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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Boney said:
You could, but invoking it to protect Heidi instead of to protect the Empire would be a complete betrayal of Mathilde's vows to the Grey Order.
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But if the Four are pushing on it to ferment civil strife in the Empire by using Heidi and Ranald to do it, isn't it defending the Empire from attack made by the Four who are using Alaric as a patsy/hit-wizard?

Isn't the oath for Article 1:
1. The first obedience of every Magister must be to the ideals and laws of Sigmar's Holy Empire of which these Articles form a part; then to he who is rightfully elected Emperor of Sigmar's Holy Empire; then to the Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic; then to the laws and ideals of their Order; then to the Patriarch of their Order; then to the authorities that each Magister may be required to serve in the course of his duties; then to other superiors within their Orders.

For all the sneering at him, Ranald is a sanctioned God of the Empire. Heidi is something between High Priestess and High Noble in his service. Sure she isn't the High Noble she'd pretending to be, but that's Ranald in a nutshell. There's been Sigmarite Emperors, Taalite Emperors, and Ulrican Emperors. Why not a Ranaldian? There's no law against it, as long as he also respects and worships Sigmar. Sigmar just won't be his primary God.

So long as Mat is doing this to stop the Four from using these circumstances to cause harm to the Empire and the Heir to the Empire, and not to defend Heidi, she should be clear. Not clean, she'll have to take it up with Heidi that "I just had to clean up your mess from the fucking Four!" and get her to put her shit in order around herself and her son, so her plots don't endanger the Empire as a whole and open it to the predations of Chaos. Because no matter what else he is doing, Ranald is against Chaos and will rap the Empress's fingers hard if something Heidi is doing helps Chaos.
 
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It would be interesting to mess with Chaos though. Only times we've really done that was on the expedition to Dum, and that was mostly because we were breaking into their house anyways, so smashing their toys and stealing some valuables wasn't really going out of our way. Now they're in our territory—relatively speaking—and Mathilde has more resources at hand while they have less. Perhaps nothing so dramatic as an ancient dragon and his pet elf, or a very angry grandma and her divine posse, but then, they don't have armies and probably not Champions or Greater Daemons.
 
Two thing: First, remember that Regimand likely keeps secrets from Mathilde he'll never tell her, and expects Mathilde to do the same in turn. We don't have to be super honest with him.

Second, if Alric catches even a whiff that the Empress isn't who she says she is, which is very possible right now, things are going to get bad real quick.
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
What was it that Algard said about hiding something from a grey wizard? Give them just enough clues to come to the wrong answer? Mathilde learned that lesson well.
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This can work on Regimand, mind. If we give him just enough to suspect something that isn't the truth...

[] I'm here to protect an important secret.

I'd really like the assistance of someone who's just handily demonstrated his experience with Chaos and vengeful ghosts to help us keep any super-secret family history on the down low.
 
primemountain said:
But if the Four are pushing on it to ferment civil strife in the Empire by using Heidi and Ranald to do it, isn't it defending the Empire from attack made by the Four who are using Alaric as a patsy/hit-wizard?

Isn't the oath for Article 1:
1. The first obedience of every Magister must be to the ideals and laws of Sigmar's Holy Empire of which these Articles form a part; then to he who is rightfully elected Emperor of Sigmar's Holy Empire; then to the Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic; then to the laws and ideals of their Order; then to the Patriarch of their Order; then to the authorities that each Magister may be required to serve in the course of his duties; then to other superiors within their Orders.

For all the sneering at him, Ranald is a sanctioned God of the Empire. Heidi is something between High Priestess and High Noble in his service. Sure she isn't the High Noble she'd pretending to be, but that's Ranald in a nutshell. There's been Sigmarite Emperors, Taalite Emperors, and Ulrican Emperors. Why not a Ranaldian? There's no law against it, as long as he also respects and worships Sigmar. Sigmar just won't be his primary God.

So long as Mat is doing this to stop the Four from using these circumstances to cause harm to the Empire, and not to defend Heidi, she should be clear. Not clean, she'll have to take it up with Heidi that "I just had to clean up your mess from the fucking Four!" and get her to put her shit in order, so her plots don't endanger the Empire as a whole and open it to the predations of Chaos. Because no matter what else he is doing, Ranald is against Chaos and will rap her fingers hard if something Heidi is going helps them.
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Sure, as long as you then assassinate Heidi and make it look like natural causes to permanently close that angle of attack. If you don't, you would not be invoking maximum classification in good faith.
 
Honestly, I think "favour to the empress" is a strong option. It keeps him in the investigation, it's just truthful enough that we're not really lying to him, but it keeps all the important secrets... well, secret. We don't need to compose some twisty, convoluted statement—just say we're investigating on behalf of Heidi into the fate of her dynasty.
 
So. Yeah. I'm voting to say it's a favor for Mira, wave goodby, go give Heidi a head's up, and then come back to publicly offer our help and expertise to Alric. Because yeah, we really do want him to succeed. But most importantly, we want to demonstrate he's not irreplaceable.
 
Glau said:
So. Yeah. I'm voting to say it's a favor for Mira, wave goodby, go give Heidi a head's up, and then come back to publicly offer our help and expertise to Alric. Because yeah, we really do want him to succeed. But most importantly, we want to demonstrate he's not irreplaceable.
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The youngest Grey Lord Magister and the oldest Light Lord Magister teaming up to stick it to Chaos... If I wasn't biased against him for what's almost certainly irrational reasons I'd go for it simply for the symmetry of it all.
 
Boney said:
Sure, as long as you then assassinate Heidi and make it look like natural causes to permanently close that angle of attack. If you don't, you would not be invoking maximum classification in good faith.
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Huh. So we are thinking along similar lines. I was considering doing that if she can't clean up her shit. I was going to offer her the chance to figure out some other means to close that angle of attack, because Ranald, the Deceiver, God of Irony and Illusion, Charlatans and Tricksters. Perhaps by faking her own death, or some other path we can't see but a God might.

But yeah, if the Four are involved, that angle of attack needs to be closed. Even if it means a dead Empress. Even if it means a really dead Heidi. As a Grey Wizard, we don't leave openings like that to hit the Heir of the Empire. Some Tzinchian fuck will take them.

That vulnerability needs to be closed, now that Mat is aware of it. After this, we need to sit down with Ranald and figure out if there's a way to close it without killing Heidi. And if not, decide what we're doing then. Divided Loyalties indeed.

A gambler both Mat and Ranald might be, but professional Gamblers hedge their bets.
 
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[X] Favour to Mira

This, please. If Regimand decides to head out because this isn't important enough, we can either go it alone or (personal preference) bring in Heidi. I think this is the answer that he's most likely to believe while also not prompting him to dig into secrets that our oldest friend would rather not get dug into.
 
[X] Favour to Mira
Tell him you're getting involved in this as a favour to Mira in exchange for Light Order assistance with the Waystone Project. While almost true, it does mean the stakes aren't high enough to demand his attention, and he may return to his previous task.
 
We don't know that Heidi is in any way implicated in this. Even if this is the spirit of the last Haupt-Anderson who got sucked into hell - chances are he doesn't actually know that Heidi's a fake and not a random distant cousin. After all, being the last Haupt-Anderson he was probably a distant cousin of the main line himself.

It could lead to Heidi being implicated. But it probably won't, unless something extreme happens like the celestials getting called in to investigate the original killings for clues.
 
Uh. It seems crazy to me to jump to "We might have to kill Heidi to close off this vulnerability..." as a possible option or worst-case scenario.

Especially as, like, wasn't "Somebody reveals Heidi isn't a real Haupt-Anderssen, thus possibly starting some shit" always a theoretical risk of some future problem or other all along? Even before this latest thing?

Just... don't borrow trouble and don't mention Heidi much. Like, maybe you could run with the speculation that Regimand just gave us -- "Huh, if you think it might be the Haupt-Anderssen involved, I wonder if that could be bad news for the Empress" -- but that would be us taking what Regimand gave us and running with it as speculation. i.e. "Well I was investigating this in part because of Mira, and because it sounded a bit similar to Stirland... but now that you mentioned the Haupt-Anderssen as a possibility, I am more worried again."

Though, that's not me suggesting a write-in or anything. Just me thinking that that's the way Mathilde could be thinking about it and talking about it.
 
So, what we know of the way the light order feels about him.

Mira dislikes him because she feels he's held on too long.

Egrimm dislikes him because he was a micro-managing, credit-stealing boss who was coasting on others' work.

The Porter seems to not dislike him, exactly, but think that his goal of having the order outgrow him is good.

That's three of what, maybe five to nine lord magisters? And those are just the ones we have on camera. So I think we need to start thinking about how we 'win' this whole situation, in that it is resolved cleanly.

Primary objective is to stop the immediate chaos plots.

Secondary objectives are to protect Heidi and prevent Alric from claiming accolades he can leverage politically.

I think the best wrap up I can think of is is convincing Alric that he is happier running around blasting demons than he is running the college. I'd like to aim for that.

So here's my (joke) pitch: we get him really, really drunk at the victory party, and get him to agree to a term as Governor of Swamptown. We tease him with the golden talon paper and the promise of hysh prosthetics, point out that he could, for the asking, have that area it came from as his own personal fief, and have a representative of the emperor on hand to take a signature before the alcohol wears off.

Take a... More northern approach to the problem, so to speak.
 
[X] Favour to the Empress

[X] Favour to Ranald
You've worked with Ranald to achieve great things, enough to know when He wants something and why listening to that feeling might be a good idea. Meeting in four days is the least of the signs you've gotten about this mess.

I actually like this in a weird way, hard to find clues on 'divine intervention' to any shanagigans

just depends on 1) him knowing we are a Ranaldine, 2) believing us when we say that we get personal signs.
 
primemountain said:
Huh. So we are thinking along similar lines. I was considering doing that if she can't clean up her shit. I was going to offer her the chance to figure out some other means to close that angle of attack, because Ranald, the Deceiver, God of Irony and Illusion, Charlatans and Tricksters. Perhaps by faking her own death, or some other path we can't see but a God might.

But yeah, if the Four are involved, that angle of attack needs to be closed. Even if it means a dead Empress. Even if it means a really dead Heidi. As a Grey Wizard, we don't leave openings like that to hit the Heir of the Empire. Some Tzinchian fuck will take them.

That vulnerability needs to be closed, now that Mat is aware of it. After this, we need to sit down with Ranald and figure out if there's a way to close it without killing Heidi. And if not, decide what we're doing then. Divided Loyalties indeed.

A gambler both Mat and Ranald might be, but professional Gamblers hedge their bets.
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Ranald is also the Protector, and we promised to protect Heidi's son when we became his godmother. Killing Heidi goes against that vow, and I can't imagine Ranald will be pleased with us at all for the murder. Ranald frowns upon unnecessary violence, remember.
 
Two write-ins. If neither gets traction I'll add an approval vote later, but I think they address things nicely from two different angles.

[X] Other (It started as a favour to Mira - she asked me to find out what Alric was up to, in exchange for aid with the Waystone project - but now I've found out it feels like unfinished business from Stirland, and I owe it to my old friends to make sure the business is finished properly and the case closed.)

[X] Other (If it is that Haupt-Anderson who's behind it, it could result in someone trying to take vengeance on his last living relative. I want to make sure that doesn't happen.)
 
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[X] Favour to Mira

[X] Favour to Ranald

Also, I'm glad we broke Egrimm free of Alric, because now that gives us more space even if he succeeds in using this win for power.
 
How about that?

[X] Write-in : "I'm doing this for the good of the Empire, the less people know the exact reason, the safer the Empire is."

Also, is Regimand a ranaldite?
 
Glau said:
So. Yeah. I'm voting to say it's a favor for Mira, wave goodby, go give Heidi a head's up, and then come back to publicly offer our help and expertise to Alric. Because yeah, we really do want him to succeed. But most importantly, we want to demonstrate he's not irreplaceable.
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Problem here is gonna be after maybe. I think Alric still has enough political capital that we don't want to make him an enemy. Would Heidi and publicly assissting with Alric be even compatible? I can believe it is mechanically but I can't imagine how that would be portrayed though.
 
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