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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Boney said:
Treason seems to be carved into the bedrock of those lands. Elgi, Dawi, Umgi, all seem to find treachery growing in their hearts in the shadows of those cursed peaks." He narrows his eyes at you. "I have marched into worse to seek the relics of the Ancestors, but the world has no shortage of cursed mountains filled with ancient woes.
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Boney said:
I need allies in the Empire to bring pressure to bear on them so they will surrender those keys, so that I might harvest a beginning of repayment from its ruins."
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So it might just be that I've been playing a little bit too much Darkest Dungeon recently, but this sounds like in the near future we're going to have a traditional dungeon delving opportunity into the depths of a cursed and haunted dwarfhold.

Now the question is; do we go for the traditional fighter/cleric/thief/wizard party, or the classical wizard/halfling burglar/13 dwarf fighters party?
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
So it might just be that I've been playing a little bit too much Darkest Dungeon recently, but this sounds like in the near future we're going to have a traditional dungeon delving opportunity into the depths of a cursed and haunted dwarfhold.

Now the question is; do we go for the traditional fighter/cleric/thief/wizard party, or the classical wizard/halfling burglar/13 dwarf fighters party?
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Hmm, I like the first one, we can go with Mathilde/Mathilde/Mathilde/Mathilde.

Should be a good set-up.
 
Engrimm plus trio as artillery, max for ranged, Johann and Mathilde and Johann's elf buddy as our front line, Hubert on top cover.
 
I wonder if bringing in Thorek opens up an opportunity to bring in Kragg if we handled it right.

Kragg doesn't doesn't care about very much... but he does care about one-upping Thorek and proving that Kragg is still the greatest living runesmith. Meanwhile Thorek... well Thorek has his pride but there are things more important to Thorek than his pride.

I can believe that Thorek would be willing to use himself as bait to bring Kragg in to "one-up" him if he were convinced it would get Kragg to use his runesmithing expertise in service to unlocking the secrets of Waystones.

Another thing I'd like to get from Thorek as a "full partner" is his read on the utility of "a device to translate magesight into visual images" for this project. How much does he think it would help? If we could use Egrimm to develop that, would it help runesmiths working with egli mages?
 
Altom said:
With singular exception of Teclis who starts to giggle uncontrollaby whenever he sees one
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I'm sure he does more than that:

Elf Student: Loremaster Teclis, I have a study I'd like you to look over... uh, what's so amusing?

Teclis, breathless from laughter: Oh, oh nothing. Just reading another report from the human wizards of the Empire.

Elf Student, nervous: Ah, yes, I can see why that is amusing. Now, about my study...

Teclis: Did you know one of their Gold Wizards cut off a perfectly good arm to stick an artifact in its place!?

Elf Student, increasingly unnerved: Please Loremaster, my study...

Teclis, voice now louder: An artifact that had only been studied for a week, and channels a different Wind!?

Elf Student: whimpers, rolls into a ball

Teclis, shouting: An artifact that had been purchased from Zorn Uzkul, and had most likely been stolen from Lizardmen!?

Elf Student: runs away screaming

Teclis, shouting towards the fleeing Student: You haven't even heard how the Gold blinded himself with molten gold!

Teclis, sniggering: Heh, works everytime.
Glau said:
Engrimm plus trio as artillery, max for ranged, Johann and Mathilde and Johann's elf buddy as our front line, Hubert on top cover.
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Don't think Egrimm has access to the trio anymore?
 
You know there is already a good candidate for this without lopping off Goldenrods appendages:

Boney said:
You vaguely recognize a few faces in the small crowd that has parted for you to approach the throne - locals of importance, various representatives of counts and barons, castle staff. In front of you, one of the few faces you recognize is the one on the throne, though you saw it only once before - Roswita Van Hal, Elector Countess of Stirland and daughter of Abelhelm. She seems to have aged faster than the few years it's been would allow, and has put on muscle and is wearing the leathers you previously saw her in much more naturally. The Witch Hunter by her side is the same one that accompanied her when she arrived, though he's lost an arm and gained a few scars.
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Mathilde can use this to totally troll Rosie and the man who replaced her as Spymaster:

Mathide: *kicks open doors of Eagle Castle* Your spymaster could use a hand, it seems!

Roswita: Lady Magister Weber, no!

Witch Hunter: *bolts for nearest weapon*

Mathilde: "MATHILDE YES!"
 
To my clever little cousin,

What the fuck

Why in Asuryan's name did you

I hope this message finds you in good health. I am pleased to inform you that I have recently hosted some of your Imperial students who are leading a joint research project into the waystones crafted by our forebears to abate the tide of chaos.

They are utterly terrifying intriguing and curious folk one of them had a shadow that followed me around the room and have already begun to make great strides in their independent studies the gold one chopped off his arm to attach an unknown relic in order to find out what it did and I feel their insights into the aetheric nature of our world should be kept very far away from us will bring many benefits to us as our relationship deepens.

I fear look forwards to further results from your psychopathic meddling genius plan to educate mankind in the ways of magic.

I hope you stay far away from my kingdom

Yours lovingly,

Marrisith

P.S THEY PUT THE MAGIC IN THEIR SOULS!? WHY WOULD YOU TEACH THEM THIS? WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?

---​
To my most royal cousin,

Lol.

Teclis

---​

These are way too fun to write.
 
DragonParadox said:
One last post before I go to bed about the reason why giving that arm to Johann makes a lot more sense than giving it to some rando. Johann's primary drive is to improve himself, to go beyond the limitations of his stunted magic, of his weak body and of his relatively narrow field of academic magical interests.

If Johann did not have the drive to power and understanding above and beyond even most human wizards, we would never have met him, he would be a perpetual. Whether we like it or not he will continue to gild himself, with risks of maiming or death, our choice here is not to let Johann take a risk or stop him from taking risks, those risks define his life. It is if we allow him to take those risks with the rare artifact that cost 1000 Gold.

I am fine with taking the thing apart instead because that too is a motivation he can appreciate, but handing it to a random stranger, just feels naratively unsatisfying.
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Does Johann even have any gildable locations left?

Given that Johann's motivations only matter if we offer it to him, why would his appreciation matter for the other options? This is an Egrimm project with Mathilde oversight.

It's Mathilde's motivations that matter here.
  • She is generally quite careful of the wellbeing of her friends, allies and subordinates.
  • She is more prepared to risk herself if the potential reward is big enough.
  • She has the ruthlessness becoming of a Grey Wizard of the Empire for people outside that circle.
  • She wants the waystone project to succeed
    • She needs to be alive, healthy and competent for this.
    • She needs her key subordinates to be alive, fit and competent for this.
  • She wants to know what the arm does and how it works.
  • She'd like a practical return on the 1000 gp she spent
    • But she bought it expecting it to be a research project, probably not a useable tool and, containing enough precious materials to offset much of the cost.
None of that says risk serious harm to Johann to get the least marginal increase in capability of any possible recipient, especially when she employs him as a research wizard rather than a combatant. She knows him well enough to know he'd say yes to a shiny upgrade without sober risk assessment but I think she'd view that as a weakness of judgement to be worked around (and that enemies might exploit) rather than something to be indulged.

She herself has enough combat options at all ranges that she'd barely get more benefit from it than Johann (though at least she doesn't already have superstrength and swordproof limbs) and she has even more better things to do with her time than self mutilation.

So for me the options she'd find acceptable are testing on a suitable stranger or taking it apart now. I think the she'd prefer the human test because she doesn't want to miss out on the chance of her purchase actually being useful. If it turns out to be human compatible without horrible consequences then she's converted a cripple into a powerful fighter in service of the Empire* who can demonstrate the arm in use and describe what it feels like. If it's no good, then they can move on to destructive testing without regret.

*Whether with her or with some other imperial organisation that will owe her a favour for the new/restored hero unit.
 
We know Johann gilded his lungs, it came up when we went to fight Skaven since it meant he didn't actually need a gas mask.

Honestly it makes you wonder, who the hell even invented gilding and came up with how to do it to your vital organs? Because I don't see an elf ever doing this, but on the other hand how would a human invent it, performing all the tests on themselves?
 
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065tdsa said:
We know Johann gilded his lungs, it came up when we went to fight Skaven since it meant he didn't actually need a gas mask.

Honestly it makes you wonder, who the hell even invented gilding and came up with how to do it to your vital organs? Because I don't see an elf ever doing this, but on the other hand how would a human invent it, performing all the tests on themselves?
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Most likely way I can think of is as a desperation move. Someone born with, say, weak lungs, but still wanting to get ahead in life. Or someone with an injured organ, gambling that gilding will fix it.
 
[X] [THOREK] Both
[X] [ARM] Amputee

Thorek reforging the runesmithing guild has a lot of potential to go horribly wrong, but it's also something that needs to happen if Dawi runecraft is to remain relevant. He's going to try it eventually no matter what, and this gives him the leverage to take his best shot. Also, and not unimportant, what he wants Mathilde to say matches her (and the thread's) consensus on what actually happened.

Also, it's something the thread has low key wanted to do forever, but never actually seen a means of accomplishing. It's so tempting that if Boney were a (much) worse DM I'd call it bait.
 
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