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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Mopman43 said:
Gretel was hired to work with the Dogs of War* Braganza's Besiegers**, who in turn were hired on a long-term contract with Barak Varr, and definitely seem to be involved with Barak Varr's efforts to secure the Howling River and Mad Dog Pass for the Karaz Ankor.


*Mercenaries
**The guys with the giant shields and crossbows, they fought in the battle for K8P
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Ruprecht junior was also interested in the job.

Boney said:
He nods. "I think we've grown too used to predictable foes, the Orcs of Iron Rock and the Dragon Ogres of Thunder Mountain. That's why back in the Empire, only half of us would be on guard duty at any one time, and the other half would be out striking down the enemies of man. Beastmen one week, cultists the next, and Forest Goblins after that. But ever since we settled down in Ulrikadrin the only time we've done anything but skirmish with the neighbouring brutes is during the battles at Karak Eight Peaks."

You nod. "There's only so much drilling and skirmishes can do. But that might be unavoidable. You don't have an entire province to fight across any more."

"We might," he says. "There's been rumblings from Barak Varr about Mad Dog Pass - it's the last of the southern passes that isn't controlled by the Dwarves, so it's the destination of choice for those that would rather take their chances than pay the Dwarves their cut. But that much wealth attracts the wrong sort of attention, and there's rumours of bandit-kingdoms along the Howling River. And it's a very small step from bandit to pirate, and Barak Varr definitely doesn't like that sort of thing. It was just talk when we left, but after Karak Vlag I've been thinking about it a lot."

You frown, consulting a mental map. "With Karak Vlag back, Mad Dog Pass would be the only overland route to the east outside of Dwarven control."

"And they last had that level of control, I've heard, before the birth of the Empire."

"Long before," you say with a nod. "Karak Norn was founded by the Clans that once watched over the Silver Road and Mad Dog Pass."

"And that could be where the Winter Wolves fit in. Mad Dog Pass is the only Pass without a major Dwarfhold on it. Seems better suited to being watched over by cavalry than by Dwarves on foot."

"That would put you in close proximity with Night Goblins and Forest Goblins. There's your unpredictable foes."

"Bloody Spear and Black Spider tribes," he says, nodding. "That way we have a chance to still be Knights in a few generations, rather than monks with puppies or feudal lords with pretensions."

"You wouldn't be the only ones to benefit. If the Dwarves took a cut of every caravan from Ind and Cathay... well, even Dwarven vaults would be swelled by that."
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Gretel is the advisor with the Avarice motivation in someone's Border prince quest negaverse.
Maybe even the result of a crit (Mathilde would be a triple crit in this scenario).
 
LadyLynn said:
And, asking questions again... Could someone catch me up on what the deal is with the Gretel discussion and what Gretel has to do with Barak Varr or the border princes or whatever?
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Here's my understanding of the situation:
Gretel has been partnered with up Bragansa's Besiegers for quite a while now. Bragansa's Besiegers are one of the foremost mercenary guilds of Tilea and have proven themselves trustworthy and reliable during the reconquest of Karak Eight Peaks. They have since stuck around because it's a nice place and Dwarves pay well. Barak Varr has been looking for a Human proxy to pacify the Border Prince region near Mad Dog Pass west from there, for trade related reasons. While Ulrikadrin (and especially Ruprecht Wulfhart the Younger) seemed interested in leading the efforts there, a Dwarf-friendly mercenary group would naturally be interested in getting involved. And Gretel, as an important and powerful ally of said mercenary group and someone who is motivated by self-interest and rising up in social status while also having been trusted and useful enough to get a lease for life on a tower of K8P's Citadel Fortress, might take on more of this job than just providing firepower. Especially since another person who got this offer was Mathilde and Gretel is associated with her in the eyes of the Dwarves.
 
[X] Gunnars about the emergency Conclave that declared us a "Dwarf"
[X] Okri: The new Loremaster of Karak Eight Peaks is Okri Drakkisson of Clan Bronzebeard, formerly of Karak Norn. Meet your replacement and gauge what kind of person he is.
[X] Carcassonne/Bretonnia to inquire about their willingness to join the waystone project
[X] Cult of Taal about joining the Waystone Project
[X] Karak Vlag about the possibility of entering into an agreement with our library
[X] Cult of Verena about the possibility of entering into an agreement with our library
 
[X] Gunnars about the emergency Conclave that declared us a "Dwarf"
[X] Okri: The new Loremaster of Karak Eight Peaks is Okri Drakkisson of Clan Bronzebeard, formerly of Karak Norn. Meet your replacement and gauge what kind of person he is.
[X] Carcassonne/Bretonnia to inquire about their willingness to join the waystone project
[X] Cult of Taal about joining the Waystone Project
[X] Karak Vlag about the possibility of entering into an agreement with our library
[X] Cult of Verena about the possibility of entering into an agreement with our library
 
[x] Middenland about how the Eonir-Ulric partnership is going
[x] Cult of Verena about the possibility of entering into an agreement with our library
[x] House Fooger, for their view on the canal project and Marienburg situation
[x] Gunnars about the emergency Conclave that declared us a "Dwarf"
[x] The We: See how their self-guided societal evolution is going.
[x] Karak Vlag about the possibility of entering into an agreement with our library
[x] Follow up on the newfound partnership between the Light Order and the Cult of Gazul
 
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[X] House Fooger, for their view on the canal project and Marienburg situation

[X] Follow up on the newfound partnership between the Light Order and the Cult of Gazul

[X] Carcassonne/Bretonnia to inquire about their willingness to join the waystone project

I'm actually not feeling a lot of the top vote-getting choices, because they're people we generally have the opportunity to chose social actions for. I'd rather meet some genuinely new perspectives.
 
@Boney Out of curiosity, with the Dwarven sex ratio and historical background as a declining race meaning that basically every Dwarf woman is going end up married and bearing children, how do they deal with lesbian and asexual women?
 
Concerning the gross and the dozen, as far as I know they are linguistic remnants of an old counting system using base 12, counting on your finger segments with your thump. Im remembering it being of germanic origin, but I dont remember where that information is from an thus how reliable it is.
As far as votes go, this is pretty low impact and mostly for fluff and info, so I dont have much of a reasoning for things to be better then others, just preferences.

[x] Carcassonne/Bretonnia to inquire about their willingness to join the waystone project
[x] Gunnars about the emergency Conclave that declared us a "Dwarf"
[x] Cult of Verena about the possibility of entering into an agreement with our library
[x] Get House Fooger's view on the canal project and Marienburg situation
 
[X] Gunnars about the emergency Conclave that declared us a "Dwarf"
[X] Carcassonne/Bretonnia to inquire about their willingness to join the waystone project
[X] House Fooger, for their view on the canal project and Marienburg situation
 
[X] House Fooger, for their view on the canal project and Marienburg situation
[X] Carcassonne/Bretonnia to inquire about their willingness to join the waystone project
[X] Follow up on the newfound partnership between the Light Order and the Cult of Gazul
[X] The Tilean Cult of Myrmidia to discuss the Waystone project.

Unusual opportunities outside our usual reach and range of social options do seem the best use of this time, I also think.

[X] The Magicians of Araby to discuss the Waystone Project
 
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[X] Carcassonne/Bretonnia to inquire about their willingness to join the waystone project
[X] Middenland about how the Eonir-Ulric partnership is going
[X] Okri: The new Loremaster of Karak Eight Peaks is Okri Drakkisson of Clan Bronzebeard, formerly of Karak Norn. Meet your replacement and gauge what kind of person he is.
[X] Give a prayer of thanks to Ranald, stumble into the crowd without looking and see where fortune brings you.
 
[X] The Barak Varr book resellers and Carcassonne to see if the former can expand operations to the duchy
[X] Cult of Taal about joining the Waystone Project
[X] Introduce the EIC to Kislev and Karak Vlag
 
Rafin said:
I am kind of curious what is wrong with Klinkarhun numerals. The Dwarves having a crap numerical system for math is really not what I expected.
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Same as Roman numerals, they work fine for utilitarian mathematics but turn into a brain-melting mess if you try to do anything more complicated with them, don't scale well unless you homebrew up something larger than 1000, and don't have a built-in system for representing fractions - though having an abacus or counting table and knowing how to use it largely solves all these problems. Place-value numerals like Hindu-Arabic (Indic-Arabyan?) are a lot easier to do complicated maths in.

pucflek said:
I commissioned this from Druusindo

@Boney

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This is beautiful, thank you. Can you tell me where to find the artist on the internet so I can link to them on the fanart page?

mathymancer said:
Why, for the love of all that is holy, is there a sign specifically for 144?
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It's a unit known in English as a 'gross'. Base-12 maths crops up in all sorts of places, possibly due to the lingering influence of Babylonian mathematics.

Andres said:
Could we write the book on diplomacy with the Karaz Ankor? Now, most of Mathilde's reputation with the dwarves has to do with her deeds, but she does have a great grasp on dwarven culture and politics, the leading expert in the Colleges of Magic in fact.
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She could give it a shot.

Andres said:
@Boney, do we only get money for non-academic public books we write? We got some from Asarnil's memoirs but not from Araneae Sapiens. Is Qrech getting any royalties for Loathsome Chaos Dwarves?
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It takes quite a lot of purchases to overcome the initial cost of publishing, whether that be scribes hand-copying the holograph or carving or etching printing plates for a larger run. Loathsome Chaos Dwarves might just be in the black, but Araneae Sapiens wouldn't be.

Nurgle said:
@Boney do we know what Gretel job is with the border princes/Barak Var situation?
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Only that she's involved. If you want more details, this shindig is exactly the place to seek them.

StormySky said:
@Boney Out of curiosity, with the Dwarven sex ratio and historical background as a declining race meaning that basically every Dwarf woman is going end up married and bearing children, how do they deal with lesbian and asexual women?
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They deal with it by hitting with an axe anyone that suggests that Dwarf women should be forced to get married if they don't want to.
 
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Boney said:
She could give it a shot.
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I think we should get all the books on the Karaz Ankor we can - we're missing Eonir - and write this book. It'd be valuable to anyone looking to get into diplomacy with the dwarves, which based on the guest list of the wedding is a lot. Good for the dwarves, good for anyone dealing with the dwarves, good for our reputation, and maybe even good for our pile of wealth.
 
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