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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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Angelform said:
A very nice fluff piece.
I will note however that Wolf can talk.
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Iirc that should be only in Praestantia, otherwise he's limited to barking.

BoneyM said:
The next step is significantly trickier. The throat and mouth of a canine is built for howls, growls and barks, not for spoken language, so teaching Wolf to speak any mundane language would have to find a way around that significant obstacle. Lingua Praestantia, however, is no mundane language. It is descended from the tongue of the beings the Elves say shaped the world, and it not only possesses words for concepts alien to Reikspiel, it also resonates with magic in such a way that chants and incantations in it resonate with magic and assist with the shaping of spells, rather than acting as a mere mnemonic device. A much lesser known property of the language is that it works the other way as well - just as Praestantia can shape magic, magic can form Praestantia. Theoretically, any creature with even a sliver of magical ability could learn the cantrips to turn magic into spoken word, but as it requires that creature to already have a solid grasp of the language, in practice it is only of use to Familiars, who have the intelligence and inclination to attempt it in the first place and can use their bond to accelerate the learning process.
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Edit: Weber'd.
 
[X] The Waystone Project
[X] Governor-General of Swamp Town
[X] Nagarythe

Urgh I rather stay away from Heidi and her politics, as for the kid he will be alright.

The Waystone Project is quite different compare to treading on familiar grounds with vampire even if we're ruler this time unlike the advisor before.
I want to meet elves already!
 
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You know I think there is actually an argument to be made that now is the time to start the Waystone project, as opposed to waiting.

First off the practical arguments against waiting... well, they boil down to essentially this; there's no actual guarantee that Mathilde survives. Not a few updates ago we had several close reminders that even for all the she has progressed in power Mathilde can still die quite easily. In the fight with the Champion of Khorne. With the Urmskaladrak. Tomorrow is not gauranteed, so if we want to do something we should do it now.

Now that that's out of the way, why should we do it now as opposed to the other 'more pressing' jobs?

Well, because it's extremely fresh on our minds for one. Our familiarity (however slight) with Waystones is what allowed us to turn the Karag Dum expedition from (in the eyes of the dwarfs) a pointless exercise into an actual genuine success; return Vlag to mundane reality is the thing dwarfs are likely to take away from the expedition, rather than the news about Dum. Mathilde has just been delivered a categorical and immediate demonstration of the utility of Waystones, not only to the forces of 'Order' but also to the various 'Disorder' factions as well as a reminder why there are few people better placed to actually make progress on it.

No dwarfen Runelord noticed the hijinks with Vlag, nor elven high mage. Mathilde. This reinforces the original reason the Eonir even reached out to her with the initial notion in the first place; because she is a friendly with dwarfs and has sufficient insight into the technical aspects of magic not to completely fuck up something like this and functionally those factors are at their zenith (unless we manage to catch the eye of some very high up High Elven Archmages or something). General dwarf opinion of Mathilde at this point is not really going to go meaningfully up, not in any helpful way at least, the Waystone doesn't need dwarfs in general to think better of us - it needs Runesmiths to and for that we're going to actually talk to the Runesmiths in question and convince them to contribute their closely guarded knowledge to the project.

The Eonir are already nominally bought it, it just remains to negotiate specific resource contributions and actually start. They're not going to get more onboard without actual invest in the project.

Really the only reasonable stakeholder who can be convinced by further effort on Mathilde's part is the Empire and the knowledge locked up behind that door is not, fundamentally, new in anyway. Whatever the Colleges (in particular the Jades) or Cults or other scattered and minor magical traditions might know ahs already been known by humans for a couple centuries at least and is thus an exhausted well. Unless we can connect it with other knowledge.

Basically, delaying doesn't actually seem likely to make the Waystone project any easier. Not unless Mathilde deliberately set out to cultivate the necessary contacts while on the other job.

And more importantly, delaying does nothing but delay the payoff on something that already promises to be a long road. Since, because it is such a monumental task, it isn't likely to see meaningful progress unless we give it significant parts of Mathilde's attention at the detriment of whatever else Mathilde has got on her plate delaying start is functionally the same as delaying the 'ending' (not that I particularly think the Project has an 'ending' so to speak). Now is the time to start.

On a somewhat different, but connected note; one of the aspects of the Waystone project that hasn't particularly been noted (so far as I've seen, though, to be fair, I have been skimming a lot) is that it's one of the few jobs that could see Mathilde visiting a lot of far flung places. Want to visit Bretonnia? Tilea? Kislev again? Araby? Albion? Maybe even Ulthuan?

Contingent of course on what BoneyM is prepared and willing to write (they do not have infinite time to flesh out every corner of the world) Mathilde's search for hidden scraps of knowledge could potentially take her there. And then go back home to familiar sights and faces afterward.
 
[X] Loremaster-at-Large of Karak Eight Peaks
[X] Ambassador-at-Large to the Karaz Ankor
[X] The Waystone Project

Helping the Dwarfs and helping communications between the Dwarfs and the Empire.
And because it will likely allow us to help Karak Vlag's population adapt to the current world. And they deserve all the help.
 
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[x] The Waystone Project
[X] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
 
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Noitaerc said:
Helping the Dwarfs and helping communications between the Dwarfs and the Empire.
And because it will likely allow us to help Karak Vlag's population adapt to the current world. And they deserve all the help.
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I empathize with people who don't want more Dwarf stuff, but I totally agree that Vlag is going to be fascinating. They literally stepped out of a time capsule from a time before the colleges, and also our skillset is completely unique in the Karaz Ankor.
 
BirdBodhisattva said:
All in all, written for fun. Not trying to finnagle votes or anything. And I know you must have heard this a few hundred times, but thank you BoneyM for this wonderful quest! SV has stopped to hold its breath while this vote is going on, and it's not for nothing!
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Alright.

Anybody who has not read the omake I took the quote above from (A Boy and his Wolf), skip this post because I'm about to gush about it and you deserve to read it blind. While I haven't even come close to reading every omake in this thread, if I had to choose my favorite one so far, I'm pretty sure this would be it.

Anyways, Mandred's characterization was excellent and likeable, and the sense of boyish adventure was carried so strong that it wasn't immediately obvious that it was Mathilde's familiar in the first place - though I at least caught on by the time he was riding the fellow, lol.

But then comes the final scene... I'd call it whiplash, but after the consistently light tone it was more a sense of unreality with the words on the page, as if at any moment the vague, abstract mentions of something bad happening would turn out to be something silly and overblown - aided in part by a held-over feeling from the childish intuition of all adults being in cahoots. But then it's rephrased as something terrible almost happening, and my gut begins to drop as the scene stops matching up with any interpretation that says it's about to pull a jape, and Mathilde's entrance, grim as Heidi might have been, drops any possibility of melodrama into freefall.

The boyish joy of adventure and mischief was conveyed well in the other scenes - but here, in the opening of the only one where Mandred is not the POV, the shift in tone and careful wording shared with me a visceral feeling of disbelief to hold on to in understanding of what Heidi felt. 'What is going on?'

Specifics of the event itself are sparse - we don't know exactly what Alicia tried to do - but Wolf's involvement was pivotal. The earlier scenes take on a different light when you consider that Wolf slept with Mandred, and Alicia went into Mandred's bedroom while he slept and not only tried to drive Wolf out but had been trying to convince him not to sleep with the familiar for some time while secretly meaning him harm. That Mandred riding Wolf after Wolf slipped in just before his class ended was not just some moment of opportunity for mischief, but an evacuation and literally taking him to ground. The first few scenes aren't quite elegantly written enough for the second go through to support a tone consummate with Wolf's side of the situation now that we know, but there's enough there for the details to take on new and sinister light.

And the ending... I saw it coming as soon as it was shown that the white college patriarch was putting his thumb on the scale for who should do the screening, but it still gave me chills. 'If all other options fail, we may replace the head with the one white magister you trust: Egrimm van Horstmann'.

For whatever the plot may have been, Mathilde and Heidi were unable to decisively root it out; the immediate crisis is came and left in a flash, but the stakes and tension - theirs and mine - have only risen. They do not know what agents might remain, and what the cost of action versus inaction may be. And with that single name, now neither do I.

Bravo.


Anyways, updating my votes.

[x] Loremaster-at-Large of Karak Eight Peaks
[x] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
 
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[x] Markgraf of Eastern Stirland
[x] Loremaster-at-Large of Karak Eight Peaks
[x] The Waystone Project
[x] Spymaster of Wissenland
[x] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
 
Darth_Shaman said:
[x] Markgraf of Eastern Stirland
[x] Loremaster-at-Large of Karak Eight Peaks
[x] The Waystone Project
[x] Spymaster of Wissenland
[x] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
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You do realize you voted for the 4 leading options right? You might already know but I thought I'd say something since there is a chance you didn't realize it.

Edit: I'm saying something because your vote won't really do anything to effect the outcome as it is now.
 
MRoy said:
You do realize you voted for the 4 leading options right? You might already know but I thought I'd say something since there is a chance you didn't realize it.

Edit: I'm saying something because your vote won't really do anything to effect the outcome as it is now.
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yeah but if things things, then their vote is still in place...
 
MRoy said:
You do realize you voted for the 4 leading options right? You might already know but I thought I'd say something since there is a chance you didn't realize it.

Edit: I'm saying something because your vote won't really do anything to effect the outcome as it is now.
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All five leading options, in fact. Their vote doesn't affect the current balance of power but, hey, if they're truly happy with all five, then that's valid.

Anyway, a new topic beyond this vote itself:
BoneyM said:
- The exact details of how a position will work will be negotiated with whoever oversees it once a decision is made, and the thread will be able to vote on what concessions are most desired.
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What sorts of concessions would we want? This is most important for the Markgraf and Bodyguard positions from the top 4, since in Waystones we'd be negotiating with ourself and the concessions Belegar would give us are "yes." But if we take Roswita's or Heidi's jobs, what do we want from them in exchange?

As I said a few times already, I'd really like "some means of turning half-actions into research actions," like what we know we could get inside K8P from a Great Deed expenditure. This would be really nice because Markgraf and Bodyguard are both actions where we'd be under pressure to spend a lot of personal actions on the job or on self-improvement to make us sufficiently badass to handle the job's challenges, so having a way for us to keep our research ticking in the background without needing to have a huge throw-down fight over every personal action would be great -- converting 1 AP to 2 research half-actions wouldn't cost us too much, compared to what it would gain in peace of mind. And it would also give us resources with which to investigate any weird magical bullshit that comes up in the course of doing our job (a bigger deal for Markgraf than for Bodyguard). But I'm not sure if this is even possible, because the negotiations don't open until we've picked a job.

Are there other things we might really want?
 
[X] Markgraf of Eastern Stirland
[X] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
[X] Ranaldian High Priest of Kislev
[X] Border Princess of the Howling River
 
BoneyM said:
[Instant reinforcements: Req 50, Learning, 45+28=73.]
[Swing: Martial, 4+23=27 vs 39+40-30(Unaware)-10(Wounded)=39.]

You could picture it so perfectly in your mind: you appear standing on Deathfang's neck, sword already mid-swing, and you take the Daemon's head neatly off its shoulders. You save Deathfang, Asarnil pledges eternal friendship, Deathfang shares some juicy dragon secrets, happy ending for everyone but the Tempter. The Daemon has other ideas. In an instant its talons are out of Deathfang's neck and catching Branulhune in mid-air, and though daemonic ichor spills forth, it manages to arrest the swing of the runic blade.
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BoneyM said:
"Are you okay?" you ask in Eltharin.

"I should be asking you that question," Asarnil says with a laugh. "If that had worked, the poets would be fighting each other for the honour of putting that maneuver of yours into verse."
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Right!? The Dice are trolling. That's such a capstone moment. Like if this was a movie, that scene would have been in the trailers, but we got the blooper reel! Damn fickle dice. We won either way, might as well have been in style!

Edit:
To bad I didn't stick around just like 6 more releases and it picked up so fast, I wouldn't have fallen behind lol
 
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picklepikkl said:
This is most important for the Markgraf and Bodyguard positions from the top 4, since in Waystones we'd be negotiating with ourself and the concessions Belegar would give us are "yes."
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I've been wondering about that. Couldn't the Waystone project be done under Belegar's autority, the title of Loremaster would sure be useful to secure dwarven collaboration and such a project would be a decent way for K8P to project diplomatic power.
 
[x] Bodyguard and Tutor to Prince Mandred
[x] Markgraf of Eastern Stirland
[x] Ranaldian High Priest of Kislev
[x] Spymaster of Wissenland
 
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