Remove ads

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Voting is open
Reader mode
Codex said:
Tabletop has a ton of things that don't make much sense narrative wise for the balance of the game. In previous Editions, at a certain point it was genuinely impossible for low level chaff to even damage high toughness targets. 6th and 7th Edition had it so that it was completely impossible to wound a target who was 3 points of Toughness above your Strength. That was changed in 8th Edition, making it possible for you to drown high Toughness targets in giant masses of chaff.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
There's also the fact that all caster of a magic lore has the same spells, no matter if they're an imperial wizard or a Slaan.
 
Boney said:
In the Great War Against Chaos, the entire army of Kislev was wiped out, as was just about every defender of Praag. The defenders of Kislev City took ruinous casualties. The only Kislevites that got through it relatively untouched were the ones that, when Chaos came knocking, did not join the army, did not defend the city in the path of Chaos, and did not defend the capital of Kislev - instead, they defended the city furthest away from Asavar Kul's invasion path with easy escape routes into Ostland or the Sea of Claws. Pretty much every patriot, every true believer, anyone with courage and conviction in Kislev placed themselves in the path of Chaos and most of them died as a result, and in the aftermath the cowards greatly outnumbered the lucky. A lot of Kislevites blame the downturn in just about every Kislevite institution since then as much on the lack of character of those who survived as they do on the damage done by the Great War, and this lack of trust in the leadership of Kislevite institutions is what allowed the Gods of the Empire to get a foothold in Kislev.




In the aftermath of the Great War that Kislev is still languishing in, there is no more Fire Spire magic, and no Dazh or Tor or Ursun Priests that are seen as brave and trustworthy. Only the Ice Witches were left relatively intact in population and reputation by the Great War, because the Ice Witches rallied to Kislev City instead of Praag because of their long-standing and well-known hostility towards the Fire Spire.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
What kind of magic did the Fire Spire mages practice? Wind magic? All eight winds? Or something else?

Also, I still don't quite get how a polity that was so ravaged by the last Great War, that doesn't have the best weather conditions for crop growing and that was lead by corrupt royalty for most of the time since said war still manages to defend its borders so much better than the empire, to the point of only having minimal Greenskin and Beastman and Ghoul presence within its forests.
 
Rafin said:
What kind of magic did the Fire Spire mages practice? Wind magic? All eight winds? Or something else?

Also, I still don't quite get how a polity that was so ravaged by the last Great War, that doesn't have the best weather conditions for crop growing and that was lead by corrupt royalty for most of the time since said war still manages to defend its borders so much better than the empire, to the point of only having minimal Greenskin and Beastman and Ghoul presence within its forests.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This is everything about the Fire Spire from Realm of the Ice Queen Page 76, which is the only source that has the Fire Spire:

"This imposing, narrow spire is still the tallest structure in Praag, despite losing its top two stories in the War. It was built as a magical college by Z'ra Rudolf II, who was fascinated by the magical arts and wished to gather all sorcerers to the city, be they ice witches, hags, or the strange wizards of the Empire. Traditionalist Ice Witches and Hags looked on in horror as, soon enough, the heights of the tower were bursting with Aethyric flames, arcs of frost-fire, and alchemical explosions, causing the townsfolk to dub it the "Fire Spire." However, the witches' vocal disapproval was soon proven wise for, during the Great War, the tower acted as a lightning rod to Chaos sorcerers and was forever twisted by Dark Magic. Now, the Fire Spire stands as a testament to the witches' warnings, for none who enter its haunted chambers return; but, even so, the promise of lost magical wonders continues to tempt desperate treasure hunters. The Fire Spire still attracts both natural and unnatural phenomena, and being near it during a storm is a very bad idea.

Although its inhabitants played a large part in defending the city during the Great War, the damage from the exploding spire and the remaining Chaos taint are forever associated with magic and its practitioners in a very negative way. Ironically, this prejudice—coupled with the large Ungol population and the risks of spellcasting (see sidebar)—means there are almost no ice witches in Praag. Hags are welcome, but none step onto its tainted soil unless they absolutely have to, leaving Praag almost entirely empty of spell casters (apart from travelling Empire wizards seeking some lost lore). But the hags know that the city is not defenceless: they can sense that some deep power, perhaps the Ancient Widow Herself, watches over the city from below, though why and to what extent remains unknown."

Anything else is Boney original.

In terms of Forests, I have to mention that Kislev has far less forests than the Empire and they don't seem as notable as the Empire's Forest monsters. Another factor to keep in mind is that the Hag Witches stayed in their lane during the Great War. Their power is attached to their environment, and many of them linger in forests, so the forests are kept safe because the Hag Witches were unaffected by the Great War.
 
Codex said:
and he made Arcane Marks and Masteries intrinsic to human understanding of the Winds.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Are Masteries also a thing from the RPGs?
Codex said:
This is everything about the Fire Spire from Realm of the Ice Queen Page 76, which is the only source that has the Fire Spire:

"This imposing, narrow spire is still the tallest structure in Praag, despite losing its top two stories in the War. It was built as a magical college by Z'ra Rudolf II, who was fascinated by the magical arts and wished to gather all sorcerers to the city, be they ice witches, hags, or the strange wizards of the Empire. Traditionalist Ice Witches and Hags looked on in horror as, soon enough, the heights of the tower were bursting with Aethyric flames, arcs of frost-fire, and alchemical explosions, causing the townsfolk to dub it the "Fire Spire." However, the witches' vocal disapproval was soon proven wise for, during the Great War, the tower acted as a lightning rod to Chaos sorcerers and was forever twisted by Dark Magic. Now, the Fire Spire stands as a testament to the witches' warnings, for none who enter its haunted chambers return; but, even so, the promise of lost magical wonders continues to tempt desperate treasure hunters. The Fire Spire still attracts both natural and unnatural phenomena, and being near it during a storm is a very bad idea.

Although its inhabitants played a large part in defending the city during the Great War, the damage from the exploding spire and the remaining Chaos taint are forever associated with magic and its practitioners in a very negative way. Ironically, this prejudice—coupled with the large Ungol population and the risks of spellcasting (see sidebar)—means there are almost no ice witches in Praag. Hags are welcome, but none step onto its tainted soil unless they absolutely have to, leaving Praag almost entirely empty of spell casters (apart from travelling Empire wizards seeking some lost lore). But the hags know that the city is not defenceless: they can sense that some deep power, perhaps the Ancient Widow Herself, watches over the city from below, though why and to what extent remains unknown."

Anything else is Boney original.

In terms of Forests, I have to mention that Kislev has far less forests than the Empire and they don't seem as notable as the Empire's Forest monsters. Another factor to keep in mind is that the Hag Witches stayed in their lane during the Great War. Their power is attached to their environment, and many of them linger in forests, so the forests are kept safe because the Hag Witches were unaffected by the Great War.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm a bit confused as to the timeline here. Do we know how long before the Great War Z'ra Rudolph II started this project? Especially the mention of "strange wizards of the Empire" who weren't even really a thing before Teclis and Emperor Magnus both already expected the Everchosen-led invasion and legalized magic makes me think that the Fire Spire only was a thing for a couple of years at most.

As for the size if the forests of Kislev, my understanding was that even if they don't compare in size to the largest within the Empire, they are still, well, big. Shirokiji is part of the greater Forest of Shadows and on its own as big as a third of Stirland (or that's what I read just a bit ago in thread). Other forests are smallish but big enough to be noticeable on the map and also border mountains, not all of which are controlled by Dwarves. And I don't know how much a bunch of Hags can do against a Clan of Goblins, but apparently the main forces of Kislev don't even seem to have a standard forest fighting doctrine. And all this when for over a century the Boyars never created their own centralized power structures and Kislev was ruled by a vampire who was (according to what I understood from Boney's mentions) not a brilliant and respected ruler who just happened to occasionally kill people and indefinitely kept the heirs of her favorites off the thrones.
 
Rafin said:
What kind of magic did the Fire Spire mages practice? Wind magic? All eight winds? Or something else?

Also, I still don't quite get how a polity that was so ravaged by the last Great War, that doesn't have the best weather conditions for crop growing and that was lead by corrupt royalty for most of the time since said war still manages to defend its borders so much better than the empire, to the point of only having minimal Greenskin and Beastman and Ghoul presence within its forests.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Because the Empire only existed on paper and was riven by internecine warfare for a thousand years after the skaven used WMD and then invaded to shatter the remains before Magnus reunified them to fight Chaos.

The beastmen and greenskins and other nasties had that thousands years to dig in and expand, probably as the forests expanded to reclaim the land that there were no longer enough humans to farm.

And a talented vampire who may have been an Ice Witch as well as a necromancer herself could well be a significant force multiplier if she can do things like walk into a forest infested with beastmen alone and come out with an undead army to throw at the goblins living next door in the mountains.
 
Last edited:
There were wizards in the empire before Teclis, some of them were even in service of the (less pious) imperial nobles. For instance astronomers were favored because they could predict the future and those same pre-Teclisian Alchemists who said 'but what if I dipped my head in molten gold?'
 
Masteries are not a thing in the RPG, and don't take the nitty gritty details of the canon lines to heart. Boney's made a lot of changes. For example, the Kurgan in DL have a Wind worship thing going on that allows them to practice the use of all Eight Winds alongside their traditions of Chaos Sorcery, so for all we know the Fire Spire collected those former Kurgan (of which I should remind people that the Ungol, Gospodar and maybe even Roppsmen used to be Kurgan) and codified their traditions to a certain extent within the institution. It's not like we know enough.

And Hag Witches are more than capable of destroying a Goblin tribe in their own turf. The way they work, Hag Witches are incredibly powerful inside their territory and can punch above their weight class. They are far less capable outside their own territory unless they're the best of the best.
 
Boney said:
Pretty much everyone is cavalry. The Kreml Guard are half of the professional infantry in the entirety of Kislev, with the other half being the Erengrad Streltsi. But yes, Mathilde would be able to attach herself to one of the patrols and help them get where needed at maximum speed.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
What category would the Woodsmen fall under? Are they actually also dismounted cavalry or do they just not quite count as military at all, despite their apparent skill against Dryads?
 
[x] Dragonflask
[x] Bind

I don't expect Bind to win, nor a great chance of success if we tried it, but in addition to the bragging rights I do lament the sheer knowledge the potential holds. Drycha is an ancient, Ulgu using dryad who's been locked in a shadow war with Athel Loren for I don't know how long, if we did manage to bind her think of the secrets we could gain. We revolutionised warfare against the Skaven via Queekish with one prisoner, imagine what this could do for the Grey College?

Which lead on to another thought that is actually constructive, but Mathilde and Kislev still don't really know what's going on. And while Drycha could also tell us this, there are other dryads here which might also know and which don't have the manifold problems of binding Drycha. That is, attempting to bind an ancient Ulgu sorcerer in chains of Ulgu in a never before practised method, and could still be very useful.

So I'm voting Bind not only because, as previously mentioned, the possibility occurring to Mathilde is amazing by itself, but also because if say one of those Ghyran dryads trying to awaken the forest around us still lives, they would make a much more valid target I feel, and I hope this could lead into Mathilde considering that possibility. And if we do bind one they are still highly valuable in that they could have relevant strategic information to Kislev, possible magical secrets of their own which could be very valuable to a close Ghyran wielding friend of ours, and the bragging rights are still pretty great.

tldr: Drycha isn't the dryad here, there's others of considerable less risk but still significant value. Just wanted to bring it up in hopes of there being a chance next vote.
 
The easiest way to think about the fire spire (if not 100% right)

Is that it was a 'Think Tank' of international Magic scholars funded by the city of Pragg, who, as part of the funding agreement, were supposed to also kick ass in the army and help deal with any weird stuff like Mathy did for K8Ps.

So the 'type of magic' they had could be anything from A high elf loremaster to a orgie fire eater, but was probably mostly humans from the empire, knightland, Border princes etc.

The WeB-Mat before WEB-MAT.
 
Rafin said:
I'm a bit confused as to the timeline here. Do we know how long before the Great War Z'ra Rudolph II started this project? Especially the mention of "strange wizards of the Empire" who weren't even really a thing before Teclis and Emperor Magnus both already expected the Everchosen-led invasion and legalized magic makes me think that the Fire Spire only was a thing for a couple of years at most.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's not exactly clear. There's no real indication when exactly Z'ra Rudolph II ruled, though I do have one bit of data on that front- I'm pretty sure the reigning Z'ra at the time of the Great War Against Chaos was a Z'ra Zoltan (it's mentioned in RotIQ that he had to relocate during the siege of Pragg). So Rudolph II would have been before that.
 
While I think that binding Drycha is completely crazy, Mathilde is probably one of the best equipped to temporarily contain her by binding her to her soul because of this :

Boney said:
Spellburner Rune: The first rune is a variation on the Spelleater Rune. When a hostile spell is targeted against you, it will not only counter it but also burn - literally burn - the knowledge of it from the mind of the caster. It will be dormant for twelve hours after each use.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

If Mathilde succeds at binding her, Drycha's first try to get out of it will result in her burning her most effective knowledge on how to get out of bindings from her mind.
Mathilde then just has to focus on peventing Drycha from getting out for 12 hours for her second best way to get out to be gone and then keep doing it, Drycha cant even try to draw in Dhar to hurt Mathilde because of the belt.

Binding her is the crazy difficult part, but on a succes containing her long enough to get help from the Eonir would only be moderately hard for Mathilde.

[X] Dragonflask
[X] Bind
 
Last edited:
[X] Bind

Pushing the boundaries of what is known and sane in the name of magical science and victory over the Long Night? Sign me right up.
 
Boney said:
"The only thing manlings are better at than finding stupid new ways to die is somehow surviving them. As long as she doesn't jump into the middle of any other godly squabbles, she'll be fine. So I fully expect her to do it again by the end of the week."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Hey Kragg, we found an even worse idea(than the thing we did again at least twice)! But we're probably not going to to through with it. We can haz headpats?:V
 
Last edited:
So, random thought. We know Smoke & Mirrors can be cast as part of another spell. Given how spiteful Drycha is, what do you think the chances are that she's going to try to blast Mathilde with something on the way out as she teleports out, and so she'll get hit by the Spellburner.

Perhaps Pursue is a better option than I realised, as her mind will be on fire.
 
As susceptible as I am to puns and cheap one word jokes, Im not really feeling the dragonflask. Call it roleplaying paranoia, but anything that doesnt leave a corpse isnt dead. Period. So counterspelling it is for me. Also voting for binding just because Im really curious how Boney would handle it if we really pulled that one off.

[x] Counter
[x] Bind
 
Is an adventure in wherever Dragon Man (Algard?) went on his journey viable in the quest sometime soon? No, really interesting waystone in the heart of Dragon Land. No hidden city of elves that worship dragons? Every 42 years all dragons come to their motherland and join a grotesque and massive mating ball and it can be a Cython social?
 
Swantree said:
Is an adventure in wherever Dragon Man (Algard?) went on his journey viable in the quest sometime soon? No, really interesting waystone in the heart of Dragon Land. No hidden city of elves that worship dragons? Every 42 years all dragons come to their motherland and join a grotesque and massive mating ball and it can be a Cython social?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
…. There is a lot to unpack here.
 
Swantree said:
Is an adventure in wherever Dragon Man (Algard?) went on his journey viable in the quest sometime soon? No, really interesting waystone in the heart of Dragon Land. No hidden city of elves that worship dragons? Every 42 years all dragons come to their motherland and join a grotesque and massive mating ball and it can be a Cython social?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Traditionally, Cathay has been off the table entirely because GW wrote very little about it.

Then it got made into a faction for the Total War games.

Not sure if it's yet at the point where Boney would feel comfortable putting the quest there, but it might be.

Not sure if the current quest trajectory points to haring off on an expedition to the other side of the world, though.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Voting is open
Remove ads
Back
Top