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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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DragonParadox said:
The elector count would have no power to order the Elentalists around.
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Even if he cannot legally issue direct orders, he probably has some kind of understanding with them and could make some concessions or alternatively make things very uncomfortable if they piss him off too much and I'd wager that this situation probably counts.

If he has Skaven peeking into streets every other hour and into his bedchambers every other day then I bet he'd be willing to go full Boris on the elementalists.
 
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[X] Way of Stones
[X] Plan Starting up debt free

Approval voting for a plan that at least puts the gambler on the actual major project action between stubborn mages the likes of which make Alric look like a whipped puppy.
 
[X] Plan Stacking Advantages
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I actually physically double-taked IRL at taking Egrimm into the woods, but not having him help investigate the single person he probably has the most insight into.

[X] Plan Starting up debt free
 
Alas, it looks like The Father is going to wait at least one turn. But I will not fall to despair. I am approval voting Jyn's plan even though I disagree with large parts of it, because at least it uses The Father and visits the Hedgewise. And I am still voting for my own plan, of course. But even though the difference is votes is currently large, I will vote for neither of the leading plans at this point. If in 24 hours the gap is large I will vote for what I consider the better plan, but I think doing so this early in the vote is just going to convince more people that the lead is insurmountable, leading to more of those votes and a vicious cycle. Vote for plans you actually believe in, and don't be so quick to compromise.

[X] Plan: Jyn+debt free
[X] Plan Allies and Favours

(also there is something weird happening with the Way of Stones votes - it has 7 but for some reason its counted twice, one with 6 votes and one with 1)
 
I think it bears keeping in mind that we did not take the sabotage option so there really is not a lot of wiggle room for anyone to go off kilter, we do not want to hurt Alric to his plans (unless he is being a traitor) so I do not think there is much danger of Horstman thinking he must protect his master for some reason... or to hurt him, we do not have to act at all. Hell we could probably do this whole thing without ever being in the same building as the target. All we have to do is talk to witnesses.

Now sure he might somehow catch wind of this... but his wind does not have a transportation spell like Shadowsteed so we will always be one step ahead in that kind of chase.
 
[X] Plan Starting up debt free
[X] Plan Pickle's Political Protector Proposal
[x] Plan: Hugo Bann is the man.
[X] Plan Starting up debt free, Windherd Edition
[X] Plan Compromise
[X] Plan Maximum Field Trip
[X] Plan Quinsberry Compromise
 
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DragonParadox said:
Now sure he might somehow catch wind of this... but his wind does not have a transportation spell like Shadowsteed so we will always be one step ahead in that kind of chase.
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Also, say he catches wind: so what? He's discovered that a grey lady magister is checking up on someone with imperial importance - the worst he can do is say we're bad at spying because he spotted us!
 
Here's a plan if you want
  • Max on rituals
  • Johann on Alric
  • Egrimm on Gryphon Wood
  • Gambler on framework
[X] Plan Project Soon
-[X] MAX: Learning: Rituals from the colleges. Mathilde pays
-[X] WEB-MAT: Investigate Alric with one or more members of WEB-MAT (JOHANN)
-[X] WEB-MAT: Investigate Gryphon Wood with one or more members of WEB-MAT (EGRIMM)
-[x] Personally scrutinize a Waystone as thoroughly as you possibly can.
-[x] Lay the foundations: work with the current members of WEB-MAT and the Waystone Project to build a single unified framework for understanding the Waystones.
--[X] COIN: The Gambler
-[X] Attempt to bring a Major House or Ward into the Waystone Project (Frost)
-[X] Serenity: Observations of Johann's prosthetic arm (FRESH)
-[X] EIC: Try to uncover what's going on in Gryphon's Wood.
-[X] Seek the publishing contacts to start acquiring large amounts of books from a nearby realm (Bretonnia)

I mixed & matched from [] Plan Starting up debt free and [] Plan Stacking Advantages. I would've approval voted them both, but I feel strongly about not putting Egrimm on the Alric investigation, and finally getting the chance to study rituals instead of... Kurgan weapons?
 
Well looks like only my plan has the coin on the Scrutinize the waystone action, I can't help but feel people are underestimating how important it is for Mathilde to do well at that action.
 
[X] Plan Stacking Advantages
-[X] MAX: Study an artefact: Kurgan enchanted weapons
-[X] WEB-MAT: Investigate Alric with one or more members of WEB-MAT (JOHANN)
--[X] COIN: The Gambler
-[X] WEB-MAT: Investigate Gryphon Wood with one or more members of WEB-MAT (EGRIMM)
-[x] Personally scrutinize a Waystone as thoroughly as you possibly can.
-[x] Lay the foundations: work with the current members of WEB-MAT and the Waystone Project to build a single unified framework for understanding the Waystones.
-[X] Explore one of the Wards of Laurelorn (Frost)
-[X] EIC: Try to uncover what's going on in Gryphon's Wood.
-[X] Library: Seek an agreement with a Cult to have access to their libraries (Verenans)
-[X] SERENITY: Write a paper: Observations of Johann's prosthetic arm (FRESH)

I like not involving Eggs with the Alric investigation. He's indicated he doesn't like the political element, from others commentary, and instead helping Investigate a mysterious forest sounds like fun. Theres a big difference in tone between the two. Also I like studying the Kurgan weapon and writing the Arm Strong paper.
 
DragonParadox said:
I genuinely do not think anything Alaric can do to us, can be more potentially damaging in the long term than a failure in getting the millennia old elf lord and the centuries old dwarf lord to play along. A bad enough diplomatic failure on lay the groundwork, which hinges on Mathilde's worst stat could be crippling long term. We should really put the Gambler on there.
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I think we often use The Gambler on actions that don't benefit much or at all from it. Just last turn we recruited from both the Light and Jade orders, and used The Gambler on the Jade action. When we compare the two actions, what benefit did we get from using the Coin on the latter? Paranoth showing up at K8P was a cool benefit, and certainly helped Panoramia. But on the actual favor-trading negotiation itself... I think we would have been given the same choices regardless. Because there was another Waystone action we took two turns ago, where we also used The Gambler: Thorek. While that turned out well for us, gaining his involvement for the cost of a few words and a paper, was any of that directly because of any supernatural luck? Or maybe it was the result of all the favor we've built with the dwarfs and the mountain we rescued?

Sometimes when we've used The Gambler, or Raald's Blessing before then, it's been absolutely pivotal. But other times, it barely seems to have any effect at all. While I'm tempted to do a big analysis of all our previous The Gambler uses... (too tired today for that) I'm just gonna go with my gut and say that it's most often visibly useful in risky and dangerous situations. Investigating a highly powerful and politically savvy former Supreme Patriarch, or fighting enemies in some dark forest, are places where The Gambler is most likely to make a big difference. The Lay the Foundations action, where multiple highly competent magic users who've already been convinced to work together sit around for weeks and do theory crafting? I'm not seeing the danger to ward off or the lower-c chaos to take advantage of.

It's true that The Gambler can be used as a generic boost to any action. But I think we too often use it as Generic Action +1 when it's best used as Dangerous Experiment +20.
Fayhem said:
I actually physically double-taked IRL at taking Egrimm into the woods, but not having him help investigate the single person he probably has the most insight into.

[X] Plan Starting up debt free
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Egrimm's relationship with Alric is an absolute mess. He's his former mentor, his hated boss, his wise teacher, his coddling parent-figure, his rightful Patriarch, his incompetent has-been, and likely someone who's both saved his life and put him in deadly danger. Egrimm rightfully needs a professional therapist. Unfortunately, the best we might manage is finding a Sigmund Freud expy, if anyone.

My point being, the best thing Mathilde can do for Egrimm is keeping him away from Alric so he can work through his feeling and hopefully move on. The worst thing she can do is pushing him back into that total mess and asking him to firmly betray Alric - even if it's "only" investigating him for his political rival. It's asking for some bad juju.
 
Adding an approval vote (and keeping the full vote for Way of Stones 'cause it looks like it might become hard to find otherwise).
[X] Way of Stones
-[X] MAX: Learn to pilot the Gyrocopter along with Mathilde
-[X] WEB-MAT: Investigate Gryphon Wood with one or more members of WEB-MAT (JOHANN)
-[X] WEB-MAT: Investigate Alric with one or more members of WEB-MAT (EGRIMM)
-[X] Attempt to bring a Major House or Ward into the Waystone Project (Ward of Frost)
-[x] Lay the foundations: work with the current members of WEB-MAT and the Waystone Project to build a single unified framework for understanding the Waystones.
-[x] Personally scrutinize a Waystone as thoroughly as you possibly can.
-[X] Write a paper: Observations of Johann's prosthetic arm (FRESH)
-[X] EIC: Try to uncover what's going on in Gryphon's Wood. (NEW)
-[X] Seek the publishing contacts to start acquiring large amounts of books from a nearby realm (Bretonnia)
-[X] The Gambler: Lay the Foundations

[X] Plan Starting up debt free
 
So here's my problem with taking:
-[ ] MAX: Study an artefact: Kurgan enchanted weapons
over
-[ ] EGRIMM: Attempt a Windherder enchantment with Egrimm
--[ ] Shadowsteed & Clarity, allowing the user to ride all night without sleep

As I see it there are three likely outcomes to studying the Kurgan Weapons:

1) They're subtly evil. We destroy them.
2) They're regular enchantments. We have a couple of enchanted weapons to do something with.
3) They're unusual enchantments. Making any use of the insights we gain goes on the shelf of "we'll get to it eventually" under Arcane AV, Windherding, Branarhune etc.

At best we're getting a few (likely minor) enchanted weapons, and another mystery that we'll do nothing with.

Meanwhile Windherding gets us a specific enchanted item, alongside developing a unique magical technique (and it is a skill, not a trait, so it's almost certain to be teachable to the right students) that's both relevant to waystones and extremely useful for future projects of the imperial colleges of magic.

From my POV it looks like the best case for the Kurgan weapons is just barely equal to the expected outcome for windherding.
 
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