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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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silentorphan said:
Didn't Mathilde admit that outright to Roswita later on? Not exactly moles, just...tools. Or mutually beneficial partners? (Apparently Abelhelm's charisma stat was higher than I remember?)
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Stat wise, Abelhelm was utter garbage at anything that wasn't Martial or Learning, and he was on his way to becoming garbage at Piety too:
Boney said:
Martial: 24 - You've seen Van Hal in combat, and he swings his Runefang with devastating force.
Diplomacy: 6 - He prefers to leave the talking to others, though he can leap into a thunder denunciation when in the mood.
Stewardship: 4 - He knows to keep money coming in so he can keep spending it. That's about it.
Intrigue: 8 - His paranoia and knowledge of the enemies of the Empire only go part of the way to make up for the fact that he's as subtle as a brick.
Piety: 12-2=10 - His faith is battered, but still holding.
Learning: 16 - He's something of a scholar when it comes to the myriad enemies that lurk within the borders of the Empire.
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He got really lucky with a bunch of his background rolls I think, or had contacts/traits that made up for it. Story wise people liked Abelhelm, but he wasn't exactly the most Charismatic of people. Even his speeches were barely worth anything.

He read books and swung halberd, and he was good at those two things. Somehow he improvised his way through his rulership and died before he had to deal with the fallout of the fact that he literally spent his entire reign burning through Stirland's treasury to fund military endeavours.
 
mathymancer said:
This assumes that one and only one group of Unfahigers is a part of the ritual, which we have no reason to assume. It might be the case, it might not:

And since we can't be sure Mathilde will check both if we vote to check both.
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That was my original assumption too and why I want to check both, Swantree was arguing that if the centre is on a group we examine it would give Mathilde all the information about the ritual by examining that group. (Presumably including whether or not the other group is involved) My argument is that if that is the case Boney wouldn't just make us waste an action on something Mathilde knows in advance is a waste of time.
 
As an aside, I am thoroughly over Abelhelm. It was sad three years ago, but that was three years ago. I've honestly come to appreciate the fact that he died because of the series of events that happened ever since and would never change that even if I had the power to. It was nice knowing him, but he lived a long life and his legacy is secured, with his daughter carrying the torch. I'm sure he would have appreciated that.
 
Jreengus said:
That was my original assumption too and why I want to check both, Swantree was arguing that if the centre is on a group we examine it would give Mathilde all the information about the ritual by examining that group. (Presumably including whether or not the other group is involved) My argument is that if that is the case Boney wouldn't just make us waste an action on something Mathilde knows in advance is a waste of time.
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Well, alright. I also don't think that the information from one group will give us everything.
I'll also like to add that the ritual might be centered on the murderer, in which case those two actions will give us nothing, but we'll have to look at both groups to find that out. This is one of the reasons I want to approach the hunting lodge group - if the ritual isn't centered on the family at least by talking to some of them we might still get something.
 
Boney said:
The idea of someone calmly research, experimenting, and penning the results of violent and bloody rituals in a volume and a hand not that different to your own is more worrying than that of a cackling lunatic scrawling in blood under a green moon.
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*researching
Boney said:
These too are left to your examination, and as soon as you're done to them they're set aflame and the ashes carefully gathered.
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*done with them
Boney said:
"Could only been blanker if he'd pulled apart the castle and sold the stones," you say faintly
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*have been
Boney said:
So it seems possible - likely, even - that when that bubble of air and stone returned to the world, it brought Alberich back with him - intact, but certainly not unaltered.
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Unless the bubble has a gender (to be fair, not entirely out of the question with the Warp), that should be *back with it.
Boney said:
After an unknown amount of time, after an unknown amount of changes, Alberich returns to a world that has already moved on from him.
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You're going from "brought" to "returns" so I think this is a tense agreement issue?
Boney said:
"Could you tell by surveiling one or the other?"
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*surveilling
Boney said:
He nods. "See you in a fortnight," he says, and disappears. Over at the bar, his actual self smirks behind his disguise as he drains his drink. "What do I owe you?" he asks the barman.

"A little more credit, for starters," comes your voice from the barman's mouth.
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I snorted irl at this.
Boney said:
You haven't been humbled this badly since you were an Apprentice.
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Honestly, Regimand's explanation/boast for this result makes a lot of sense in-universe. Mathilde's smart and well educated, but her only practical experience with rituals was accidentalying that Ork ritual. Whereas Regimand seems to have spent his career largely in the Empire, which in the normal course of a Grey Wizard's duties will entail fucking with a lot of cults' rituals over time.
Boney said:
Alys Schmidt meets once more with an equally-disguised Regimand, and Alys side-eyes her counterpart suspiciously as you very carefully don't look in the direction of Regimand's second illusion of a second disguised version of himself, and your Magesight scans the room for where the actual Regimand must be hiding.
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Honestly it's pretty cute how they keep trying to one-up each other with this stuff. Heartwarming shadow wizard bonding times.
 
A question: do we know how the next murder is supposed to go? If so, can we extrapolate which of the two locations is most likely to allow said murder to occur?

[X] Ritual Centre
 
mathymancer said:
I'll also like to add that the ritual might be centered on the murderer, in which case those two actions will give us nothing, but we'll have to look at both groups to find that out.
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If the ritual is centered on the killer knowing that for certain is incredibly useful. It allows us to definitively rule out the Empress to both Regimand and Alric if necessary. That completes our actual goal and leaves us free to worry about the best way to sabotage Alric.
 
Ok, I decided I'll vote for what I want even though it has zero support at the moment:

[X] Plan: Maximum information
-[X] Surveil the spa Unfahigers
-[X] Approach the hunting lodge Unfahigers
-[X] Research: Alberich's life

Approaching the hunting lodge Unfahigers will still allow us to observe them, and talking to them might offer us more useful information. I feel this is better than the current leading plan, with the one drawback that is the slight risk that working with the hunting lodge Unfahigers entails, but I think that's not a very big risk.
 
If we rescue the Unfahigers from their ritual deaths, would that be a counter-ritual like with the Shamans of Only Gork? What would such a counter-ritual do?
 
Think the problem's in how I write things then, that was how I understood your point too.
Jreengus said:
We are not getting any advantage in picking both surveils, beyond simply cancelling the disadvantage that comes from having to preplan a chunk of three weeks by not being a mindless automaton slaved to their preprogrammed calendar.
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This is where we disagree. I see the turn as rigid, you don't. I'm arguing that's unfair since it's basically a 50% or 33% chance of effectively refunding an action if we hit. Your point is that it doesn't make sense for Mathilde to keep surveying the other when she already knows the ritual.

I'm arguing it doesn't work mechanically as a game. You're arguing it doesn't make sense for a character to do that.

I got what you meant though, so I'll just wait for QM since he's deciding it at the end of the day.

Rafin said:
As someone who was around back then and keeping in mind that Mathilde's motivation and mindset at least in part reflect the thread and its discussions between chapters, I have to disagree.

Mathilde would have embezzled either way, because of her crippling debt. She did all those things you mentioned as a Spymaster, but not because she didn't consider her job important. She did it because she didn't want to die. And yet when it came to the Spymaster job, a genuine motivation to aid Stirland and make Abelhelm happy was usually the top priority. Mathilde spent well below average actions on her own completely unrelated pet projects, instead putting time and effort into Stirland. I don't know if she saw it as her eternal purpose or singular life's work, but why should that be the bar? It was a job, if an important one. And she didn't only do it well, she would have continued to do it well for the foreseeable future if Roswita hadn't fired her.

As an example of the thread's/Mathilde's dedication to Stirland, after Abelhelm's death and the soon returning normal half-year turns one of our top priorities was either making sure Abelhelm's progeny gets to inherit smoothly (in case other factions wanted to preempt that in another Elector Meet) or to push for someone from within the current Council of Stirland. Mathilde did ultimately commit massive theft from Stirland (far outstripping that little embezzlement that was near expected of her), but she did it in petty revenge for being fired, not because she didn't care about the job in the first place.

Also, if being a spy/mole for another party was enough to disqualify an advisor from truly being considered as holding their job then Stirland pretty much didn't have a council in his reign. Only two advisors and double that in moles.
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I think we played an extensive game of telephone there.

Here's the whole context:
Codex said:
Mathilde has always worked from a high profile position. First it was as Spymaster of Stirland, which wasn't so secret because her job was to fight against Undead rather than humans for the most part.
Swantree said:
That wasn't even her real job though. That was the cover. She had no business being spymaster of Stirland. She was a mole for the Lahmian's remember?
Lupercal said:
We never embraced being a Mole for the Lahmians. Neither Matty or the thread considered it our real job. It was the unfortuneate blackmail getting in the way of our public job and private faith/hobby.
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Codex said:
If I remember correctly, the only stuff we did for the Lahmians as a mole was giving them information on Anton and recording the information on the Undead in the Haunted Hills, which we never even managed to give them because they got busted before we had a chance to do it. They were pretty hands off with the mole stuff, so we spent the majority of our time just doing our job.
Swantree said:
I'll restate it.

Mathilde as a Spymaster was a cover. She never applied, got vetted, or wanted the job. The empire didn't put her there, nor did anyone else apart from the Lahmians. Even if you say that wasn't her priority or that she wasn't extremely valuable as an asset, it doesn't remove the fact that she still fulfilled and performed her role as a mole. We all know that she was more devoted to Abelheim, the fact of the matter is still that her being spymaster was her cover for getting in.

We could also say that it was both, she was an excellent spymaster and an sub-par mole. But I still wouldn't discount the fact that she was a mole. She embezzled, she stole, she lied, she stole information as a spymaster. Mathilde didn't really literally see Stirland as her purpose, duty, or life's work. While the results do speak for themselves for all the good she's done, that doesn't cancel out the reality of the situation. Still, this also goes for her as a mole, but she still did it.

My point is that her as a Spymaster was a cover, she didn't even know what it entailed, she was a mole planted there. The initial comment was about Mathilde's notches in intrigue. No one really knows still how Mathilde got there apart from Regimand, no one probably ever will.

Well apart from the witch hunters I guess, which leads to the empire? Then it's probably in some filing cabinet somewhere in a parallel dimension. At least the college doesn't know, I remember a comment from Algard saying Regimand was vague about the whole thing.
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If I remember right, Codex mentioned intrigue escapades and her job as spymaster. I mentioned that even that wasn't even the real job we were there for. I thought that was neat where even that was obfuscated. People pointed out that wasn't where our strongest loyalties lie. I said fair,, but even so Mathilde fulfilled her role as a mole. She never wanted the job in the first place, she didn't apply or was vetted, didn't even know what the job entailed in the first place. No one but the Lahmians wanted Mathilde in Stirland.

I largely agree with your point but I think the quote is removed from a larger context. That wasn't a rant pointing out Mathilde's evilness, that was a sentence supporting my argument that her point being in Stirland was being a mole. I do think that her dedication to Abelheim massively overshadowed any of her duties to Stirland. But I may just be misremembering if she did do anything for Stirland on her own agency. I don't remember if there were even options for it.

Tobtorp said:
Nope, we know he's holed up with the actually influencial members of the dynasty in the spa.
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You're right about that.
 
Ganurath said:
If we rescue the Unfahigers from their ritual deaths, would that be a counter-ritual like with the Shamans of Only Gork? What would such a counter-ritual do?
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I don't think it would be a counter ritual so much as just messing up the original ritual. As I understand it messing up a ritual tends to have unpredictable effects though mainly negative for the one doing the ritual.
 
Codex said:
As an aside, I am thoroughly over Abelhelm. It was sad three years ago, but that was three years ago. I've honestly come to appreciate the fact that he died because of the series of events that happened ever since and would never change that even if I had the power to. It was nice knowing him, but he lived a long life and his legacy is secured, with his daughter carrying the torch. I'm sure he would have appreciated that.
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Abelhelm dying took our story from the position of being a spymaster into being a person all her own. The absolute underpinning shift from that death is something that is absolutely core to this story. I *also* would not change it.
 
So, looking at the leading options, there's nothing to really compromise about, but we can still spice it up with some options.

[X] Plan Alternative
-[X] Research: Underworld Turbulence (Order - First)
-[X] Surveil the spa Unfahigers
-[X] Surveil the hunting lodge Unfahigers

Try to scrounge up a boost to the surveillance actions.

[X] Plan: Survey & Surcharge
[x] Plan: Ritual Centre with Mira
 
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[X] Plan: Being a good Ranald High Priest
-[X] Interrogate the spa Unfahigers
-[X] Plunder Krieglitz Manor
--[X] Focus on information rather than wealth. Take documents and books, leave any gold or jewels.
--[X] Secure anything dark that needs to be destroyed.
--[X] Judge items of historical relevance and artifacts with a specific use case-by-case, based on the benefit to the Empire if they are back in the open rather than locked away.
-[X] Research: Alberich's life

We need Information now and while risky interrogating them will lead to an information windfall for us. Also we NEED to know exactly what kind of Daemon would have been most likely to have possessed him/ what chaos god he would have been inclined to. So research his life and find out. The Manor is so that we cover all our bases and while doing so get favor from Ranald while doing so.
 
BurnNote said:
No, iirc his name is just speller weird.
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If the person he's no relation to is Screaming Lord Reichthard, then it's supposed to be spelled like that I'd assume? If you search google for "warhammer reicthard" it only pulls up two results, one of which is DL and the other one is a typo of Reichthard on the wiki page for Screaming Lord Reichthard.

Edit: it's also possible that this guy is the past!version of canon Screaming Lord Reichthard, since he was a Bright Magister Lord before his eponymous fate. In which case it should definitely be spelled Reichthard.
 
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Fayhem said:
If the person he's no relation to is Screaming Lord Reichthard, then it's supposed to be spelled like that I'd assume? If you search google for "warhammer reicthard" it only pulls up two results, one of which is DL and the other one is a typo of Reichthard on the wiki page for Screaming Lord Reichthard.

Edit: it's also possible that this guy is the past!version of canon Screaming Lord Reichthard, since he was a Bright Magister Lord before his eponymous fate. In which case it should definitely be spelled Reichthard.
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Hmm, Codex character register has it with h, so I think you are right.
 
First thing: Happy New Year!
Second: congratulations, this quest is well deserving the reward!

Boney said:
it's a miracle the Empire ever isn't swarming with Daemons and vengeful ghosts and everything in between.
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That's a good question. Why isn't it? I can think of a few reasons, but not sure which would be main ones.

My vote goes to

[x] Plan: Ritual Centre

Even if there is value in renegotiating with Mira, I don't want to spend an action on it.

That said, it is a pretty passive plan. It doesn't seem like worth taking Regimand's time too. What is he going to do in the mean time?
 
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