Remove ads

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Voting is open
Reader mode
Lightwhispers said:
So, one of the ideas floating around underlying the "do nothing" stance seems to be the idea that any action Mathilde takes will be furthering the ends/plans of Tzeentch and/or Birdboi. This has to be rejected. (Because accepting it is accepting their Big Lie - that they are powerful/knowledgeable enough to make any action against them pointless.)

So, I don't think it's worthwhile telling Belegar about the weakening - it should heal quickly enough, but telling him "hey, there's a Lord of Change that thinks I'm interesting, but I doubt it will do much right now" is probably worthwhile.
Likewise, we should absolutely report the attempt to steal Mathilde's hat to the College. :p
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's not accepting their Big Lie. Doing nothing is a choice we could take that would frustrate their plans. It's not that they win in every case. It's that they probably benefit from Mathilde talking, so the way to defeat them is keep her mouth shut.
 
Last edited:
Lightwhispers said:
So, one of the ideas floating around underlying the "do nothing" stance seems to be the idea that any action Mathilde takes will be furthering the ends/plans of Tzeentch and/or Birdboi. This has to be rejected. (Because accepting it is accepting their Big Lie - that they are powerful/knowledgeable enough to make any action against them pointless.)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

No it's really not, it is accepting the concept that Tzeenchian demons are able to plan more than one step in advance, a thing which a mushroom drunk concussed goblin can do at least half the time. It is not like we have a thousand distinct options before us and are saying 'no matter which one of a thousand we choose it will be according to the demon's plan' it's 'if we do the obvious thing and tell the people closest to us it is most likely part of the demon's plan'.
 
Belkar said:
I also dont see any special reason for Belegar to know, its basically what you sign up for when you invite wizards into your house. More or less even a milder version of it. We could have spawned a bunch of demons and then died to them. But Im not as opposed to just telling him. For the same reason. Its what he signed up for.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That seems incredibly callous and rude to me. Having demons appear in your supposedly secure fortress is kind of a big deal. Basic courtesy should push us to tell him. And Belegar isn't just any random rich client. He's one of our dearest friend.

Also, just because you sign up for something doesn't mean you don't deserve to get warned if that something causes problems. Technically, people who live close to a nuclear power plant signed up for having accidents happen right next to their home. It doesn't mean that the authorities shouldn't tell those people that there was a near breach of the reactor. People deserve to know it, because accepting the theoretical possibility of an accident and actually being confronted with a near catastrophe aren't the same thing.
 
K von Carstein said:
That seems incredibly callous and rude to me. Having demons appear in your supposedly secure fortress is kind of a big deal. Basic courtesy should push us to tell him. And Belegar isn't just any random rich client. He's one of our dearest friend.

Also, just because you sign up for something doesn't mean you don't deserve to get warned if that something causes problems. Technically, people who live close to a nuclear power plant signed up for having accidents happen right next to their home. It doesn't mean that the authorities shouldn't tell those people that there was a near breach of the reactor. People deserve to know it, because accepting the theoretical possibility of an accident and actually being confronted with a near catastrophe aren't the same thing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

They did not appear, the demon was never actually on the material plane and I do not think Belegar claimed the warp side of K8P or any short lived liminal spaces between them.
 
[X] [BELEGAR] Nothing
[X] [COLLEGE] Incoming Everchosen
[X] [COLLEGE] Nothing

[X] Pray to Ranald

I agree, this information will only bring woe to our allies.
 
K von Carstein said:
That seems incredibly callous and rude to me. Having demons appear in your supposedly secure fortress is kind of a big deal. Basic courtesy should push us to tell him. And Belegar isn't just any random rich client. He's one of our dearest friend.

Also, just because you sign up for something doesn't mean you don't deserve to get warned if that something causes problems. Technically, people who live close to a nuclear power plant signed up for having accidents happen right next to their home. It doesn't mean that the authorities shouldn't tell those people that there was a near breach of the reactor. People deserve to know it, because accepting the theoretical possibility of an accident and actually being confronted with a near catastrophe aren't the same thing.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Belegar has a Mathilde to deal with these problems so he doesn't need to worry and lose sleep about something he can't fix.

Pointlessly worrying a friend is the callous option here. Belegar is a friend, but he's also a very stressed dwarf. If we cause him emotional harm, such as by giving him an extra thing to worry about that he can't address, we do an irrevocable emotional injury.

What he doesn't know, in this case, isn't going to hurt him any more, and not knowing will hurt him less.
 
Alratan said:
It's not accepting their Big Lie. Doing nothing is a choice we could take that would frustrate their plans. It's not that they win in every case. It's that they probably benefit from Mathilde talking, so the way to defeat them is keep out mouth shut.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

You have no evidence that not sharing the information we received would be less damaging than sharing it would be.

Isolating Mathilde from her peers by making her think she can't trust them is absolutely within the demon's many objectives. I would rather trust in the competent nature of Algard and the Grey College than in some birdbrain's assumption that they would go full zealot and try to restrict us just for having a miscast.
 
K von Carstein said:
Hence why I said « near-catastrophe ».
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

By that logic every single spell a wizard casts is a near catastrophe though, they all come with miscast risk. That one time Gretel had a minor miscast it could have rolled over into her exploding into daemons. But in both cases nothing actually happened in the material plane, the place Belegar is king of.

Nerdasaurus Rex said:
You have no evidence that not sharing the information we received would be less damaging than sharing it would be.

Isolating Mathilde from her peers by making her think she can't trust them is absolutely within the demon's many objectives. I would rather trust in the competent nature of Algard and the Grey College than in some birdbrain's assumption that they would go full zealot and try to restrict us just for having a miscast.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Hey calling Mathilde a bird brain is not nice. :V
 
Last edited:
This is a really good bit of storytelling, in the fact that it has us trying to weigh two different aspects of a god against each other and see which one we consider more scary. My life experience has always been that truth and openness makes me personally more happy.

It is definitive, removing the need for second guessing myself later. It also leads to a reputation of openness, which is also extremely useful. In this case I think that the midpoints between completely ignoring, and full disclosure are the trap options, as if the empire is not able to deal with the equivalent of random mud slinging by the neighbors, it would not have lasted as long as it has.

[X] [BELEGAR] Daemon and weakening
[x] [COLLEGE] Nothing
[X] [COLLEGE] Everchosen, Daemon, and Mathilde's candidacy
 
DragonParadox said:
By that logic every single spell a wizard casts is a near catastrophe though, they all come with miscast risk. That one time Gretel had a minor miscast it could have rolled over into her exploding into daemons. But in both cases nothing actually happened in the material plane, the place Belegar is king of.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Well, every spell casted by a wizard with a magic score not high enough and in difficult conditions is absolutely a potential catastrophe. Here, the demon was actually there, actually spoke to us. Actually gifted us something, and we used its power. That's more than any random miscast. And if Gretel had in fact exploded into demons, I would absolutely have voted to tell Belegar.

Alratan said:
Belegar has a Mathilde to deal with these problems so he doesn't need to worry and lose sleep about something he can't fix.

Pointlessly worrying a friend is the callous option here. Belegar is a friend, but he's also a very stressed dwarf. If we cause him emotional harm, such as by giving him an extra thing to worry about that he can't address, we do an irrevocable emotional injury.

What he doesn't know, in this case, isn't going to hurt him any more, and not knowing will hurt him less.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Belegar isn't a child, he's a king. By being king, he signed up for that kind of things too.
 
Last edited:
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
You have no evidence that not sharing the information we received would be less damaging than sharing it would be.

Isolating Mathilde from her peers by making her think she can't trust them is absolutely within the demon's many objectives. I would rather trust in the competent nature of Algard and the Grey College than in some birdbrain's assumption that they would go full zealot and try to restrict us just for having a miscast.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I reject the premise here. What will isolate Mathilde from her peers is disclosing this, as it would be her telling them not to trust her as much.

The risk isn't that they go full zealot. It's that they listen to what she's saying and take action based on the fact that she think's that they need to.

Mathilde has kept plenty of secrets from her College without it isolating her to a problematic degree. She didn't tell them about Mork, or the Liber Mortis, and it's not caused any problems. This is just more of the same so should make no difference.

Her not telling them means she thinks they don't need to know, that it's not a big enough deal that they need to change how they treat her, so things can stay the same. Her telling them says that they need to change.

I trust Algard is competent. He's competent enough to trust one of his Lord Magisters who comes to him and tells him that she can no longer be trusted as much because of her contact with a daemon. Because that's what telling them about the daemon is her saying, as if they don't need to do something she wouldn't need to tell them, and so she wouldn't be telling him. That's how need-to-know works.

K von Carstein said:
Belegar isn't a child, he's a king. By being king, he signed up for that kind of things.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Belegar is a very stressed dwarf. He has a Mathilde to deal with this kind of issue so he doesn't have to. That's what Kings do. They can't carry everyone else's burden as well as their own.
 
Last edited:
K von Carstein said:
Well, every spell casted by a wizard with a magic score not high enough and in difficult conditions is absolutely a potential catastrophe. Here, the demon was actually there, actually spoke to us. Actually gifted us something, and we used its power. That's more than any random miscast. And if Gretel had in fact exploded into demons, I would absolutely have voted to tell Belegar.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The thing is the demon was not here, like it did not invade the Karak, it did not move a single stone, all it did was talk to Mathilde, the inside of Mathilde's head does not belong to Belegar. Or to put it another way if Gretel had gotten daemonic visitation would you have voted to tell Belegar that as a potential risk to the Karak?
 
DragonParadox said:
The thing is the demon was not here, like it did not invade the Karak, it did not move a single stone, all it did was talk to Mathilde, the inside of Mathilde's head does not belong to Belegar. Or to put it another way if Gretel had gotten daemonic visitation would you have voted to tell Belegar that as a potential risk to the Karak?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If Gretel was personally addressed by a probable Lord of Change? Yes, absolutely. This isn't some random lesser demon we're dealing with.
 
Alratan said:
It's not accepting their Big Lie. Doing nothing is a choice we could take that would frustrate their plans. It's not that they win in every case. It's that they probably benefit from Mathilde talking, so the way to defeat them is keep out mouth shut.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
And what if that is exactly what they want? Hmmmm? Give us useful information and then we stay quiet about it, so it could be argued talking is the way to defeat them. Refusing to acknowledge something isn't how you stop that thing, the first step to solving a problem is acknowledge that there is a problem.

Your logic is extremely circular and can be turned on itself. If the plan is for us to do something, we should do nothing. But what if the plan is make us do nothing because we're too paranoid worrying about our allies and how trustworthy they are, and if we can't trust our friends and allies then who can we trust? No one but ourselves maybe? That's like Tzeentchian Scheming 101 right there.

Edit: Also, when did this go from 'warn them about the Everchosen' to 'tell them she's a potential Everchosen.'
 
Last edited:
K von Carstein said:
If Gretel was personally addressed by a probable Lord of Change? Yes, absolutely. This isn't some random lesser demon we're dealing with.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Fair enough, I would not have as he would have been helpless to do anything but banish the wizard.

AzrielIlluminare said:
And what if that is exactly what they want? Hmmmm? Give us useful information and then we stay quiet about it, so it could be argued talking is the way to defeat them. Refusing to acknowledge something isn't how you stop that thing, the first step to solving a problem is acknowledge that there is a problem.

Your logic is extremely circular and can be turned on itself. If the plan is for us to do something, we should do nothing. But what if the plan is make us do nothing because we're too paranoid worrying about our allies and how trustworthy they are, and if we can't trust our friends and allies then who can we trust? No one but ourselves maybe? That's like Tzeentchian Scheming 101 right there.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

If the plan was for us to do nothing it could have just not showed up, thus not wasting resources talking to us.
 
Last edited:
AzrielIlluminare said:
And what if that is exactly what they want? Hmmmm? Give us useful information and then we stay quiet about it, so it could be argued talking is the way to defeat them. Refusing to acknowledge something isn't how you stop that thing, the first step to solving a problem is acknowledge that there is a problem.

Your logic is extremely circular and can be turned on itself. If the plan is for us to do something, we should do nothing. But what if the plan is make us do nothing because we're too paranoid worrying about our allies and how trustworthy they are, and if we can't trust our friends and allies then who can we trust? No one but ourselves maybe? That's like Tzeentchian Scheming 101 right there.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

If we do nothing, we're at worst in exactly the same position as we were before they spoke to us. By definition they'll have gained nothing. Us not talking can't make things worse than they were previously. The logic isn't at all circular.

At worst, doing nothing leaves us in the same situation where we were before, but they've invested the effort to send the message and gained nothing. It's a guaranteed win relative to where we initially were.

If they wanted us not to tell anyone they could have just not told us and not wasted their time and effort.
 
[X] [BELEGAR] Daemon and weakening
[X] [COLLEGE] Everchosen, Daemon, and Mathilde's candidacy

I see this as a choice between telling everything or nothing.
Telling the college that a daemon told Mathilde of the everchosen and her candidacy, allows them to take the news with the grain (or probably pile) of salt that the source deserves. Belegar should be told about the daemon in the hold and the weakening because the former is a result of the latter and if the college asks about Matilde talking to a daemon, Belegar would know what they are referring to.

Telling nothing to either feels like it could backfire badly, even if not acting would likely cause the least change (which seems to be counter to what a lord of change would want), especially since the choosing of the Everchosen is not dependant on Mathilde spreading the news.
 
Last edited:
Think of things this way - if we'd rolled an 8 instead of a 9, and a random Bloodthirster showed up to yell obscenities at us through a warp portal before we closed it, would we have voted to tell Belegar about it? Yes, obviously.

So I don't see why that should change just because the daemon that did show up happened to be one of Tzeentch's instead of one of Khorne's.

TotallyNotEvil said:
... Yo, Mathilde herself said that she would be tempted to just go and kill whoever said they are an Everchosen candidate, trusted wizard or not.

Why are we volunteering this?

I get telling Belegar, but the Colleges? What does it add?

Telling about the daemon is bad enough, will hurt enough, but why the Everchosen bit?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Telling the College about being an Everchosen candidate is currently in last place among all the [College] votes.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Voting is open
Remove ads
Back
Top