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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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storryeater said:
Not that. To ask for the help of gods when in doubt. And to trust them.
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Sure, I am not opposed to trusting and asking for the aid of gods. The part that I found pathetic was running to the protection of a god when there was no whiff of darkness and certainly no servant of it about, it was the wizard substituting understanding for faith in the middle of wizarding. I would find the soon to be Chaos Spawn who thinks he can study himself out of a daemonic visitation just as pathetic in the other direction.
 
primemountain said:
Here's a simple question for you @Boney :
In Mat's opinion, if she can somehow get the prints of Slanesh, or Nurgle, would that help her develop ways to detect their servants and/or works?
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I'm voting Faith, but we can be pretty sure the answer to this is yes. There is an approved spell in the Approved Spell threadmark that would allow us to identify people who have channeled the divine energy of a god with whom we are familiar.

Obviously, the problem with using this to hunt Chaos cultists is that it requires us to go find a divine relic of a Chaos God to lift a fingerprint from, but, you know, in principle it's doable.
 
Here's my perspective on what the three choices mean:

We have caught a glimpse of the true nature of the Divine. If we pick Truth, then we want to analyse and experiment and codify its meaning for further research. If we pick Faith, then we want to accept that the divine is sacred and unknowable, and trust in whatever great plan the gods have. If we pick Prudence, then we want to pretend that this never happened.

So are the gods something to be studied, or something to be placed on a pedestal?

I think both routes will be interesting, both in Mathilda's character and the decisions we will have in the coming turns. Personally, I think Mathilde naturally leans towards Truth—she's never been shy about studying forbidden knowledge without permission, from the Dhar matrix to Tongs, and everything in-between.

But of course, the fact that the first god affected by this is Ranald—her oldest friend, a being that has lent His powers to her benefit, a God that personally picked a fight with the Bloody one to save Mathilde from their champion—muddies the waters. Where would Mathilde be without her Faith in Him? Still trying to find a place to live in Wurtbad, probably. Mathilde has always be defined by her Faith in Him, and has reaped the rewards from doing so on multiple occasions.

So the question becomes a bit more personal. Do we study Ranald as a subject, or do we put Him on a pedestal high above us? Which does Mathilde want most—knowledge, or conviction? What do we want?
 
picklepikkl said:
Obviously, the problem with using this to hunt Chaos cultists is that it requires us to go find a divine relic of a Chaos God to lift a fingerprint from, but, you know, in principle it's doable.
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This Hunting down Chaos artefacts sounds like an absolutely terrible idea on many levels. On the other hand, if we're carrying the AV-phial-and-crystal combo and happen to run across something like the shattered remains of a Khornate Brass Collar in the course of our adventures, that would probably be fine.

We'd have to lock any such crystals under, like, 3 different sets of Hysh-enchanted and runicly-sealed containers away from the other crystals. And intense scrutiny of the crystal would probably also not be a good idea. But we could probably pick up the ability to recognise that Chaos God's signature from it.

There's kind of a knee-jerk reaction to not do this at all because Chaos is famously corruptive, but if we can carry a major artefact for an extended period of time like the Za-Goblet, we can handle an (un)holy water sprinkle's worth of energy with extreme care.
 
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[X] Faith
[X] Prudence

I'm approval voting Prudence. Since there's been so many arguments fearmongering the risks of one choice over the other, we might as well take the only actually-safe safe option. I'd rather Mathilde maintain her saftey and relationships over gaining any reward, no matter how attractive. And I just don't have any objections to Prudence winning; Mathilde is drowning in rewards and secrets and all that as-is already.
 
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Saidoro said:
You don't see why you repeatedly saying that understanding has no value aside from its practical and mechanical benefits might lead a person to believe that you think that understanding has no value aside from its practical and mechanical benefits?
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What in the…

…

No, you know what, I'm not doing this.

I never said that, I never had any intention of even implying something like that and I would, frankly, be offended that you think that I think that way.

That said: English is not my first language and I sometimes get the meanings mixed up so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say that your completely misinterpretation of what I'm saying is my fault, and therefore I apologize.

So, let me try this again:

Is knowledge good? Yes.

Should knowledge be pursued just for the sake of pursuing knowledge? Sure, as long as is not hurting anyone.

Are we hurting anyone by pursuing this knowledge in specific? It's my interpretation that yes, we are, by betraying the thrust that Ranald put on us.

I'm not against the research by itself, I just value Ranald's thrust in us more than the research. If he gives the okay, which I think he will, I have no objections. If he does not give the okay I also don't have objections so long as he gives us an reasonable explanation. If he just says 'No' and does not say anything else ok that's another story but, again, I don't think that this is what's going to happen.

Now, back to it…

Do I think this research has some value? Yes.

Do I think that the value of this research is worth the possible cost? No.

Do I think so only because of the mechanical side of the quest? No.

I don't think this whole endeavor is worth the cost from both a mechanical standpoint and also from a role-play standpoint. If the cost was lower okay sure but as it's stands? No. I have given my reasons from a mechanical standpoint but from a pure role-play one? I'm more interested in talking with the gods than reading about them but that could be just me, I like dialogues more than I like descriptions. I would much rather read about Mathilde trying to view the Gods as entities than trying to view than as objects of study.

Because that's the thing: the Faith option is not abandoning the research, even if Ranald tells us to drop it, is merely seeing the Gods by a different and equally valid angle and one that I, personally, prefer. If you prefer the other way that's fine but please don't imply that I'm defending ignorance instead of understanding, that's not at all what I'm saying here and, if I made you think so thanks to my shitty English, I apology but you are entirely incorrect.
 
picklepikkl said:
I'm voting Faith, but we can be pretty sure the answer to this is yes. There is an approved spell in the Approved Spell threadmark that would allow us to identify people who have channeled the divine energy of a god with whom we are familiar.

Obviously, the problem with using this to hunt Chaos cultists is that it requires us to go find a divine relic of a Chaos God to lift a fingerprint from, but, you know, in principle it's doable.
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...Mm.

So I'm assuming I'm missing something, but, well,
Boney said:
In this phase it's Magister Grey that outshines everyone else, building in the Bound Spell single-handedly and working in an expandable bank of magical signatures, adding Greenskins, Ogres, Beastmen, Undead, and four varieties of Daemon from the College's archives
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I feel like a signature of Slaaneshi demons should work as a proxy for a signature of Slaanesh?

The Chaos God's lack of subtlety in their manifestations might just make recording their divine signatures a solved problem. Just shove a crystal into a dying fodder demon and call it a day. ID-ing cultists would still be an issue, since -
Boney said:
Daemons we could do, but unfortunately there's no visible magical signature that could adequately tell if a human was aligned with Chaos. Unless they're so saturated as to be obviously mutated, but that's only ever a minority of those hordes.
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But between our keen eyes and our ability to take samples to peruse at our leisure, we might be able to make something happen there.

(Also, these crystals were available in the Grey College archives, so maybe that's a point against the crystals being inherently dangerous? Hopefully our Chaos training has something to say about how dangerous staring at the samples would be, though, as that would be a prerequisite to using them.)
 
storryeater said:
Ok, so... Let me try to argue about faith since I am here.

We have placed our faith on other characters doing the right thing multiple times. Abelheim, Roswita and Belegar, there was times we had to take "trust to do the right thing" and "be paranoid/petty" votes multiple times. We did the right thing most of the time, and were correct to do so, because we had put our faith in the correct people.

There were times where we had to put our faith to more suspicious characters, like Bismarck's expy, Heidi and Dum's heir. In each and every case, we played with our cards close to our chest, but with good will nonetheless. We have been betrayed once, sorta, kinda, maybe by Dum's heir, but yes, we should keep that policy.

So I must ask you this: in which category does Ranald belong? Is he the kind of person we should play our cards to our chest with, or one that we should trust? Does he or doesn't he have our back? Wouldn't we trust Abelheim or Belegar in a similar situation? So why not him, then?

Have faith in Ranald like you have faith in Belegar, not like you have faith on a god. He has proven that he deserves it .
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I have faith that Ranald won't kill us or abandon us to the metaphorical and literal wolves after finding out about our research. So let's get our heist on!!!!
 
primemountain said:
Because even if I want to vote for Faith, even if it is the safer, better option, Mat isn't the type to walk away. If she was, she never would have read the Liber Mortis. So once more, to war we go, till the world breaks us or it is mended:
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If you take Truth and want to make use of it, Mathilde will have to be the type to walk away from something - some other thing that she could be doing won't get done because she's busy collecting samples. She already walked away from a whole bunch of things she could be doing in order to focus on the Waystone project. Mathilde is an extremely limited resource.

Don't think "what could we do with this if we put all our time on it?" think "what could we do with this if we put maybe 3 AP into it over the next 6 turns? - and how does that compare with 3 AP spent windherding, creating AV powerstones, helping Sylvania, lending Belegar some more aid, putting effort into growing the library, and/or going extra hard on the waystone project?".
 
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Potus said:
I have faith that Ranald won't kill us or abandon us to the metaphorical and literal wolves after finding out about our research. So let's get our heist on!!!!
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I don't think Ranald would abandon us over this- we're one of his favourite people, we've got a good relationship with him in general, and if he's against us doing this it's still only one (admittedly potentially very large) mistake. There is a distinct possibility it could harm our relationship with him, however; I could easily see him telling us we need to do penance or something.
 
kingreaper said:
If you take Truth and want to make use of it, Mathilde will have to be the type to walk away from something - some other thing that she could be doing won't get done because she's busy collecting samples. She already walked away from a whole bunch of things she could be doing in order to focus on the Waystone project. Mathilde is an extremely limited resource.

Don't think "what could we do with this if we put all our time on it?" think "what could we do with this if we put maybe 3 AP into it over the next 6 turns? - and how does that compare with 3 AP spent windherding, creating AV powerstones, helping Sylvania, lending Belegar some more aid, putting effort into growing the library, and/or going extra hard on the waystone project?".
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  1. AV powerstones, if possible will likely be just as much of a research path since they would be just as novel so the argument kind of turns on itself there
  2. Windherding is items... of which we already have the best of the best in all but robes
  3. Sylvania is fine... I mean quite literally we could drop dead tomorrow and Roswita would finish off the last vamps, that is kind of why we have not been doing anything with them so far
  4. Belegar did not sound like he needed any aid when last we saw him at the meeting
Not seeing much I cannot do without, or for that matter places where we are urgently needed, it is just past places where we could be of some use. Not saying there is anything wrong witht that, but I'm not seeing any threats of assassination we need to curb like the last time we had to go back to Sylvania or anything of the sort. If we are going for unfinished business why not Dum.... Truth would actually help with that.;)
 
kingreaper said:
If you take Truth and want to make use of it, Mathilde will have to be the type to walk away from something - some other thing that she could be doing won't get done because she's busy collecting samples. She already walked away from a whole bunch of things she could be doing in order to focus on the Waystone project. Mathilde is an extremely limited resource.

Don't think "what could we do with this if we put all our time on it?" think "what could we do with this if we put maybe 3 AP into it over the next 6 turns? - and how does that compare with 3 AP spent windherding, creating AV powerstones, helping Sylvania, lending Belegar some more aid, putting effort into growing the library, and/or going extra hard on the waystone project?".
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Actually, I think we can get a decent amount done just by committing to having the AV and crystal on us at all times, and keeping an eye out for if we end up seeing another altar to stromfels, broken Khornate Brass Collar, and so on. Obviously dedicating AP to getting specific targets would be good too, but I think we can get something done with minimal AP here.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
Actually, I think we can get a decent amount done just by committing to having the AV and crystal on us at all times, and keeping an eye out for if we end up seeing another altar to stromfels, broken Khornate Brass Collar, and so on. Obviously dedicating AP to getting specific targets would be good too, but I think we can get something done with minimal AP here.
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We have an altar literally lying around for one.
 
Hmm. This is something Mathilde should know, isn't it?

@Boney

Mathilde has scrutinized all the imprints used by the Eye of Gazul in detail, right? Are those imprints at all similar to the crystal she's created now, such that one of the Chaos God samples used there could be used to create a similar crystal? Or are they different enough that she'd need a more "primary source" to work with?
 
The worst thing I can imagine Ranald doing to us if he finds out about Truth and disapproves is probably taking away the Coin until we repent. I can't imagine him doing anything worse.

The worst case scenario for Truth in general is probably if this is all some gambit from Ranald to let us get ourselves caught and then become more dependent on him, but I think that's unlikely enough that its probably not worth thinking about.
 
Potus said:
I have faith that Ranald won't kill us or abandon us to the metaphorical and literal wolves after finding out about our research. So let's get our heist on!!!!
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Thing is, doing a heist without Ranald in our corner would just feel so... empty. It would just feel wrong to me to try and go steal from other gods without using our artefact from the litteral God of Thieves.

So I guess I'd rather just sacrifice the thing and have faith in Ranald to give us an anwser we like...
 
A small question @Boney . Would is be possible to retrieve Cathayan Jade we sent to the colleges way back then? Suddenly a talisman that can protect us from raw divine energies sounds far more useful than it did before... And maybe has potential for Waystone project too (for example, as a filter that blocks winds but allows qhaysh through).
 
Aule said:
A small question @Boney . Would is be possible to retrieve Cathayan Jade we sent to the colleges way back then? Suddenly a talisman that can protect us from raw divine energies sounds far more useful than it did before... And maybe has potential for Waystone project too (for example, as a filter that blocks winds but allows qhaysh through).
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Sadly the belt is taking up our talisman slot so we could not use it unless we wanted to take off our Dhar protection and for my part the gods of man are less of a danger than that.
 
Alright, here is the specific thing I want to accomplish with Truth. All Skaven are connected to their god. When they die he claims their souls without (known) exception. This implies to me that there is a sliver of divine essence in Skaven. I feel this further reinforced by their origin: Skaven were either men transformed by the Great Horned One, or he created them completely from nothing.

So, a long term goal of mine has been to free some Skaven from the Great Horned One. To do that, we need to understand how he works. To do that we have to study the (presumed) divine essence when a Skaven does. These crystals + AV give us an opportunity to do that. It won't be easy, we would have capture Skaven and kill them in a prepared room. Presumably grey seers have the strongest essence in them, and naturally it will be an adventure just to attempt a capture.

But if my assumption is right, we can use this to study the Great Horned One. We can figure out how he claims those souls. And we maybe can find a way to remove that essence from Skaven, allowing Ranald to step in and fill the void. This could be our chance to start the path to stealing some Skaven from the Great Horned One, and maybe a chance to steal Querch's soul when he dies. And that is why I want truth.
 
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