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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Valmond said:
1) Watching Mathilde interact with the kid, help raise him and teach him about the world? Seeing the imperial politics from close up? Lot of adventures in different parts of the empire dealing with their problems? More interactions with colleges due to proximity? Being able to be smug at courtiers who have to work to get the empresses ear while we basicly come and go as we please? (yeah, that last one is kinda petty)
2) I do not understand the question.
3) Ranaldian Lady Magister who is The Expert on dwarf relations (kinda important for the future emperor), also an expert on fighting Skaven, Orcs, and Necromancers (all problems he will likely have to deal with). What's not to love?
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1) So far I see only being smug part being a good point. About adventures and problems: thing is, Mandred doesn't wield Ulgu or magic at all. He would not have our major adventuring skills, so we can't teach him those. Our main adventuring skill is infiltration and perception, I guess, also the very quick magical horse. We are kind of a lone hero in our adventuring. Granted, Sigmar did such thing a lot, but emperors don't do that anymore, I think.

That's how I see things for now at least. Well, alright, I've just got a good idea about what we could do: teach him the best how to utilize wizards and magical items by getting him to know the magical concepts and limits, also the mindset of wizards. These skills he would be able to use as the Emperor, multiplying the strength of wizards available to him by knowing how to use them best. If we get several other wizards onboard, that would work great.

2) Mathilda might not be good or even capable parent, because of her childhood trauma. And she's kind of young. I think there are better parent figures, even wizards.

3) We could be good tutor on dwarves and how to utilize wizards against skaven, works, necromancers, vampires.

So, I'd say we would be good tutor on wizards and wizard warfare (especially grey wizard warfare), the parent figure - likely not.
 
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TalonofAnathrax said:
The colleges didn't use article 1 to assassinate the Empress. They quietly killed her without anyone knowing, avoiding a public mess and a public precedent. They probably used Article 1 internally, but that's about it.
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Like a lot of organisations, I imagine they started to ignore the law when following became synonymous with risking an existential crisis.
 
Redshirt Army said:
Mount Silverspear will be a disastrous failure with or without Mathilde. There's no easy trick to bring them back like with Vlag, there's no other convenient nearby enemies to play them off of, and the seat of the Lahmians power is just about the single worst place for Mathilde to try her usual sneaky shenanigans.
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You're thinking of the Silver Pinnacle.

Mount Silverspear is known as Mount Grimfang these days, and owned by Greenskins. Probably Night Goblins. Skaven nest below it (probably).
 
[X] The Waystone Project

I know people think this can be done later with little consequence, that the Waystones are not going anywhere and neither are the elves or dwarfs, but don't think of this as a single, dead end project, think of the doors it might open, the Karaz Ankor might get enough power to fully start reconquering their holds, maybe the Eonir have a good look at AV and they figure out how to make Qaysh powerstones, or we could learn more about the geomantic web and it's potential, or Ulthuan could decide "Oh we actually want to get in on this" and try to make amends to the dwarfs.

Sure, some of those are less likely than others, but who knows what doors might open? and we can probably spare the AP along the way to fix the Wissenland situation and other side projects like we did when we were Loremaster.
 
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Redshirt Army said:
Mount Silverspear will be a disastrous failure with or without Mathilde. There's no easy trick to bring them back like with Vlag, there's no other convenient nearby enemies to play them off of, and the seat of the Lahmians power is just about the single worst place for Mathilde to try her usual sneaky shenanigans.
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The Lahmians took Silver Pinnacle, not Silverspear. It'll be greenskins and skaven, most likely.

Edit: Weber'd.
 
Redshirt Army said:
Mount Silverspear will be a disastrous failure with or without Mathilde. There's no easy trick to bring them back like with Vlag, there's no other convenient nearby enemies to play them off of, and the seat of the Lahmians power is just about the single worst place for Mathilde to try her usual sneaky shenanigans.
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Mount Silverspear is Mount Grimfang, not the Silver Pinnacle. Just Greenskins and Skaven, no Neferata.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
Could you give an example of what you mean? I'm struggling to think of a reasonable any scenario where the Emperor tells us to do something obviously "beyond the pale" that everyone will hate us for, which is simultaneously not countermanded by Article 1's placement of "The Empire" above "The Emperor".
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It wold not have to be obviously beyond the pale at least not at first, that would show a level of incompetence that I would not assign to Hedi, no it would be slow, replacing Mathy's already frayed loyalty to the empire with one to her personally though Ranald. As an example for a tipping point:

The Count of Norland is being a belligerent asshole still, causing all sorts of trouble and we don't like him, maybe he even insulted Mathy personally one time.

Lutipold is dying (Nurgle poison, can't be fixed he has three months in him)

Now our Norlander freind has been using wins against Norscan raiders to show that he is a much better candidate for the throne than the still child Mandred. The dying Emperor orders us to kill a few of the count's messengers, screw with his armies, just enough to make him lose. Reinforcements will come soon he assures us, just one small loss to make the count look bad.

This is just an example off the top of my head, any real situation will be colored by years on the job interacting with imperial nobles
 
Fayhem said:
I will note that this makes some assumptions about local variables that can't be substantiated. Notably, it assumes that she was being observed closely enough for her personal habits and activities to be tracked. It would be difficult to ethically fake her status under observation, but a vampire being protective of their personal territory even against """allies""" and a Lahmian being exceptionally skilled at wiping out spies and infiltrators wouldn't be at all out of character. I mean, if she was really being observed all THAT closely... well, IIRC vampires have senses so keen that they can hear heartbeats, and the fact that she has one might have been just a bit of a tell.
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Sure, I agree with you. My best guess, based on what we saw of Nachtafen and what we've seen of Heidi (and @Derpmind's astute observation that every time "doing something nice" comes up she plays it off like she's embarrassed to have done something good without an angle on it), is that probably as Gabriella she didn't have to dirty her soul with anything much worse than "standing by while innocents suffer because trying to help them would compromise her goals," which, like, is something Mathilde herself has done. But if Boney swung by and said "actually she totally executed one or two innocent peasants to maintain her cover," I wouldn't be shocked, either. She's not a saint (except for the part where she might literally be a saint of Ranald, I guess), but she's not heartless either. I'd peg her around Wilhelmina level of "keen self-interest that is mostly yoked to reasonable ends."
 
DragonParadox said:
It wold not have to be obviously beyond the pale at least not at first, that would show a level of incompetence that I would not assign to Hedi, no it would be slow, replacing Mathy's already frayed loyalty to the empire with one to her personally though Ranald. As an example for a tipping point:

The Count of Norland is being a belligerent asshole still, causing all sorts of trouble and we don't like him, maybe he even insulted Mathy personally one time.

Lutipold is dying (Nurgle poison, can't be fixed he has three months in him)

Now our Norlander freind has been using wins against Norscan raiders to show that he is a much better candidate for the throne than the still child Mandred. The dying Emperor orders us to kill a few of the count's messengers, screw with his armies, just enough to make him lose. Reinforcements will come soon he assures us, just one small loss to make the count look bad.

This is just an example off the top of my head, any real situation will be colored by years on the job interacting with imperial nobles
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Okay, at which point Mathilde says "sabotage armies of the Empire? No thanks!" and moonwalks out of there.

I asked for an example that didn't contradict Article 1, and even with the most contrived scenario possible you couldn't do it?
 
[X] Loremaster-at-Large of Karak Eight Peaks
[X] The Waystone Project
[X] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred

I wish Matilda stayed with Belegar - he cool, but raising a prince can be interesting too.
 
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Deathbybunnies said:
Okay, at which point Mathilde says "sabotage armies of the Empire? No thanks!" and moonwalks out of there.

I asked for an example that didn't contradict Article 1, and even with the most contrived scenario possible you couldn't do it?
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Article One is not an Everything Proof Shield, it is a vague platitude about values. We say no thanks the emperor says 'As the Heir of Magnus and Sigmar's Holy Empire I command you do do it.' What do we do then, just insult him and blithely assume there will be no fallout from him or his faction?
 
Deathbybunnies said:
Okay, at which point Mathilde says "sabotage armies of the Empire? No thanks!" and moonwalks out of there.

I asked for an example that didn't contradict Article 1, and even with the most contrived scenario possible you couldn't do it?
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Yeah, it's a simple fact that Mathilde won't betray the Empire unless we make her.

Trust me, if there was a way to forcefully make Mathilde retire her allegiance the Imperial rule, I would've used it. It'd make reaching my goal much easier.
 
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fan_of_D_Andreev said:
1) So far I see only being smug part being a good point. About adventures and problems: thing is, Mandred doesn't wield Ulgu or magic at all. He would not have our major adventuring skills, so we can't teach him those. Our main adventuring skill is infiltration and perception, I guess, also the very quick magical horse. We are kind of a lone hero in our adventuring. Granted, Sigmar did such thing a lot, but emperors don't do that anymore, I think.

That's how I see things for now at least. Well, alright, I've just got a good idea about what we could do: teach him the best how to utilize wizards and magical items by getting him to know the magical concepts and limits, also the mindset of wizards. These skills he would be able to use as the Emperor, multiplying the strength of wizards available to him by knowing how to use them best. If we get several other wizards onboard, that would work great.

2) Mathilda might not be good or even capable parent, because of her childhood trauma. And she's kind of young. I think there are better parent figures, even wizards.

3) We could be good tutor on dwarves and how to utilize wizards against skaven, works, necromancers, vampires.

So, I'd say we would be good tutor on wizards and wizard warfare (especially grey wizard warfare), the parent figure - likely not.
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1) We would not be taking Mandred to adventures, where'd that even come up from? We'll be dealing with EC problems so they'll like Mandred more and vote for him to be the emps when his dad kicks it. That said, we can still teach him about necromancers and vampires and how to counter their plots, teach him about intrigue, and how to see the world.

2) Mathilde is not going to be a parent. She's the awesome crazy aunt who talks to giant spider swarms and dragons and runs around murderizing WAAAGHs when not teaching the young impressionable kid about how to not piss of dawi.
That said, so far there has been nothing about Mathilde that would make her a bad parent, apart from workaholism. And Mathilde is not that young, she was a young adult when the quest started, over a decade ago, if not for the whole wizard thing, she could have kids nearing adulthood by now.
 
[] The Waystone Project

I like the idea of exploring this, but not so much the implied heavy diplomacy.

[X] Markgraf of Eastern Stirland
[X] Count of Sylvania

I like dynasty empire building quests, deal with it.

[X] Spymaster of Wissenland

Skaven hunting was fun

[X] Governor-General of Swamp Town
[X] Border Princess of the Howling River
 
DragonParadox said:
Article One is not an Everything Proof Shield, it is a vague platitude about values. We say no thanks the emperor says 'As the Heir of Magnus and Sigmar's Holy Empire I command you do do it.' What do we do then, just insult him and blithely assume there will be no fallout from him or his faction?
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Are you joking? Why would the Emperor ask her to betray the empire when he wants his son to be elected and he's literally the guy in charge of the empire? This is the definition of baseless fear mongering.
 
das_slash said:
[X] The Waystone Project

I know people think this can be done later with little consequence, that the Waystones are not going anywhere and neither are the elves or dwarfs, but don't think of this as a single, dead end project, think of the doors it might open, the Karaz Ankor might get enough power to fully start reconquering their holds, maybe the Eonir have a good look at AV and they figure out how to make Qaysh powerstones, or we could learn more about the geomantic web and it's potential, or Ulthuan could decide "Oh we actually want to get in on this" and try to make amends to the dwarfs.

Sure, some of those are less likely than others, but who knows what doors might open? and we can probably spare the AP along the way to fix the Wissenland situation and other side projects like we did when we were Loremaster.
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Only reason Karaz Ankor is not reconquering old holds is that they lack the dawi to do it, and have no need for it.
Sure Waystone Project is amazeballs and all, but that particular thing is extremely unlikely.
 
DragonParadox said:
Article One is not an Everything Proof Shield, it is a vague platitude about values. We say no thanks the emperor says 'As the Heir of Magnus and Sigmar's Holy Empire I command you do do it.' What do we do then, just insult him and blithely assume there will be no fallout from him or his faction?
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We say "I believe that sabotaging the armies of the Empire would be against Article 1".
BoneyM said:
1. The first obedience of every Magister must be to the ideals and laws of Sigmar's Holy Empire of which these Articles form a part; then to he who is rightfully elected Emperor of Sigmar's Holy Empire; then to the Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic; then to the laws and ideals of their Order; then to the Patriarch of their Order; then to the authorities that each Magister may be required to serve in the course of his duties; then to other superiors within their Orders.
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In what possible way is sabotaging Nordland's armies not "against the ideals and laws of Sigmar's Holy Empire?" There's nothing vague about it. Double or nothing - explain a reading in which doing this does not break the Empire's laws.
 
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DragonParadox said:
Article One is not an Everything Proof Shield, it is a vague platitude about values. We say no thanks the emperor says 'As the Heir of Magnus and Sigmar's Holy Empire I command you do do it.' What do we do then, just insult him and blithely assume there will be no fallout from him or his faction?
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In your scenario we say that Nurgle's illness is harming his mind and essentially nobody would argue with us. Like seriously, the man dying of nurgle stuff is ordering the sabatoge of people fighting chaos?
 
Redshirt Army said:
Ah good, I was thinking that the Dwarves had totally lost their marbles. :V
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Yep, me too.

Btw I wonder how powerful Neferata is. And if she could be scared away from there and somewhere else. Or even killed. With a help of a friendly dragon or two and a team of wizards like Melkoth brain-storming the problem. Terrorizing vampires could be fun. And would work for the Empire by weakening or removing the Lahmian infiltration for decades or forever.
 
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