Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Nerdasaurus Rex · Dec 30, 2021

Codex said:
Elrisse is a High Luminary, the highest level of Witch Hunter in the Light Order as well as an Abjurer, which indicates expertise in Daemon Hunting:

Horstmann is also an Abjurer and a Daemon Slayer. These options:

Are likely covered by their expertise. Neither Regimand nor Mathilde are proficient Daemon Hunters. They focused more on societal manipulation and subterfuge than Daemon Hunting, which is the Light Order's specialty.

If a sufficiently powerful demon manifests, I have no issue with letting Alric take a shot at it. Prior to that, Mathilde and Regimand are both more than capable of handling the investigation by themselves. Both are fully trained and experianced grey wizards, and Regimand specialises in infiltrating cults—not to mention being powerful enough to win a running battle with a tzaangor across hostile wilderness. Bringing in more people is no guarantee that we will get those chaos research actions for free—and then we will have spent two actions to make our primary mission more difficult.

Simply put: We are not here to humiliate Alric. We are not here to stop the murders. We are here to stop the investigation from exposing the truth about the Empress. Renegotiating with the Lights and pulling in more wizards does not help us with that.

mathymancer · Dec 30, 2021

Codex said:
This feels like an indirect jab, and I'm not sure how to respond. Are you calling me an Alric or something? If you're going to disparage me, at least be direct about it.

No, I'm not trying to do anything like that, sorry if I came across that way. I'm saying that this kind of logic can be used to justify exactly the kind of glory hounding Alric is doing: because our own goals are important, we can prioritize them over the job. Probably Alric tells himself that his Order needs him as Patriarch, and so doing stuff like protecting the most influential Unfähiger and leaving the less important family members to fend for themselves is actually perefectly justifiable.

It's a tempting story to tell ourselves, and I don't want us to fall for that. Maybe this one negotiation with Mira will be the thing that makes the Waystone project work and save the world. But probably it won't, and in any case there is no reason to do it now at the start of the investigation rather than wait and see if we have time to spare.

DragonParadox · Dec 30, 2021

Sparsebeard said:
I think we have interferred enough in Alric's affairs to have a vested interest in him not regaining power.

And brining in the Lights also means getting their anti-chaos magics. If people are right and the demon ends up going for the hunting lodge instead, we are going to need some staying power to actually slay the deamon and Egrimm has shown that he has that kind of power.

Plus, any anti-chaos research we do in a rush is much more likely to be flawed than Egrimm, Elrisse or Alric's pre-existing knowledge on the matter. It allows us to focus on things we are actually good at.

I am pretty sure a canon sword to the face will kill most daemons dead just fine. Unless he brings an army with him we do not need the lights for that. Not that I think we are going to be fighting a daemon anytime soon, it is really hard for one of those to sustain themselves this far south long term . So there are really two options:

Albrecht is not a daemon but some manner of mutant from his stay in the warp, in which case we really do not need Light Magic to handle him
He is a daemon and can only last a few minutes to do the deed before daemonic instability hits

Codex · Dec 30, 2021

Nerdasaurus Rex said:
If a sufficiently powerful demon manifests, I have no issue with letting Alric take a shot at it. Prior to that, Mathilde and Regimand are both more than capable of handling the investigation by themselves. Both are fully trained and experianced grey wizards, and Regimand specialises in infiltrating cults—not to mention being powerful enough to win a running battle with a tzaangor across hostile wilderness. Bringing in more people is no guarantee that we will get those chaos research actions for free—and then we will have spent two actions to make our primary mission more difficult.

Simply put: We are not here to humiliate Alric. We are not here to stop the murders. We are here to stop the investigation from exposing the truth about the Empress. Renegotiating with the Lights and pulling in more wizards does not help us with that.

Ending the investigation early by exposing and dealing with the Daemon lowers the chances of people figuring out something's up because there's less time to connect the dots. Getting rid of the Daemon is therefore essential.

Regimand being an expert at infiltrating cults does absolutely nothing to help with the current situation. We had him as a tutor for Chaos, and his tutoring was extremely wishy washy and inconsistent, because the Greys don't have an archive of anti-daemon literature and specialists to deal with that kind of stuff. They throw that stuff into the Order of Purity who deal with it. What the Greys do is kill, and their effectiveness at killing is sharply reduced when it's about warp stuff. The Order of Purifying the influence of the Warp is far better in that area, in both strength and in the actual investigation part.

DragonParadox said:
I am pretty sure a canon sword to the face will kill most daemons dead just fine. Unless he brings an army with him we do not need the lights for that. Not that I think we are going to be fighting a daemon anytime soon, it is really hard for one of those to sustain themselves this far south long term . So there are really two options:

Albrecht is not a daemon but some manner of mutant from his stay in the warp, in which case we really do not need Light Magic to handle him

He is a daemon and can only last a few minutes to do the deed before daemonic instability hits

My current theory is that he's ascended into some sort of Daemon Sorceror in the Chaos Realm, because time is very wibbly wobbly there's a chance he spent hundreds of years in there by this point. I suspect that he can only manifest himself in the material plane during the time periods that match with his family's death. Once the time periods match, he could theoretically manifest himself for a full day without instability because of the "story" attached to his manifestaton. He's come back to have revenge, and the Chaos Gods anchor him to the material realm in a way that matches the way his family died so he can have proper vengeance.

It's a lot of speculation though. Could be nothing like that.

DragonParadox · Dec 30, 2021

mathymancer said:
No, I'm not trying to do anything like that, sorry if I came across that way. I'm saying that this kind of logic can be used to justify exactly the kind of glory hounding Alric is doing: because our own goals are important, we can prioritize them over the job. Probably Alric tells himself that his Order needs him as Patriarch, and so doing stuff like protecting the most influential Unfähiger and leaving the less important family members to fend for themselves is actually perefectly justifiable.

It's a tempting story to tell ourselves, and I don't want us to fall for that. Maybe this one negotiation with Mira will be the thing that makes the Waystone project work and save the world. But probably it won't, and in any case there is no reason to do it now at the start of the investigation rather than wait and see if we have time to spare.

Unfähigers do not matter, not long term, not big picture. If this were an abstract exercise, insert 1AP to save eight people I doubt any of us would take it. Across the empire tens of thousands die of various things we could prevent at far higher rates than this, hell even if you want to argue that saving people from Chaos specifically is more morally valid, we could save a lot more people with an AP, by just picking a forest and going out to assasinate bestigors and shamans, we could save whole villages... and it would still in the cold hard light of day be a waste of a Lord Magister's talents. We are not here to save lives, unless those lives are Heidi's and Mandred's.

Briefvoice · Dec 30, 2021

[X] Plan Research

dinomannitro6 · Dec 30, 2021

[X] Plan CoolPlanName

Codex · Dec 30, 2021

Codex said:
My current theory is that he's ascended into some sort of Daemon Sorceror in the Chaos Realm

I should also say, sometimes I see people fall under the impression that mortals can only become Daemons if they ascend to Daemon Princehood, but I have to say that that's not true. Neiglish Rot, Nurgle's unique magical disease that eats away at the soul as well as the body, has a special effect that has a chance of turning whoever is infected with it into a Plaguebearer. This is the only case of mortals turning into Daemons without becoming Princes that I can remember at the moment, but if that's possible, then I don't see why mortals can't become Daemons without jumping straight to Daemon Prince.

mathymancer · Dec 30, 2021

DragonParadox said:
Unfähigers do not matter, not long term, not big picture. If this were an abstract exercise, insert 1AP to save eight people I doubt any of us would take it. Across the empire tens of thousands die of various things we could prevent at far higher rates than this, hell even if you want to argue that saving people from Chaos specifically is more morally valid, we could save a hell of a lot more people with an AP, by just picking a forest and going out to assasinate bestigors and shamans, we could save whole villages... and it would still in the cold hard light of day be a waste of a Lord Magister's talents. We are not here to save lives, unless those lives are Heidi's and Mandred's.

I realize that this argument makes perfect logical sense. However, we are already here. The AP has been spent. Those people are right in front of us, and we can save them. I believe we should. It's not just about maximizing some 'Mathilde usefulness function', to me. It's about the kind of person Mathilde is. And I want Mathilde to be the kind of person that, having already decided to do this investigation for other reasons, has the saving of lives as one of her top priorities.

DragonParadox · Dec 30, 2021

There is something of a conceptual difference between going down with a case of the Nurgles and turning into a plague gremlin and becoming a daemon prince, the latter tend to keep a lot more of their mind and goals and they are also considerably more powerful. This is a bit meta, but the warp works on narrative logic: Named daemons are more powerful than unnamed ones, their history gives them power.

CornyBones · Dec 30, 2021

Swantree said:
I've read Alric as having great charisma but terrible interpersonal skills. By all reason his career should've been dead after his first fiasco. He still won fair and square though, kept it even. Something like, they already disowned Dieter IV, familicide of a noble bloodline is pretty big news. The colleges were aware and didn't move a finger, while the others were doing nothing but politics, he went out into the world and helped the most needing of help he could. Wouldn't you know it, he was fighting the Chaos Gods the whole time, what the colleges were built for. Boom, great deed, ride high for a while.

In the abstract of course, still don't know the whole reason why he's here.

Maybe he sees himself in an old, unpopular house besieged by Chaos and abandoned by its peers.

DragonParadox · Dec 30, 2021

mathymancer said:
I realize that this argument makes perfect logical sense. However, we are already here. The AP has been spent. Those people are right in front of us, and we can save them. I believe we should. It's not just about maximizing some 'Mathilde usefulness function', to me. It's about the kind of person Mathilde is. And I want Mathilde to be the kind of person that, having already decided to do this investigation for other reasons, has the saving of lives as one of her top priorities.

We could totally leave IC, yes within the mechanics of the quest we cannot 'unspend' an AP but that kind of reasoning is not what drives Mathilde IC. As far as I can see she is in fact staying here beyond 'a bit of light surveillance' not because she has any great love of the family of Dieter, whom she seriously considered robbing just last update but because it impacts the Empress her friend and ally, the crown prince her Godson and the Empire as a whole. IMO those eight random nobles she has not seen in her life are really far down the list.

Codex · Dec 30, 2021

DragonParadox said:
There is something of a conceptual difference between going down with a case of the Nurgles and turning into a plague gremlin and becoming a daemon prince, the latter tend to keep a lot more of their mind and goals and they are also considerably more powerful. This is a bit meta, but the warp works on narrative logic: Named daemons are more powerful than unnamed ones, their history gives them power.

I mean yeah there's a difference, but I'm pointing out that Princehood isn't the only process of Daemonhood granted to mortals.

All Daemons have Names. Those names are made up of "Name Elements". Stronger Daemons have more Name Elements. In fact, there are Chaos Champions out there who are Gifted with Daemon Names in anticipation of them ascending to Princehood in the future.

Also, Plaguebearers shouldn't necessarily be underestimated. There's a great deal of variety within the Lesser Daemons, and some of the Plaguebearers are smarter, more individualistic and more powerful than others. An example would be Epidemus.

DragonParadox · Dec 30, 2021

Codex said:
I mean yeah there's a difference, but I'm pointing out that Princehood isn't the only process of Daemonhood granted to mortals.

All Daemons have Names. Those names are made up of "Name Elements". Stronger Daemons have more Name Elements. In fact, there are Chaos Champions out there who are Gifted with Daemon Names in anticipation of them ascending to Princehood in the future.

Also, Plaguebearers shouldn't necessarily be underestimated. There's a great deal of variety within the Lesser Daemons, and some of the Plaguebearers are smarter, more individualistic and more powerful than others. An example would be Epidemus.

I meant named in the sense that they are known in the setting, sorry for the inexact language. Also I agree about special Lesser Daemons, but they are inherently really uncommon, more so than daemon princes. So as a general rule the more dangerous mortals Ascending to Daemonhood are daemon princes

Sparsebeard · Dec 30, 2021

mathymancer said:
No, I'm not trying to do anything like that, sorry if I came across that way. I'm saying that this kind of logic can be used to justify exactly the kind of glory hounding Alric is doing: because our own goals are important, we can prioritize them over the job. Probably Alric tells himself that his Order needs him as Patriarch, and so doing stuff like protecting the most influential Unfähiger and leaving the less important family members to fend for themselves is actually perefectly justifiable.

It's a tempting story to tell ourselves, and I don't want us to fall for that. Maybe this one negotiation with Mira will be the thing that makes the Waystone project work and save the world. But probably it won't, and in any case there is no reason to do it now at the start of the investigation rather than wait and see if we have time to spare.

If we really want to stop the murders and the ritual, what we should do is get brought in officially by Mira then collaborate with Alric.

Also, a point that I haven't seen brought up is that NOT renegociating with Mira is actually the most suspicious thing to do if we end up interferring. Mira and any others that are aware of our agreement might end up wondering why we went up and above what was agreed for. Mira was shown to be a shrewd operator and us doing more than ahat was agreed for might enflamme her curiosity.

By renegociating with Mira, we give ourselves an alibit for our continued interest in the case.

DragonParadox said:
I meant named in the sense that they are known in the setting, sorry for the inexact language. Also I agree about special Lesser Daemons, but they are inherently really uncommon, more so than daemon princes. So as a general rule the more dangerous mortals Ascending to Daemonhood are daemon princes

OoC, this particular individual is likely to be an Everchosen Candidate though so I would expect him to at least be on the path to "greatness".

mathymancer · Dec 30, 2021

DragonParadox said:
We could totally leave IC, yes within the mechanics of the quest we cannot 'unspend' an AP but that kind of reasoning is not what drives Mathilde IC. As far as I can see she is in fact staying here beyond 'a bit of light surveillance' not because she has any great love of the family of Dieter, whom she seriously considered robbing just last update but because it impacts the Empress her friend and ally, the crown prince her Godson and the Empire as a whole. IMO those eight random nobles she has not seen in her life are really far down the list.

While Mathilde has been declared Dawi, I would hope she does not bear grudges against people for the actions of their ancestors. Yes, that was Mathilde's instinct in her inner monologue, but Mathilde's motives aren't set in stone, it's us who decide if she rises above that. And yes, Mathilde is staying here because of Heidi and the Ranaldite conspiracy. But while she is already here, I want her to try and save the lives of those people.

Sparsebeard said:
If we really want to stop the murders and the ritual, what we should do is get brought in officially by Mira then collaborate with Alric.

That's an argument you could make, but it wasn't the argument I was replying to in the post you quoted - that was about the benefits to the Waystone project.
And I'm really not sure how feasible collaborating with Alric will be after we strike a deal with Mira. Mira is almost certainly going to stipulate that we don't do that:

Chopak said:
What if we're forced, by circumstances, to work with Alric anyway?

Boney said:
Then you don't get the agreed-upon payment.

Nerdasaurus Rex · Dec 30, 2021

Codex said:
We had him as a tutor for Chaos, and his tutoring was extremely wishy washy and inconsistent, because the Greys don't have an archive of anti-daemon literature and specialists to deal with that kind of stuff.

You remember Mathilde's anti-chaos training very differently than I do—I recall it being very thorough. And I'm fairly sure Greys are trained to deal with demons and demon manifestations because that's an inherent risk of being both a wizard and a citizen of the Empire. We're the scalpel that the Emperor uses to excise Chaos from his lands. To say we can't deal with it is just... wrong.

Sparsebeard · Dec 30, 2021

mathymancer said:
That's an argument you could make, but it wasn't the argument I was replying to in the post you quoted - that was about the benefits to the Waystone project.
And I'm really not sure how feasible collaborating with Alric will be after we strike a deal with Mira. Mira is almost certainly going to stipulate that we don't do that:

Your quote is about if we are forced by circumstances to approach Alric. If we decide to work with him and split credit, Boney said it would still count as fulfilling our agreement. After all, Mira can then also claim part of the credits for stopping the murders by sending us (and our Lights if we decide to bring them in).

Maybe Mira will be ready to offer us more for solving the case without working with Alric at all, but getting Alric to share the credit is still worth something for sure we just woudn't get paid as much. And to me, the payment is less important than just :

1. Having an excuse for involving us more in the matter than was agreed for at first (else people might ask themselves why we have such a vested interest in the case).

2. Facilitating approaching Alric by making it harder to refuse us. If anything, it makes it much harder for Alric to refuse us if we are already working with the Light College.

3. Being able to bring in our own Light Wizards if needed.

4. Getting other help on the case by the de-facto Matriach of the Light college (access to anti-chaos ressources, documentation, etc.)

DragonParadox · Dec 30, 2021

mathymancer said:
While Mathilde has been declared Dawi, I would hope she does not bear grudges against people for the actions of their ancestors. Yes, that was Mathilde's instinct in her inner monologue, but Mathilde's motives aren't set in stone, it's us who decide if she rises above that. And yes, Mathilde is staying here because of Heidi and the Ranaldite conspiracy. But while she is already here, I want her to try and save the lives of those people.

We were told in so many words that the reason why the pretty blatant breach of the Vow of Poverty is on the table is because wizards in general really hate the Unfähigers and that is a perfectly reasonable thing to do IC. Mathilde is not a modern person ISOT into Warhammer and holding grudges for a family line is a perfectly culturally appropriate thing to do across the setting, not just for the dwarfs, you will find it from Tilea to Norsca and from Cathay to... well not Lustria, the Lizardmen can barely tell one warm blood from another.

Mathilde is not just us the voters, she is a person shaped by her upbringing, her environment and her experiences and none of those things would incline her to particularly care about the Unfähigers. Not to say that she actually hates them the way anyone wo actually lived through Dieter's purge would but I see no reason why she would care about their lives for their own sake.

Codex · Dec 30, 2021

Nerdasaurus Rex said:
You remember Mathilde's anti-chaos training very differently than I do—I recall it being very thorough. And I'm fairly sure Greys are trained to deal with demons and demon manifestations because that's an inherent risk of being both a wizard and a citizen of the Empire. We're the scalpel that the Emperor uses to excise Chaos from his lands. To say we can't deal with it is just... wrong.

They can deal with it, they're just not as good at it as those who are specialised at it, which is a given. The Grey Order are better at hunting down Black Magisters than they are at Daemons. Let's take a look at Regimand's experience with Daemons:

Boney said:
Those require a completely different approach entirely, and it's here that Regimand's depth of experience starts to grow thin, as he's only had a few encounters with manifested Daemons, and most of them only taught him a single lesson: try to avoid encounters with manifested Daemons.

His experience in the field is thin and his main lesson is that you shouldn't encounter them. If it was a Light Magister teaching us, the lecture's points would probably be more in depth.

Woltaire · Dec 30, 2021

also it was only 60 years that was not that long ago at all so it not like we are disliking them for a deed hundred of years ago we are disliking them for a deed in relatively recent past

mathymancer · Dec 30, 2021

DragonParadox said:
We were told in so many words that the reason why the pretty blatant breach of the Vow of Poverty is on the table is because wizards in general really hate the Unfähigers and that is a perfectly reasonable thing to do IC. Mathilde is not a modern person ISOT into Warhammer and holding grudges for a family line is a perfectly culturally appropriate thing to do across the setting, not just for the dwarfs, you will find it from Tilea to Norsca and from Cathay to... well not Lustria, the Lizardmen can barely tell one warm blood from another.

Mathilde is not just us the voters, she is a person shaped by her upbringing, her environment and her experiences and none of those things would incline her to particularly care about the Unfähigers. Not to say that she actually hates them the way anyone wo actually lived through Dieter's purge would but I see no reason why she would care about their lives for their own sake.

I just don't see it that way. Yeah, Mathilde has reasons to dislike the Unfähigers, it wouldn't be terribly OOC to not care about saving them. But I don't think it would be OOC to care about saving them, either. Mathilde is capable of feeling empathy for people she doesn't like (see Roswita, though obviously that was a different situation), and the version of Mathilde I want to see is the version that saves the unlikable family that everyone and wizards in particular hate simply because it's the right thing to do (and because she was already there for other reasons but I mean it's still pretty virtuous of her let's not get too nitpicky).

HanChenYou · Dec 30, 2021

[X] Plan CoolPlanName

Codex · Dec 30, 2021

Codex said:
They can deal with it, they're just not as good at it as those who are specialised at it, which is a given. The Grey Order are better at hunting down Black Magisters than they are at Daemons. Let's take a look at Regimand's experience with Daemons:

His experience in the field is thin and his main lesson is that you shouldn't encounter them. If it was a Light Magister teaching us, the lecture's points would probably be more in depth.

To be clear, Regimand is experienced with mortal Chaos followers, including cultists, Beastmen and possibly the occasional Warrior. He hasn't had much cause to come face to face with a Daemon aside from ones summoned from a ritual that he failed to contain, in which case his response would be to run away and get someone who specialises in dealing with it to deal with it.

You can't assassinate something reliably when they don't have vitals. You need the big guns for that.

DragonParadox · Dec 30, 2021

mathymancer said:
I just don't see it that way. Yeah, Mathilde has reasons to dislike the Unfähigers, it wouldn't be terribly OOC to not care about saving them. But I don't think it would be OOC to care about saving them, either. Mathilde is capable of feeling empathy for people she doesn't like (see Roswita, though obviously that was a different situation), and the version of Mathilde I want to see is the version that saves the unlikable family that everyone and wizards in particular hate simply because it's the right thing to do (and because she was already there for other reasons but I mean it's still pretty virtuous of her let's not get too nitpicky(.

Keep in mind we can still save them without her actually feeling much empathy for them. It is undeniably her job to save people in danger of being murdered by chaos

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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