is something that I would consider any deity other than Ranald likely to smack you down for and Ranald himself I could see going either way. Furthermore, even assuming Ranald lets it work, sudden mental influences are something I would assume the residents of Karag Dum are on the lookout for considering their current neighborhood.

The actions he's proposing are also liable to make the expedition's return leg one where it's actively being attacked. That isn't something I am willing to risk on a course of action with so many shaky assumptions, nor am I willing to endorse spending the lives of members of the expedition on it either.
 
QTesseract said:
I mean, Mathilde has Ranald and Ulgu just fine, and if Cython is to be believed there may well not be a fundamental difference of kind between the two. Now, admittedly Ulgu and Ranald have a lot of overlap in mindset, but that just means it isn't always easy.
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Mathilde does not cast from two lores with a priest of two gods would have to do. The only humans to do that are the crazy people, from Chaos Sorcerers to Necromancers.
 
@13th Fleet, I'm unable to respond fully now, but I've already told you that I'm not making or relying on even half of the assumptions you say I am, and this argument that using the coin for its stated purpose is somehow metagaming is ridiculous. Mathilde can be uncertain if something will work the way she hopes it will or not and still have that be in character, and Boney makes an effort to keep IC and OOC information and decisionmaking as closely aligned as he can so he'd never have put the option in the update at all if he thought it was metagaming.

Meanwhile, considering we haven't scouted out the other fronts, we don't know what the risks of escalating conflict with the tribes actually are yet. That's your assumption.

More later when I'm able.
 
Valmond said:
If the dwarves are dead, then we still need to deal with Cor Dum who seems to have been here for generations.
If the dwarves are alive, they don't want to talk to us, and we still need to deal with Cor Dum.
Knowledge is no use for the dead.
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Hell no we don't (necessarily) have to deal with Cor Dum.

Cor Dum is one demigod located somewhere in a miles-long stretch of forest besieged by two Kurgan tribes. Mathilde is extremely stealthy. The odds of running into Cor Dum on a straight shot to Karag Dum honestly seems really low.
You are drinking so much our own cool aid we could float a dreadnought on it if you are making this argument seriously.
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Really? Did we not do that 3 weeks ago? Pretty sure we did.

Maybe it would go down smoother if I described Mathilde as 'having resources that the Runemasters don't.'
 
DragonParadox said:
Mathilde does not cast from two lores with a priest of two gods would have to do. The only humans to do that are the crazy people, from Chaos Sorcerers to Necromancers.
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She does seem to be a unique case of the gods involved intentionally collaborating on it (without the competative insanity that is undivided) though. The normal issue is gods aren't fond of sharing so their power smacks the power of other gods. Ranald and Shallya appear to be doing an intricate dance so their power doesn't clash.
 
Guile said:
The odds of running into Cor Dum on a straight shot to Karag Dum honestly seems really low.
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We can't approach unseen through the desert.

We don't know where the entrance is.
Mathilde would have to search inside the forest vastly increasing time spent inside the forest.
Mathilde has never navigated a forest.

There are many Beastman in the forest. Any which notices Mathilde will notify Cor-Dum.


TLDR: too many risks.
 
DragonParadox said:
Mathilde does not cast from two lores with a priest of two gods would have to do. The only humans to do that are the crazy people, from Chaos Sorcerers to Necromancers.
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Neither being chosen/favoured, nor being priest of a god doesn't equal being divine caster of that god. Mathilde definitely is favoured of Ranald and could be said to be priestess if you're inclined (she holds tavern-shrine after all, and Ranald doesn't have formal church anyway), but she can't perform Ranaldite blessings. You only need specific mindset for casting, and even that is debatable in case of Divine magic due to lack of information on its workings. Nothing ever precludes Heidi being chosen of two gods simultaneously.
 
DragonParadox said:
Apart from the word is an admitted liar there's also the fact that being a servant of 2 gods should, by everything Mathilde knows about magic, drive one insane with contradicting mentalities.
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There is in fact multiple famous cases of individuals who are chosen by multiple Gods, gaining the blessings of all of them and acting on behalf of them all simultaneously to great effect.

The last one even came from the local Kul tribe~

DragonParadox said:
Mathilde does not cast from two lores with a priest of two gods would have to do. The only humans to do that are the crazy people, from Chaos Sorcerers to Necromancers.
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Do note that I said "chosen", not priest. There is a difference.
 
matvprok said:
Neither being chosen/favoured, nor being priest of a god doesn't equal being divine caster of that god. Mathilde definitely is favoured of Ranald and could be said to be priestess if you're inclined (she holds tavern-shrine after all, and Ranald doesn't have formal church anyway), but she can't perform Ranaldite blessings. You only need specific mindset for casting, and even that is debatable in case of Divine magic due to lack of information on its workings. Nothing ever precludes Heidi being chosen of two gods simultaneously.
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True but the point of the post seems to be that Heidi is a priestess of two gods as seen by the middling divine magics. I guess she could be a Ranaldian spellcaster and a Shaylan lay priestess, but firstly why would Shayla want a priestess whose first loyalty is elsewhere and secondly why would she want someone so decidedly not a pacifist?


Omegahugger said:
There is in fact multiple famous cases of individuals who are chosen by multiple Gods, gaining the blessings of all of them and acting on behalf of them all simultaneously to great effect.

The last one even came from the local Kul tribe~


Do note that I said "chosen", not priest. There is a difference.
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Well the Dark Gods don't really care if you go insane from clashing magics, they kind of prefer it
 
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Guile said:
Hell no we don't (necessarily) have to deal with Cor Dum.

Cor Dum is one demigod located somewhere in a miles-long stretch of forest besieged by two Kurgan tribes. Mathilde is extremely stealthy. The odds of running into Cor Dum on a straight shot to Karag Dum honestly seems really low.
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One demigod, with an army of beastmen, in a forest.
Not good odds, even if Cor Dum was not aware of the expedition.
Unless your plan is for Mathilde to solo sneak into Dum, loot it and/or convince anyone living there that we can help them, i'm not sure what you are going for.
And if it, it is wildly optimistic, at best.

Guile said:
Really? Did we not do that 3 weeks ago? Pretty sure we did.

Maybe it would go down smoother if I described Mathilde as 'having resources that the Runemasters don't.'
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Random fisherman in Marienburg has resources Runemasters don't.
I doubt the runemasters would be impressed.
Mathilde pulling Vlag out of the warp is, to put it the kindest term, an exaggeration (that i fully support us using when telling the story later), the actual deed, once we noticed what was happening, any idiot with a pickaxe and time could have done it.
 
LightLan said:
We can't approach unseen through the desert.

We don't know where the entrance is.
Mathilde would have to search inside the forest vastly increasing time spent inside the forest.
Mathilde has never navigated a forest.

There are many Beastman in the forest. Any which notices Mathilde will notify Cor-Dum.


TLDR: too many risks.
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We can literally turn invisible and teleport, getting through the desert is not even hard.

and mathilde has 25 Intrigue and advanced infiltration and a spell explicitly for map making, so her getting lost trying to infiltrate seems about as likely to me as her tripping and cracking her head on a rock
 
LightLan said:
We can't approach unseen through the desert.

We don't know where the entrance is.
Mathilde would have to search inside the forest vastly increasing time spent inside the forest.
Mathilde has never navigated a forest.

There are many Beastman in the forest. Any which notices Mathilde will notify Cor-Dum.


TLDR: too many risks.
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We can, we only need to enter at night, get a blanket of a símilar color to the sand and approach crawling...

And that are the mundane methods, Mathilde can teleport and turn invisible among many other things.

And about Mathilde not knowing how to infiltrate/move/navigate through forests... Mathilde has been tutored on infiltration at the Colleges and by her master, taking into account the geography of the Empire and how it is almost entirely covered by trees, I am sure that "moving from point A to point B undetected in the forest" and "searching for a target hidden in the forest while undetected" was something that was also included on the course of Advanced Infiltration.
 
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