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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Something I don't see brought up a lot. The tree spirit said that they have a way to pull the arm of high elves. I'm just wondering the best way to take advantage of that and how to go about it.

Simplest would be is 'help us with this project and we open up to you' but seems like a way to straight forward way of going about it.
 
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What if we convince Kragg that he can have a golden strand of hair from the Fay Enchantress/The Lady? We just won't tell him one of them may or may not be an Elf. 🤫
 
So, while Laurelorn and the Library of Mournings is the topic of the moment, I thought I'd almost entirely baselessly speculate about it.

We've been told it's twice the age of the White Tower. There's a lot of swing room in that statement. The White Tower took a thousand years to build (mile-high magic towers do that), so it's sort of important whether Cadaeth is measuring from the beginning of the construction, or the end.

If it's the beginning, that puts it at being built in -3868IC, if my maths serves. This would imply it was built as part of the city to begin with, when the colony was founded. If this is the case, I suspect (and suspect only) that it'll be easier to access (note, easier. Not easy), because it'll have been built for use as a research library and is probably under the control of whoever actually runs the city.

If twice the age counts from the end of the construction of the Tower, that implies it was built in -1490IC. This would mean it was built just after the Asur left the Old World. In this case, I suspect it was built either for a specific project (for instance, developing those nifty trees they have), or as a repository for the books and such of those who fell during the War. Or maybe even as payment for the Grey Lords, who IIRC, protected the city during the War. That might mean access is given by another organization. One which wants extra control over the project which is why the Library is only available if the project works out of Laurelorn.

Obviously this is all speculation, but it's fun speculation.
 
I do think the Laurelorn sponsors have the best chance of us being able to get official aid from Ulthuan, because we have it from Boney that Ulthuan would be very alarmed at a human-led project to restore and tinker with Waystones. Being under the aegis of Laurelorn, though, removes that concern. So it's a good combo with eventually taking the elfternship and trying to impress the Shadow Warriors enough for them to introduce us to someone from Hoeth.
 
fan_of_D_Andreev said:
No need to relocate the project. What I say is that the project is about getting to know how to fix old waystones or build the new ones. Getting to know would surely include fixing/building waystones nearby the research project.

But when we do it (5-10-20-30+ years), the know-how could be applied elsewhere in the Warhammer world. Including Kislev, who would be very eager to apply our solution. That's my idea.
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Eggs and chickens, my friend. Promising to help Kislev in 20 years time is not something we can follow up on, and isn't something Boris will trust us to follow up on. We help Kislev now, or not at all.
 
MiracleGrow said:
I probably misread it. It came up at some point beyond that.
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The only one who promised he would pull the arm of High Elves is Boris, and telling the Asur you will help or be evicted is more likely to result in them writing home that humans are messing with waystones and Phoenix King writing a strongly worded letter saying something like "Do fucking not".


picklepikkl said:
I do think the Laurelorn sponsors have the best chance of us being able to get official aid from Ulthuan, because we have it from Boney that Ulthuan would be very alarmed at a human-led project to restore and tinker with Waystones. Being under the aegis of Laurelorn, though, removes that concern. So it's a good combo with eventually taking the elfternship and trying to impress the Shadow Warriors enough for them to introduce us to someone from Hoeth.
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I think getting Laurelorn to write an ask to Ulthuan about contribution to their project is a bit like asking Kragg and Thorek to work together. Possible, if you are an ancestor god/Asuryan :V.

The "wood elves" of Athel Loren and Laurelorn both are fiercely independent, and while Finubar Seafarer acknowledged them as sovereign entities, their memory will not be short.
 
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Potus said:
What if we convince Kragg that he can have a golden strand of hair from the Fay Enchantress/The Lady?
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If we're talking (actually serious) bribes for Kragg, my best suggestion is- in every edition of the Dwarfs army book, the entry for the Master Rune of Alaric the Mad says that no-one knows what happened to him after he forged the Runefangs, but some say that he forged Rune Weapons for the Khan Queens of Kislev (4th edition even suggests he may have forged Fearfrost, which Katarin wielded in canon, though later sources say that was forged by Miska)

If he did, and those weapons still exist, then the chance to look over some of Alaric's work has got to be at least a bit tempting.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Eggs and chickens, my friend. Promising to help Kislev in 20 years time is not something we can follow up on, and isn't something Boris will trust us to follow up on. We help Kislev now, or not at all.
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I don't get it. How would we help Kislev right now by putting our research project there? We need time to achieve the results of know-how about repairing/building waystones. And when we get know-how, it could be used anywhere we chose to share that know-how, including Kislev. Also I think that siphoning extra magic anywhere would help Kislev by reducing/stopping/reversing chaos wastes advance.
 
picklepikkl said:
I do think the Laurelorn sponsors have the best chance of us being able to get official aid from Ulthuan, because we have it from Boney that Ulthuan would be very alarmed at a human-led project to restore and tinker with Waystones. Being under the aegis of Laurelorn, though, removes that concern. So it's a good combo with eventually taking the elfternship and trying to impress the Shadow Warriors enough for them to introduce us to someone from Hoeth.
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On the other hand, being alarmed may well lead to them deciding to offer help and not take a no for an answer (not that we'd say no). After all, at that point it'd be either trying to get in on the project, or trying to force whichever nation is doing it to cancel, and depending on who wins that may only be possible through force. And I don't see the Asur invading Kislev.

Whereas Laurelorn doesn't like Ulthuan one bit and may well refuse to ask for aid.
 
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pucflek said:
I think getting Laurelorn to write an ask to Ulthuan about contribution to their project is a bit like asking Kragg and Thorek to work together. Possible, if you are an ancestor god/Asuryan :V
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Sure. You'll note that I didn't mention Laurelorn asking Ulthuan: I mentioned going to Ulthuan, leveraging our performance on Nagarythe into an introduction to someone who can help us, and then pitching to them directly. Boney said that Ulthuan would probably not be happy with a human-led Waystones project, but an elf-led project (even if the elves are inferior elves to glorious Asur) seems to me like it would get around that concern and maximize the odds that they'd be willing to help. Now, are those odds good? Probably not. But I think that's route to the highest odds we can get.
 
fan_of_D_Andreev said:
I don't get it. How would we help Kislev right now by putting our research project there? We need time to achieve the results of know-how about repairing/building waystones. And when we get know-how, it could be used anywhere we chose to share that know-how, including Kislev. Also I think that siphoning extra magic anywhere would help Kislev by reducing/stopping/reversing chaos wastes advance.
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This is what Boris wants from us:
BoneyM said:
You say there might be ways to push back Dewastacja? Restore Praag? Push back Troll Country?
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Working with the elves or the Bretonnians will not enable us to do this; they have their own ideas for how the waystones should be used. The elves want to restore the vitality of their forests and end the threat of beastmen. The Bretonnians want to purge the mountains of iron orcs. It will be very hard to convince them to take a trip to Kislev for a large scale project to cleanse Praag or subdue the Troll Country instead.

Restoring the waystones does have the global benefit of reducing the grip of chaos, and this will pay off for everyone. But it will take us years to get to that point. Until then, we will only be able to focus on regional issues. That's why each leader wants us under their authority—to make sure they directly benefit from the waystones now, not indirectly in some nebulous future we can't promise.
 
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fan_of_D_Andreev said:
I don't get it. How would we help Kislev right now by putting our research project there? We need time to achieve the results of know-how about repairing/building waystones. And when we get know-how, it could be used anywhere we chose to share that know-how, including Kislev. Also I think that siphoning extra magic anywhere would help Kislev by reducing/stopping/reversing chaos wastes advance.
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Along the process of the project we'll make incremental improvements - and we'll use those improvements nearby.

We might make miniature waystones to test their properties, or a massive super-waystone because we need to work out how to make it smaller. We'll certainly repair and reactivate local waystones first.

I suspect that the reduction in chaos presence will be most pronounced in the area around the new waystones, with knock-on effects elsewhere. It's like poking a hole in the bottom of a swimming pool full of molasses - yes they will drain from everywhere eventually, but the level will lower fastest where the hole is.

Ice-witch magic is also tied into the waystones somehow - meaning something that works elsewhere may cause problems in Kislev, and something that works in Kislev may expand the reach of the Ice-witches if used elsewhere.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Eggs and chickens, my friend. Promising to help Kislev in 20 years time is not something we can follow up on, and isn't something Boris will trust us to follow up on. We help Kislev now, or not at all.
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I mean, wherever we are based, we can still go work on Waystones in Kislev (unless our new bosses decides we can't, we don't know how much autonomy we will have).

Hell, in K8P's case, we would HAVE to work on Waystones located elsewere...
 
Sparsebeard said:
I mean, wherever we are based, we can still go work on Waystones in Kislev (unless our new bosses decides we can't, we don't know how much autonomy we will have).

Hell, in K8P's case, we would HAVE to work on Waystones located elsewere...
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Sure, if we make Waystones which have all the capabilities and are as good as the originals.

It's worth bearing in mind that whatever Waystone-imitation juryrig we end up making may not have all the capabilities of the original. Even if we go to K8P and get Kragg on the project, he'd be the first to tell you he won't be able to match his predecessor's work so that's a major lacking in the runework right away. If we make something that works fine for the Eonir's need to divert energy from the network to their magical weapons projects to secure the forest, but can't handle the environment near the Chaos Wastes, it just won't do anything for Kislev.

By the same token anything we make for Kislev may not actually be good at powering weapons since it'll be designed to just make dhar go away, and Kislev would probably regard it a feature if Chaos couldn't pull a Karak Vlag or anything like it with their Waystones because they explode if you try.
 
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fan_of_D_Andreev said:
I don't get it. How would we help Kislev right now by putting our research project there? We need time to achieve the results of know-how about repairing/building waystones. And when we get know-how, it could be used anywhere we chose to share that know-how, including Kislev. Also I think that siphoning extra magic anywhere would help Kislev by reducing/stopping/reversing chaos wastes advance.
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Here's what Boney said:
BoneyM said:
There's a dream scenario where the project is able to develop something universally applicable and harmless to widely distribute and everybody wins, but everyone is expecting a best-case scenario where the results are going to be limited in scope or too dangerous to spread widely and trying to make it so they'll be the ones that see the benefits from them.
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The "accept Laurelorn's aid and then help Kislev with what we achieve" argument assumes that we manage to get the dream scenario. Now, there's an argument to be made that Laurelorn maximizes our chance of getting that dream scenario, and I think it's a reasonable one, but I'd be much happier if the people pooh-poohing Kislev would acknowledge that it is the dream scenario, not the base level of success.
 
fan_of_D_Andreev said:
I don't get it. How would we help Kislev right now by putting our research project there? We need time to achieve the results of know-how about repairing/building waystones. And when we get know-how, it could be used anywhere we chose to share that know-how, including Kislev. Also I think that siphoning extra magic anywhere would help Kislev by reducing/stopping/reversing chaos wastes advance.
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We have in-story and out-of-story statements showing that the the host faction is more likely to get their use cases fulfilled than non-host factions, even if we're trying to shoot for something broadly applicable. I collected some of them here.

It should also be noted - Laurolan is not actually strictly superior sponsor for the project, even from a pure research standpoint. Consider the mini-waystone trees: They have a history of getting chopped down, because they contain a large amount of gold and silver. If the Eonir had the spare wealth to get enough precious metals for us to experiment freely with recreating them, much less actually producing them at scale, their nordland problem might have been solveable with mercenaries.

Contrast that with Kislev's blank check, which...
BoneyM said:
What is it you expect Mathilde to be getting up to that could bankrupt the entire nation of Kislev? "Okay, the solid ruby Waystone didn't work out, now let's try sapphire. Tell the Tsar to dismiss another regiment from the army."
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Yeah. They've got a lot. That's a good thing, when our baseline for how expensive this is going to be is "people set themselves for life by destroying working examples".

This is to say nothing of Kislev's native magic traditions that the Eonir don't have, and the possibility of getting library access by other means than having them host us.
 
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