- Location
- Sweden
[x] The Waystone Project
[x] Governor-General of Swamp Town
[x] Loremaster-at-Large of Karak Eight Peaks
[x] Governor-General of Swamp Town
[x] Loremaster-at-Large of Karak Eight Peaks
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.
consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
- Location
- Jerkville
[x] Loremaster-at-Large of Karak Eight Peaks
[x] Markgraf of Eastern Stirland
[x] Spymaster of Wissenland
[x] Ambassador-at-Large to the Karaz Ankor
[x] Border Princess of the Howling River
[x] Markgraf of Eastern Stirland
[x] Spymaster of Wissenland
[x] Ambassador-at-Large to the Karaz Ankor
[x] Border Princess of the Howling River
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[x] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
[x] Border Princess of the Howling River
[x] Loremaster-at-Large of Karak Eight Peaks
[x] Border Princess of the Howling River
[x] Loremaster-at-Large of Karak Eight Peaks
- Location
- Earth
Forget choosing where Mathilde will do the most good.
Forget choosing if Mathilde owes someone.
Forget choosing if her duty demands it.
Choose what you want to read about for the next long while. That's what the vote is about.
If that's trying to wrangle Eonir, Dawi and the College to learn about Waystones that's what you should vote.
If it's trying to wrangle the new Nobles and old Vampire Cults in Sylvania then you vote that.
If you want to play spy games with the ratties then Nuln is for you.
There are no wrong option, no Mathilde's Sense of Duty demands you vote for <insert topic someone argues for>.
There is only: This one I will enjoy the most.
Well perhaps some of us enjoy the prospect of Mathilde doing the most good. Making decisions one feel fit with what you want the character to become is not some evil that needs to be slain.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
"There's a dragon out there, if it turns hostile we're doomed"
"Sure, I can handle that."..."There you go, now when the dragon turns hostile there'll a second dragon to wrestle them. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a date to go on..."
I would just say that always working with the dwarves is boring and we need more intrigue in our life we started as a Spymaster of Stirland for goodness sakes. We need some variety in this and while going to more dwarfholds may be fun it would be a very mind-numbing experience when we could do more exciting jobs in our docket and can help strengthen the Empire with.
Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
I agree with this specific formulation of response. However, I think that in general doing stuff that will result in Mathilde having more resources available to her to bring to the table for negotiating over participation in the research project would be helpful -- it's not "oh, we can do work on this at the same time", it's "we'll be 'stronger' in the future".
- Location
- Earth
If that's what you enjoy that's what you can vote for.
It's no reason for others to vote for what you want.
It's completely valid to vote for Heidi because you want to play spy games with her.
Or to ensure the likely new Emperor is well inclined to wizards.
Or to simply have fun.
Indeed, dwarfs are all the same am I right? It's not like there is any difference between holds or just between individual kings and notables, a Sirlander and a Reiklander that is variety, but dwarfs are all just short, bearded and bad tempered.
Comedy hour aside the notion that all dwarfs are the same, but another corner of the empire would surely be novel feels a bit Empire-centric.
[X] The Waystone Project
[X] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
[X] Governor-General of Swamp Town
[X] Nagarythe
[X] Research Sabbatical
Bodyguard seems fun.
Waystones - awesome overall impact.
Swamp town - Deep lore, magic.
Nagarythe - Could be really interesting. Potential grey magic lore. Traits for the trait god. Stats for the stat throne.
Research because we have an absolute buttload even if I think this isn't likely to win with a longer term focus.
[X] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
[X] Governor-General of Swamp Town
[X] Nagarythe
[X] Research Sabbatical
Bodyguard seems fun.
Waystones - awesome overall impact.
Swamp town - Deep lore, magic.
Nagarythe - Could be really interesting. Potential grey magic lore. Traits for the trait god. Stats for the stat throne.
Research because we have an absolute buttload even if I think this isn't likely to win with a longer term focus.
Well, that's the main reason why I don't want to choose to work for Heidi. I just don't like her much, at least compared to Belegar and some strangers, except vampires and champions of Khorne, those are no-no. And, forgive me to say that, not interested in tutoring the child.
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Godwinson
"Well, I've got nothing."
Hey, how about not responding to someone wanting to read BoneyM writing something different with accusations of racism?
Read this as "providing us with milk" and it occurred to me that We spider-milk would be a lucrative resource and potentially magically potent reagent. Maybe Mathilde could look into this when she has free time.
Staff Notice - Disruptive Behaviour in Divided Loyalties
One can hardly be racist against a fictional character IMO. I was just pointing out a generalization at most a stereotype, although even that is stretching it.
- Location
- Earth
And that's a completely valid reason to not vote for her. I haven't either.
I'd enjoy Ranaldian High Priest, Sylvania or Nuln. So that's what I am voting for.
Pretending that Doing The Most Good is the only criteria for the vote is what annoys me though.
Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
- Location
- At large
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Couldn't sleep, decided to internet because I'm self-destructive like that and because I had a thought about this vote that occurred to me that I can't get out of my head and (given the pace of discussion) I'm not sure if this case has been made yet.
Specifically, I had another argument I wanted to make in favor of Loremaster-at-Large. And then after that I'll be addressing it specifically in terms of how it stands against my other leading candidate, the Waystones project.
IMO, that means we have the potential to make a very salient, very impactful marginal difference by addressing this problem specifically, quite possibly moreso than any other problem out there. If we want the Karaz Ankor to potentially regain hope, having another failed Expedition resulting in more dead dwarves is a great way to interject a big dose of renewed pessimism into what's been a very positive trendline. Since it's already being geared up for, this is a time-sensitive matter as well. And outside of us, there's just not a lot of candidates for "trusted by dawi" and "good at producing novel solutions." It... might honestly JUST be us, if that's not too egotistic of an assessment. If you add "proven track record of reclaiming Holds" then that would narrow any hypothetical list even further.
That's the potential negative impact of NOT getting involved, and I think it's far from negligible. But if we can make this expedition a success the potential positive impact could be huge. The obvious element is that adding another reclaimed Hold would be a big fucking deal and a hell of an addition to a positive trendline. What's the expression, "once is luck, twice is coincidence, three times is a trend"? But there's more than that. While we don't know this IC so maybe this shouldn't be factored into our decision making per se, Thorgrim knows exactly what reclaiming old Holds does for the Karaz Ankor's waystone network. I figured that K8P's addition would probably just go into filling the power reserves for the Rune of Valaya for a good long while given how vital that is and how long they were being drained for. But then we went and added Karag Dum and Karak Vlag back into the network too. Maybe Karaz-a-Karak is just looking at this from Thorgrim's old suicide math POV of "how many Grudges can we clear pre-extinction." But Thorgrim's standpoint has changed drastically since he sunk into that depressive viewpoint. He might well be thinking that if another old Hold can be brought online, he could actually repower another one of the Ancestors' Great Works. If you think reclaiming a Hold is a big deal for dawi psychology? Just imagine how THAT would land. That would also mean that Thorgrim is genuinely committed to making this Expedition an outright success, which increases the likelihood he'd be amenable to novel ideas to boost those chances. And if the King is for it, it doesn't matter if anyone else in Karaz-a-Karak is put off by the novelty. Though the fact that we personally saved a buttload of Karaz-a-Karak crafters including a Grandmaster with zhuf, with the Protector turned on no less, wouldn't hurt there either.
And while Karaz-a-Karak is poorly suited for producing novel approaches from a temperamental standpoint as we saw from the Okral's visit, they are excellently suited for it from a practical standpoint. I'm thinking specifically of the fact that Karaz-a-Karak, above any other Hold still in dawi hands, is noted as having an absolutely stupid amount of wealth locked away in its vaults. Just for a first example that means that, if they could be induced to agree with it, they could go absolutely ham on hiring mercenaries for this. Tilea is absolutely chock-full of mercenaries so even outside of whatever the Empire has available there should be plenty that could be hired, and they'd have access to Tilea for hiring purposes both through the River of Echoes in the Empire and through Barak Varr. I believe that wealth could be leveraged in terms of making it feasible to hang onto the Hold if/once reclaimed as well. This is something I've been thinking about a lot, actually.
The Empire has a lot of Knightly orders, and as we've seen they generally work well with dwarves (commitments to martial prowess and a code of honor are very dwarf-compatible). As heavy cavalry, they also fill a battlefield role that the dwarves frankly have nothing for on their own. And on the topic of Karaz-a-Karak leveraging its wealth (and also its abundant supply of highly-skilled crafters), offering to build a chapterhouse/fortress for an Order and craft dwarf-made arms and armor for every Knight who serves there would be a hell of a draw to add to the promise of martial glory. Especially if it were intimated that the leader of such knights might earn a runic weapon of their very own, which have absolutely enormous cultural prestige in the Empire even over and above their bitching magical properties. This could be a VERY effective way of boosting the defensive capability of the Hold by building more surface defenses in a position where they can be incorporated into the Karag's defensive setup and filling them with motherfucking knights in dwarf-quality gear. That could really boost the Karag's defensibility against surface threats without drawing on the Karaz Ankor's very limited supply of dwarfpower.
There's also the matter of below-ground defensibility of course. But there's potential there too, and it would synergize very well with what I just laid out above. It's absolutely possible to put mercenaries on long-term retainer, as K8P has actually done with Braganza's Besiegers. And it's worth noting that Tilea has the most mercs available for hire of anywhere, and Tilea has no Conspiracy of Silence and a history of conflict with the Skaven. Thus it would very likely be viable to hire mercs who already had a proven track record of fighting skaven. That would raise the question of "but where can the mercs live without potentially producing a culture clash with the dwarves" normally, but if there's already a fortress town on the surface to house the Chapterhouse I was just talking about then that answers that question. Hence, synergy.
Mount Silverspear is also very good for enabling Mathilde's personal shenanigans. Canonically it's got greenskins on top and skaven underneath, and I don't think we're likely to find a setup more conducive to replicating our K8P-style hijinks when dealing with a single Karag. Overall, I genuinely believe that if we got involved we could really have a good shot at doing this, at demonstrating that novel approaches can produce unprecedented success AGAIN, and at providing another huge morale boost to the Karaz Ankor. Of course, we wouldn't be expected to be in this role for just one project even if it's a highly impactful one like this, but that's fine - all that other stuff Belegar mentioned sounds interesting too so I wouldn't be sorry about spending time on those as well.
Now, I also promised to speak about this vs. Waystones. Hopefully I'll be able to make myself do so at shorter length than the thousand-plus words above.
For a long time Waystones was my personal leading choice, but this has replaced it. And part of that is that Waystones is the option most likely to still be available later, whereas the Mount Silverspear issue in particular is time-sensitive. Moreover, I believe that we can actually use our time spent as Loremaster-at-Large to indirectly make ourselves better prepared for the Waystones project. Not by doing any Waystones stuff per se "on the side" as it were, Boney has been quite clear that's nonviable. But out of all our potential partners for the Waystones project, convincing the dawi to offer up some of their rune-related secrets (the most secret kind of secrets they have) in a project directly involving and instigated by some of the elgi, even if we're actually running it, seems very likely to be the hardest pitch we'd have to make in my eyes. Being Loremaster-at-Large would mean the favor earned went to Belegar as our employer, but it would still mean we'd be further demonstrating our reliability and skill to the Karaz Ankor and just truly hammering that point home the way you frankly often need to if you want to actually change dwarven minds in most/many cases.
Moreover, if we spend our Deeds/Boon on a Grand Library and a Research Institute as many people would like then I think that could help as well, and could also do so more generally outside of the Karaz Ankor to boot. While again I don't think we can address Waystones directly here without it being our main job focus per Boney's replies on that, it can still help us be ready indirectly. Having a few years under our belt as the head of a research institute in good standing - one that ideally will already involve magical types from more than one tradition/culture - would IMO go a LONG way to establishing our bona fides as the prospective head of a highly ambitious multicultural research project when we tackle Waystones. And I think having those bona fides to hand could be very useful indeed when it comes time to wrangle prospective research partners into getting involved.
tl;dr - Loremaster-at-Large good, we can probably return to Waystones later and have a stronger set of credentials when we do.
[x] Loremaster-at-Large of Karak Eight Peaks
[X] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
[X] Spymaster of Wissenland
And heck with it, Agent Mathilde and chilling with Elspeth von Draken in Nuln would both be fun too.
[X] The Waystone Project
Aaaand adding Waystones because a) I do really want to do those sooner or later and we can't actually count on "later" being viable, and b) Markgrafin is the least interesting option out of the leaders to me and atm Waystones is the best bet to beat it.
Specifically, I had another argument I wanted to make in favor of Loremaster-at-Large. And then after that I'll be addressing it specifically in terms of how it stands against my other leading candidate, the Waystones project.
This, in particular, has been weighing on my mind ever since this reply from Boney. I think Belegar's assessment that they'd need something novel to prevent it from being another disaster like literally every Hold reclamation attempt prior to the thread-K8P Expedition is very likely on the money. But as we saw from the Okral's visit, Karaz-a-Karak is almost certainly the Hold that is least temperamentally suited to coming up with something novel themselves.
IMO, that means we have the potential to make a very salient, very impactful marginal difference by addressing this problem specifically, quite possibly moreso than any other problem out there. If we want the Karaz Ankor to potentially regain hope, having another failed Expedition resulting in more dead dwarves is a great way to interject a big dose of renewed pessimism into what's been a very positive trendline. Since it's already being geared up for, this is a time-sensitive matter as well. And outside of us, there's just not a lot of candidates for "trusted by dawi" and "good at producing novel solutions." It... might honestly JUST be us, if that's not too egotistic of an assessment. If you add "proven track record of reclaiming Holds" then that would narrow any hypothetical list even further.
That's the potential negative impact of NOT getting involved, and I think it's far from negligible. But if we can make this expedition a success the potential positive impact could be huge. The obvious element is that adding another reclaimed Hold would be a big fucking deal and a hell of an addition to a positive trendline. What's the expression, "once is luck, twice is coincidence, three times is a trend"? But there's more than that. While we don't know this IC so maybe this shouldn't be factored into our decision making per se, Thorgrim knows exactly what reclaiming old Holds does for the Karaz Ankor's waystone network. I figured that K8P's addition would probably just go into filling the power reserves for the Rune of Valaya for a good long while given how vital that is and how long they were being drained for. But then we went and added Karag Dum and Karak Vlag back into the network too. Maybe Karaz-a-Karak is just looking at this from Thorgrim's old suicide math POV of "how many Grudges can we clear pre-extinction." But Thorgrim's standpoint has changed drastically since he sunk into that depressive viewpoint. He might well be thinking that if another old Hold can be brought online, he could actually repower another one of the Ancestors' Great Works. If you think reclaiming a Hold is a big deal for dawi psychology? Just imagine how THAT would land. That would also mean that Thorgrim is genuinely committed to making this Expedition an outright success, which increases the likelihood he'd be amenable to novel ideas to boost those chances. And if the King is for it, it doesn't matter if anyone else in Karaz-a-Karak is put off by the novelty. Though the fact that we personally saved a buttload of Karaz-a-Karak crafters including a Grandmaster with zhuf, with the Protector turned on no less, wouldn't hurt there either.
And while Karaz-a-Karak is poorly suited for producing novel approaches from a temperamental standpoint as we saw from the Okral's visit, they are excellently suited for it from a practical standpoint. I'm thinking specifically of the fact that Karaz-a-Karak, above any other Hold still in dawi hands, is noted as having an absolutely stupid amount of wealth locked away in its vaults. Just for a first example that means that, if they could be induced to agree with it, they could go absolutely ham on hiring mercenaries for this. Tilea is absolutely chock-full of mercenaries so even outside of whatever the Empire has available there should be plenty that could be hired, and they'd have access to Tilea for hiring purposes both through the River of Echoes in the Empire and through Barak Varr. I believe that wealth could be leveraged in terms of making it feasible to hang onto the Hold if/once reclaimed as well. This is something I've been thinking about a lot, actually.
The Empire has a lot of Knightly orders, and as we've seen they generally work well with dwarves (commitments to martial prowess and a code of honor are very dwarf-compatible). As heavy cavalry, they also fill a battlefield role that the dwarves frankly have nothing for on their own. And on the topic of Karaz-a-Karak leveraging its wealth (and also its abundant supply of highly-skilled crafters), offering to build a chapterhouse/fortress for an Order and craft dwarf-made arms and armor for every Knight who serves there would be a hell of a draw to add to the promise of martial glory. Especially if it were intimated that the leader of such knights might earn a runic weapon of their very own, which have absolutely enormous cultural prestige in the Empire even over and above their bitching magical properties. This could be a VERY effective way of boosting the defensive capability of the Hold by building more surface defenses in a position where they can be incorporated into the Karag's defensive setup and filling them with motherfucking knights in dwarf-quality gear. That could really boost the Karag's defensibility against surface threats without drawing on the Karaz Ankor's very limited supply of dwarfpower.
There's also the matter of below-ground defensibility of course. But there's potential there too, and it would synergize very well with what I just laid out above. It's absolutely possible to put mercenaries on long-term retainer, as K8P has actually done with Braganza's Besiegers. And it's worth noting that Tilea has the most mercs available for hire of anywhere, and Tilea has no Conspiracy of Silence and a history of conflict with the Skaven. Thus it would very likely be viable to hire mercs who already had a proven track record of fighting skaven. That would raise the question of "but where can the mercs live without potentially producing a culture clash with the dwarves" normally, but if there's already a fortress town on the surface to house the Chapterhouse I was just talking about then that answers that question. Hence, synergy.
Mount Silverspear is also very good for enabling Mathilde's personal shenanigans. Canonically it's got greenskins on top and skaven underneath, and I don't think we're likely to find a setup more conducive to replicating our K8P-style hijinks when dealing with a single Karag. Overall, I genuinely believe that if we got involved we could really have a good shot at doing this, at demonstrating that novel approaches can produce unprecedented success AGAIN, and at providing another huge morale boost to the Karaz Ankor. Of course, we wouldn't be expected to be in this role for just one project even if it's a highly impactful one like this, but that's fine - all that other stuff Belegar mentioned sounds interesting too so I wouldn't be sorry about spending time on those as well.
Now, I also promised to speak about this vs. Waystones. Hopefully I'll be able to make myself do so at shorter length than the thousand-plus words above.
For a long time Waystones was my personal leading choice, but this has replaced it. And part of that is that Waystones is the option most likely to still be available later, whereas the Mount Silverspear issue in particular is time-sensitive. Moreover, I believe that we can actually use our time spent as Loremaster-at-Large to indirectly make ourselves better prepared for the Waystones project. Not by doing any Waystones stuff per se "on the side" as it were, Boney has been quite clear that's nonviable. But out of all our potential partners for the Waystones project, convincing the dawi to offer up some of their rune-related secrets (the most secret kind of secrets they have) in a project directly involving and instigated by some of the elgi, even if we're actually running it, seems very likely to be the hardest pitch we'd have to make in my eyes. Being Loremaster-at-Large would mean the favor earned went to Belegar as our employer, but it would still mean we'd be further demonstrating our reliability and skill to the Karaz Ankor and just truly hammering that point home the way you frankly often need to if you want to actually change dwarven minds in most/many cases.Moreover, if we spend our Deeds/Boon on a Grand Library and a Research Institute as many people would like then I think that could help as well, and could also do so more generally outside of the Karaz Ankor to boot. While again I don't think we can address Waystones directly here without it being our main job focus per Boney's replies on that, it can still help us be ready indirectly. Having a few years under our belt as the head of a research institute in good standing - one that ideally will already involve magical types from more than one tradition/culture - would IMO go a LONG way to establishing our bona fides as the prospective head of a highly ambitious multicultural research project when we tackle Waystones. And I think having those bona fides to hand could be very useful indeed when it comes time to wrangle prospective research partners into getting involved.
tl;dr - Loremaster-at-Large good, we can probably return to Waystones later and have a stronger set of credentials when we do.
[x] Loremaster-at-Large of Karak Eight Peaks
[X] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
[X] Spymaster of Wissenland
And heck with it, Agent Mathilde and chilling with Elspeth von Draken in Nuln would both be fun too.
[X] The Waystone Project
Aaaand adding Waystones because a) I do really want to do those sooner or later and we can't actually count on "later" being viable, and b) Markgrafin is the least interesting option out of the leaders to me and atm Waystones is the best bet to beat it.
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Unlucky Bibliophile
Meganekko
[X] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
I was initially leery of getting involved with Heidi. But after reading all the arguments for and against the bodyguard job, I'm more willing now.
Additionally, I just don't find Waystones to be compelling.
I was initially leery of getting involved with Heidi. But after reading all the arguments for and against the bodyguard job, I'm more willing now.
Additionally, I just don't find Waystones to be compelling.
[X] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
[X] Nagarythe
[X] The Waystone Project
[X] Nagarythe
[X] The Waystone Project
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WhiteNights
Notorious Phoneposter
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Loremaster-at-Large of Karak Eight Peaks
[X] The Waystone Project
[X] Nagarythe
[X] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
[X] The Waystone Project
[X] Nagarythe
[X] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
[X] Markgraf of Eastern Stirland
[X] Spymaster of Wissenland
[X] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
[X] Spymaster of Wissenland
[X] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred