It will be nice to inflict divided loyalties on other people. The cults must choose whether foreign graffiti is more important than pushing back Chaos.
An obvious choice you might think, but still one that many priests and politicians will agonise over.
Has Mathilde ever managed to determine the age of any elf?
Perhaps not high praise, but certainly favourable.
While the narrative has never shown Mathilde attending lectures I get the impression she very much enjoys learning from enthusiastic teachers.
Doubt that will take active effort on our part. We can best prove our competence by just being competent in his vicinity. No need for dramatic shenanigans.
…somewhat tragically we are going to have to do to him what we did to Belegar. Warp his world view such that how he perceives his obligations and priorities changes. Except this time we are doing it deliberately.
I see Mathilde is categorising Cadaeth as an elf. I was under the impression she was something else.
Well I like it.
Also it is a good narrative to push. The skills of the modern age might not be as great as the ancients managed, but we are far from incapable.
That was perhaps the biggest hurdle. If we couldn't all understand each other than cooperating would have been much more difficult.
Perhaps it is a good thing we didn't get the Damsels yet. Weather or not their arcane knowledge is of Ulthuan, or even elvish in general, decent the fact that they mix secular and divine power may have been a stumbling block.
While this is noted to be a specific type of Waystone there doesn't seem to be any interest in comparing it with other variants. Could be deliberate on Mathilde's part as she has only examined this type. Could be they agreed off-screen that optimisation can wait for later.
And Hatalath has no way to know that that single line is essentially everything Mathilde knows about the Old Ones.
Grey Wizard MO: drop mystic hints and bluff like hell.
Notably there are working Waystones without the symbol so it clearly isn't a critical component. Still, something to test in the prototype phase.
It is highly unlikely we will convince him to teach those techniques. Which means if we do incorporate it into the design we will need a Runesmith to help with every Waystone.
Something to consider.
Almost certainly an active component and almost certainly a synthetic alloy. We may need more Gold Wizards than Johann is there is alchemy to be done, but with luck it is just smithing that Max or other high quality blacksmiths can accomplish.
It is a shame really. The Lich Priests have a lot of knowledge that would be of great use to the project. But getting that knowledge out of them is hilariously difficult and trying to include them in the project… no.
This has a rather deep implication. Specifically that the 'Star of Chaos' is a neutral thing that the forces of Chaos use, rather than being something that is in itself of Chaos.
That will be very important for the logistics of mass implementation. And should be helpful for finding any 'missing' Waystone sites.
Hope Mathilde knows how to account for planetary curvature.
I'm starting to suspect that Hatalath is either lazy or uninterested in the Project.
He didn't bother to read up on the laws governing the Waystones and he didn't bother to investigate the other participants. Both Mathilde and Johann have very advanced Wind Sight.
This implies that elves can use Dhar without disastrous results. Which likely means the Druchii don't have any One Neat Trick for using Dark Magic. They are just face tanking the Dhar.
While the Article breach is the most important part of this, it should also be noted that this is very useful information for Windhearding. And potentially even the 'magic tongs' idea. Possibly not information we can use directly, but we shall see.
An unexpected benefit of having rival factions that know some of each others secrets.
And yet, the Winds continue to flow south past Kislev. There is no noticable difference between the strength of magic south of Kislev and the strength south-east/west of Kislev. Nor is Kislev suffering from a continual and unchecked build-up of magic, which would eventually cause demons to spontaneously manifest.
Worth looking into.
On the one hand, feature creep. On the other I seem to recall the original proposal Cadaeth outlined explicitly included the creation of 'secondary' networks. So Mathilde has all the justification she needs to think about it.
It is not discussed whether leylines are a natural phenomenon and 'made to flow' means redirecting them, or if they are built from scratch.
Not really a threat they can use. Blocking the Waystone is not an immediate problem. It would take years for significant deleterious effects to manifest. By which time the Empire would have mustered their forces and conquered the place, with Ulthuan's full support. The Asur care far more about the Network than about a merchant alliance.
...seriously? Seriously?! The Dwarfs were using a continent-spanning industrial mega-project, one which powers their life support, to brew beer.
Pretty sure he was talking about Albion. Which suggests that finding Albion can be done by following the layline.
Not useful knowledge at present, but something to file away for future reference.
Point of order: We have no actual evidence that Ulthuan makes deliberate use of the magic gathered by the Waystone network. To the best knowledge of everyone present the Asur dump all the energy directly into the Great Vortex.
Presumably looking at Waystones that lack some of those elements and observing differences will be an option.
A problem, but a simple one. None of the authorities of relevance are zealous idiots. We can get the permission needed, it just involves some paperwork.
All the 'scheme around it' options have the twin problems of a) not standing up to direct scrutiny and b) implying that we thing this is something we had to hide.
Although which of the two options is better… will take some thought.
In general it is interesting to note how firmly Mathilde directed the discussion. She is making it very clear that this is her project and that she is in-charge. As well as presenting things to the group that others have presented to her, rather than letting others present to the group.
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