Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
No, because right now it's not easily-divided money, it's very illiquid stuff, and trying to either decide how many silver candlesticks to a terrorgheist liver or giving someone the responsibility of trying to sell it all for maximum value and then give half the proceeds of it to someone else is just asking for drama. Dozens of grudges began in this sort of circumstance.

Darn, so Geisty isn't intact or useful enough to roll the college favor gacha then. Sadness.


…what are the odds we could actually use the knowledge it contains? What are the odds we are actually going to do more enchanting
About one in one considering the Waystone Project.
 
[ ] [MONEY] Zhufbar

Pay the dwarfs, they don't actually care about the details of the other stuff.

[ ] [SHEETS] No

Gross

[ ] [ARMARIUM] Council of Manhorak

I is sad to I give up any books, but we should spread the wealth.

[ ] [SCROLLS] You

book

[ ] [FLESH] Cult of Verena
[ ] [FLESH] You

I don't want to give it to the Mor's, Mathy in character is blatantly on the Vereba side of 'it's better to spread good information even if it's from a bad source' argument.

[ ] [RING] Take
That this point we are already boned if the book gets out, might as well take the next step.

But can we please actually use the enchanting upgrade more then once this time?
 
I assume that Mathilde will examine any forbidden lore very thoroughly for dhar, curses, etc, before she attempts to read it, and be extremely extra cautious with trying out anything inspired by it. We're not dealing with Chaos's memetic bullshit here, after all, just dhar and magic. And that's something Mathilde should both have a good chance at spotting (Windsage), and has an emergency defense against (her belt).
 
Money for the dwarves, armarium for the morrites or the council, flesh tome for our library, fire for W'Soran's scrolls and the ring notes.

Sorry, necromancy faction.

Also, cleansing flame for those sheets, too.
It's not just the necromancy faction, the Liber Mortis has all sorts of useful stuff in it aside from the necromancy. I bet we'd learn a lot about high-end enchanting, along with a bunch of dark magic knowledge we'd never use.

Used bedsheets are always squick though, even before considering they're from a heavily used vampire love nest.

…what are the odds we could actually use the knowledge it contains? What are the odds we are actually going to do more enchanting?
I'd say pretty high on both counts? We'll be enchanting new robes at the absolute bare minimum when we hit the next Magic breakpoint.

They can get you the shelf-fillers that provide numeric bonuses, but not the sort of notable and prestigious tomes that get named separately.
Oooh, if booksharing doesn't cover even non-politically-charged special books, that's suddenly a much harder decision. I think I'd rather hold onto all of them then, and rely on dwarven purchases to fill out the numeric bonuses. After all, booksharing is going to come more easily with more prestige, and special books like these are how we build prestige.
 
@Boney typo:
By the time she emerges, Thori, Tarni, and Ionul were waiting to here her assessment.
'hear'
or it will conclude whatever grim business it is own with the sunrise and travel here then.
Is 'business it is own' correct? Doesn't feel right to me.
On the subject of paying Goendul, we've gone down from 26 favours to 20, but I believe Magister rates are 5 favours and so it should be 21.
 
I'll (hopefully) be asleep by the time the vote opens so I'm just putting my votes in a convenient place. X's to follow.

[X] [MONEY] Council of Manhorak
[X] [SHEETS] Yes
[X] [ARMARIUM] You
[X] [SCROLLS] You
[X] [FLESH] You
[X] [RING] Take
I assume that Mathilde will examine any forbidden lore very thoroughly for dhar, curses, etc, before she attempts to read it, and be extremely extra cautious with trying out anything inspired by it. We're not dealing with Chaos's memetic bullshit here, after all, just dhar and magic. And that's something Mathilde should both have a good chance at spotting (Windsage), and has an emergency defense against (her belt).
Agreed. Not to mention her natural paranoia thanks to Ulgu, plus her previous experiences in studying similar material. The time we researched rituals for whatshisname, the Talabheim murderer, comes to mind.
 
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I'll admit, I kinda want to divy things up a bit just for its own sake, even if it means losing some books.
it didn't take long until you found the section of wall that gave way to a pull on a wall sconce and a hefty shove
In other news, can we all just appreciate Mathilde finally achieving her journeymanhood dream? Pulling on a wall sconce to reveal a secret passage.
 
We came for the B O O K, and I'm not too concerned about anything else. I know the thread likes to be generous, but think of the mission aims - it was our expedition with a set goal in mind: book. Do not give up book.

Increasing the prestige of our own collection makes book-sharing agreements more attractive in general, even if it isn't the targeted currying of favour with the Verenans, and makes it more likely for scholars to make the journey to K8P to visit. Launder what information we can from the forbidden shit, pillage the rest for insights.

Grab all the written stuff, give up the sheets and the cash tbh.
 
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I'll admit, I kinda want to divy things up a bit just for its own sake, even if it means losing some books.

In other news, can we all just appreciate Mathilde finally achieving her journeymanhood dream? Pulling on a wall sconce to reveal a secret passage.
Someday soon she'll go one step further, and pull on a secret passage to reveal a wall sconce!
 
[ ] [MONEY] Council of Manhorak
Zhufbar's happy with clearing grudges, and we're already reputationally maxed-out with the dwarves. Making new friends is good.

[ ] [SHEETS] No
Ewwww. Karak Eight Peaks' weavers need to hurry up already.

[ ] [ARMARIUM] Cult of Morr
[ ] [ARMARIUM] Council of Manhorak
[ ] [ARMARIUM] Order of Guardians
I'm not sure about these, but being an unnamed assortment of books this is presumably a stack of numeric bonuses on undead subjects which I'm not too fussed about missing out on. We can always get these bonuses later.

[ ] [SCROLLS] You
Forbidden Liber Mortis tier knowledge is always good!

[ ] [FLESH] You
Prestigious books like these won't be shared by other libraries in book-sharing agreements, and they're exactly the sort of acquisitions that build our library's prestige. Said prestige is how we convince other libraries to share their common books for cheaper or for free, so I think we should be holding onto these.

[ ] [RING] Take
Top-tier enchanting knowledge! No doubt full of dark magic insights we'll never use (again), but Vlad won't have trapped his personal notes not intended to ever be shared. Honestly, given how we read the Liber Mortis for the same reasons, this is a no-brainer.
 
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I don't want to sound blase about this, but Mathilde is special. She is steeped in the wind of mystery, her soul belongs to Ranald, she's trained in paranoia and doublethink by spies who consider institutional loyalty an essential virtue, and she is to Dhar what Volans was to the Eight Winds... if anyone can navigate the mad ramblings of the first Necrach, it's Mathilde.

Mathilde is not some baby magiker seeking power at any cost, she is an experienced Lady Magister with a well grounded sense of identity and strong positive connections to both the divine and the mortal world.
So not that I disagree on the notion that Mathilde's well-equipped to handle dangerous materials, but...

 
The ring notes should be fantastic if we can puzzle out the method by which it works perhaps we can figure out a way to break it or create our own non evil ring of regen
 
No idea, but knowing more about how dhar actually works just by reading stuff while avoiding "touching the bad magic" might not be a bad thing.

Also, it's the work of Nagash himself (Himself? I feel like I ought to be capitalising His pronouns)—even if we can't recreate it (and we probably can't) being able to figure out some of the base principles behind His work would massively leap our understanding of magic forwards.
 
I'd like to give the money to the Manhorak cult. It's a Sylvanian cult that has more chances of gaining the heart of the local population. They will need money to better establish themselves.

the Creeping Flesh is about a Morrite vs academia slapfight about whether human bodies should be sacrosanct
Fuck the sanctity of the human body, let future doctor learn anatomy in the best conditions possible.

the Zandri scrolls are about whether those scrolls inside the Empire's borders are Priory or Templar jurisdiction
Fuck the Templar.

the Morrites absolutely think the books of a formerly-Morrite Vampire are theirs to decide what to do with
Well, I agree with that.
 
@Boney As usual, thank you for the excellent update. It was exciting and gripped me all the way through despite the largely one-sided nature of the fight. I'll make sure to pick it apart in time, which also involves a lot of research because you put a lot in this update. For the time being, some initial reactions:
Wardrobes and dressers hang open, showing a dizzying variety of underthings and delicates, some so delicate as to be sheer.
You see, the average individual probably expects that these sheer underthings and delicates belong to Isabella. It's the stereotypical choice. I will have you know I'm no average individual, so the first thing that popped up in my mind is Vlad in a Babydoll dress.

MANNFRED: Why does Isabella call you babygirl?
VLAD: How about we stop talking for a little while?
As the Dwarves confirm that the entire catacombs are mapped and explored, and as Johann regains consciousness and complains to anyone who will listen of tingling in his golden extremities,
I suppose it says something about me that the first extremity I thought of wasn't his fingers or toes.
 
Now the only thing left to do here in Drakenhof is to get the dwarves to build a literal vampire/necromancer tourist trap museum over the ruins and offer sightseeing historical walk-throughs of the place. Manned by disguised vampire hunters and Morrite priests, of course. Have some fake artifacts too, just to sucker in the dhar-addicts...
 
[ ] [MONEY] Zhufbar
[ ] [MONEY] Council of Manhorak
Not sure who gets the money, but it shouldn't be us. I lean Manhorak, but if we end up giving them some books maybe it makes sense to give the money to Zhufbar so that everyone gets something.

[ ] [ARMARIUM] Council of Manhorak
[ ] [ARMARIUM] You
We don't really need to make friends with the Morrites, but the Council of Manhorak very much should. If we don't take the books for ourselves they are the ones who should get them.

[ ] [SCROLLS] Priory of the Spear
[ ] [SCROLLS] You
I lean towards keeping those, but if we do give them to someone it feels quite out of character to give them to the Simgarites. But what would being in the good graces of the Priory of the Spear even do for us?

[ ] [FLESH] You
Look, making friends with the Cult of Verena for future book agreements is nice and all, but the reason we want to make friends with them is to get their books. The Verenan in the wedding made it clear that there are two types of Verenans:
1. Verenans we could get book agreements with if they are convinced our library is secure.
2. Verenans we could get book agreements with if we have our own books to offer.
And that 'The Cult of Verena' isn't a centralized organization, each Verenan library needs to be negotiated with separately. So giving over this book will make one Verenan library somewhat happy. How happy? Happy enough to enter a library agreement on the spot? If not, this seems like a terrible waste.

The point of a library is to contain books. This is a big juicy book. Some say you have to spend books to get books, but I dunno about that.

[ ] [RING] Take
Sure, whatever, what could go wrong.
 
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