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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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It is worth mentioning that Nehekara has many subtopics, including the Mortuary Cult and the Nehekaran Pantheon. I doubt that we will get that by backfilling.
 
HanChenYou said:
A yard of silk cloth is 10 GC, and I think they pay the We about 1/8 of that to get the fibers in the first place, so there is 4+ GC available to cover costs of making the fabric, assuming target margins of 40%.
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Hm. I remember the initial deal being 2 pounds of meat for 1 pound of silk, which is a ludicrously good deal, but I also remember them learning to use gold and I don't know if the exchange rate got reevaluated after that?
 
DragonParadox said:
Lustria for the papers, those could have a significant impact on the Foundation since that is the part that links to the geomantic web, odds are good a high elf explorer would at least look into that even if it was not the focus of their research, which it may well have been. Not many reasons to risk poking around Lustria if you are an Asur
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Hrm. I see where you're coming from, but I suspect this would actually be two topics: Lustria (the geography thereof) and the Lizardmen (for help understanding their culture and interpreting the rubbings). And I'm not sure we'd get a full 5/5 bonus on either of those topics, since Lustria and the Lizardmen are pretty mysterious and poorly known in the Old World. Could you be more specific about what you meant when you said "Lustria"? Then we can ask Boney what book bonuses on that are available.
mathymancer said:
On the subject of a third Barak Varr purchase, Nehekhara is a trendy subject for Imperial scholars so I imagine we'll get books on it from the University of Nuln. Probably just the human books, but a Druchii/Asur/Third topic purchase is already pretty inefficient (max 11 BOÖK on the first two topics) so that seems kind of wasteful.
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In a vacuum, yeah, but we're running low on topics that have a full 5/5 available that we actually care about, so being slightly inefficient with Barak Varr acquisitions seems inevitable and I'm not going to lose sleep over it: better have an inefficient intake of stuff we can use than an efficient intake of stuff that won't do anything for us. That said, I do think Backfill is a better choice this turn.
Tomcost said:
It is worth mentioning that Nehekara has many subtopics, including the Mortuary Cult and the Nehekaran Pantheon. I doubt that we will get that by backfilling.
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Right, but that's true for every culture; the Empire, for instance, is a Social Sciences topic of its own, but also each of its gods is its own topic, its geography is its own topic, each of its disciplines of magic is its own topic... The "Kingdom of Nehekhara" topic (or whatever it turns out to be) is the most directly useful topic any time soon because it covers history and culture, which is what we would want for eventual coinbook writing. We don't have any pressing need this coming turn for any of the Nehekharan subtopics, they're just cool to have, and as mathymancer points out we'll probably get some stuff on them when we start copying libraries.

(one target library I'd like to eventually partner with, after we've copied a bunch of Nuln and partnered with Karak Vlag, is the Light Order's library, which obviously will have lots about Nehekhara and its various subtopics.)
Wiggy said:
Hm. I remember the initial deal being 2 pounds of meat for 1 pound of silk, which is a ludicrously good deal, but I also remember them learning to use gold and I don't know if the exchange rate got reevaluated after that?
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No, all that happened on the same turn: they learned about money as a unit of account and store of value and made the deal about how 2 pounds of protein (or 8 pounds of animal) is worth 1 pound of silk all at once, during Turn 25.
Boney said:
The obvious question from there is 'how much more valuable', and the We had considered and ultimately rejected a great deal of economic theory in favour of a much more easy to grasp 'twice as valuable'. Twice the weight in protein, or roughly eight times it in live animals.
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In unrelated news, here's the last time we checked out the Black Water Canal, just for reference's sake. This was about 10 turns ago.
Boney said:
One of the benefits of being the Loremaster of a major Karak is that showing up and saying 'I'm nosy, tell me what's going on here' is considered by Dwarves to be entirely within your job description. Over a series of days, you're handed from supervisor to supervisor as each describes their own part of the massive project to link the Empire's rivers with the Black Water. One such supervisor sheepishly admits they're technically already linked, but neither the Aver Falls nor the Zhuf that gives Zhufbar its name are what you'd call navigable.

The Project is a much larger scale than you envisioned. The Dwarves are not content to dig another River of Echoes, where boats designed specifically for its narrow and shallow watercourse carry barely a wagonload of cargo each and every year a new diplomatic incident is caused because boaters meet in a particularly narrow area and neither wants to be the one that backs up so the other can pass. This is being dug to what the Dwarves call Monitor Standard, wide enough and deep enough that a fully-loaded River Monitor, or a freight vessel built to the same dimensions, can pass without trouble, and even that is causing grumbling because some say the job won't be properly done until Barak Varr's riverine Ironclad design can pass through. Work is being done on from both sides at once, though weekly map exchanges ensure that both are still on course to meet each other halfway.

Starting from the Black Water is a tunnel being dug through the mountains in the same way it has always been, as for all their insight and technology, to Dwarves there is exactly one correct way to dig a tunnel, and that is the way that Grungni did it. Sure, there are vast ventilation pumps bringing fresh air in, and steam vehicles on rails taking away dirt and rubble, but at the very front of the tunnel is a series of wooden scaffolds to allow what looks like an entire Mining Clan at once to bring their picks to bear on the solid rock of the mountain. Occassional side-branches are being dug to pursue interesting veins and deposits that were uncovered by chance, carefully watched over by Lodewardens in case they break through into unexpected tunnels.

Far below, the work is far different. Ever since the Purge of the Haunted Hills, migrant workers have swarmed into Southern Stirland in huge numbers to be a part of the logging of the Ghoul Woods, funded by the Counties of Hornau, Sigmaringen and Leicheberg. Even as timber prices crashed the logging continued to free Southern Stirland of their worst neighbour and unlock some prime farmland and pastures, with Schramleben being piled high with logs yet to find a buyer. But even though prices are recovering as shipyards and boatyards throughout the Empire begin to ramp up production, the amount of work available to these migrant workers fell as the Woods shrank, and when the Dwarves arrived to start surveying for their canals and locks, they found a veritable bounty of cheap labour and cheaper timber. Mining through rock is one thing, but digging through soil is quite another, and few grumble about letting manlings do the shovelwork. The manlings are equally happy with the arrangement, as being paid in good Dwarven silver is worth a third again as much in shillings if you find the right moneychanger.

There's still a lot of distance to cover vertically and horizontally, especially since the route carefully skirts the ruins of Karak Varn. But so far everything is going exactly as planned. The tricky part will come when it comes time to design the mechanisms to allow boats to make the trip between the Aver Reach below and the Black Water high above, especially since every supervisor seems to have his own answer for how to accomplish that. Lock flights or staircase locks are the most obvious solutions, but others are championing inclined plane canals, boat lifts, caisson locks, and shaft locks, and each champion is able to come up with a long list of drawbacks to every solution but theirs. The ultimate problem seems to be that this is a joint project between Barak Varr and Zhufbar, and both consider themselves to be the ones best suited to overcoming the technical problems: Barak Varr as champion of the rivers, and Zhufbar as the foremost technologists of the Karaz Ankor. You hope that something is able to be worked out soon.

If there's one problem that you don't think you have to worry about, it's Marienburg. The upper excavation is prepared for all-out assault from greenskins or Skaven or even fouler things from the depths of the Black Water, so any mere bandits that Marienburg pays off to interfere with them will have a very rude awakening indeed. And of the itinerant workers in Southern Stirland you feel equally confident. An outsider might peg them as an easy target for bribery to sabotage the project, but these are Stirlanders and they, at least for now, are full of patriotic fervour for their province and gratitude for their Dwarven neighbours. Thanks in no small part to Dwarven firepower, the Hunter Count and his successor have been avenging four hundred years of terror and violence that have poured out of Sylvania, and everyone present knows that even if their morals could stretch far enough to accept Marienburg gold, they'd be far more likely to be beaten to death under the shovels of their fellow workers than to manage any substantial damage to the project. When you finish your tour of the dig sites, you feel confident that Marienburg is far more likely to land themselves in trouble than to cause any for this project.
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Based on this, I suspect the delay is because of the arguments about lock design slowing things down, so I'm not too fussed about it probably losing the vote this turn.
 
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The difference between Gold College and Black Water Canal has shrunk down to 1 vote, so things can definitely still go either way.

I'm not too worried about either of them losing, since I suspect whichever one we don't take will be a shoe-in the next round of socials.
 
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Thinking about Skaven, I think if it would be possible for Mathilde to get some contacts to acquire Skaven books.

She should be able to disguise as a Skaven and infiltrate any Skaven city with the Night Prowler without any problem. Once there it'd be a question of finding a Skaven willing to sell books for money.


Even normal Skaven books should be highly interested from a perspective of prestige for our library and from the usefulness they could provide against Skaven.
 
[X] House Filuan
[X] The Black Water Canal
[X] Amber College
[X] Gold College
[X] Elementalism
 
Tomcost said:
It is worth mentioning that Nehekara has many subtopics, including the Mortuary Cult and the Nehekaran Pantheon. I doubt that we will get that by backfilling.
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We might get general Nehekharan books (as in, for their culture, in Social Sciences) from Backfill, but Boney has confirmed that the Nehekharan Cosmology books are via the Colleges.

Parabola said:
@Boney I feel the need to ask for clarification because I think I'm tripping myself up: you listed some time back the Nehekharan Cosmology topics (including their Pantheon), and you said the Imperial books on them were via the Colleges.

But the Colleges library purchase options have said they are for magical non-divine topics. Is this one of those times that categorization just sort of shrugs and moves on?
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Boney said:
It's an exception to the norm. The Empire's study of Nehekhara is a scholarly one, not something controlled by a living church with a presence in the Empire that will get stroppy about people publishing their secrets.
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picklepikkl said:
Hrm. I see where you're coming from, but I suspect this would actually be two topics: Lustria (the geography thereof) and the Lizardmen (for help understanding their culture and interpreting the rubbings). And I'm not sure we'd get a full 5/5 bonus on either of those topics, since Lustria and the Lizardmen are pretty mysterious and poorly known in the Old World. Could you be more specific about what you meant when you said "Lustria"? Then we can ask Boney what book bonuses on that are available.
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I do not think the Empire understands enough about the lizardmen to have actual books about them, they think they are a kind of beastmen. Any hints would be in just plain Lustria books or maybe the Southlands, same for the dwarfs, if they even have books on the place and do not just steer clear like sane people.
 
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One of the trait votes had an option like "Mathilde becomes even dwarfier". It wasn't the turn 25 trait vote.
Does someone have a link please ?
 
T_of_A said:
One of the trait votes had an option like "Mathilde becomes even dwarfier". It wasn't the turn 25 trait vote.
Does someone have a link please ?
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Could be the Post Expedition trait vote, after KD.
Boney said:
[ ] DIPLO: Dawri
You've lived along Dwarves for long enough that your Wizard robes and Arcane Marks are often the only things preventing you from being mistaken for one. But you could immerse yourself even deeper in Dwarven culture and become able to navigate it like a native.
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Edit: Weber'd.
 
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picklepikkl said:
In unrelated news, here's the last time we checked out the Black Water Canal, just for reference's sake. This was about 10 turns ago.

Based on this, I suspect the delay is because of the arguments about lock design slowing things down, so I'm not too fussed about it probably losing the vote this turn.
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I know you say you're less interested in the canal vote now, but the passage you quoted is really cool and fun so now I'm twice as interested in dwarven canal engineering. And I'll be twice as sad if it loses.
ReImagined said:
I'm not too worried about either of them losing, since I suspect whichever one we don't take will be a shoe-in the next round of socials.
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Unfortunately, a social vote being just short of wining is no sure indicator that it'll do well in the next turn.
 
picklepikkl said:
In a vacuum, yeah, but we're running low on topics that have a full 5/5 available that we actually care about, so being slightly inefficient with Barak Varr acquisitions seems inevitable and I'm not going to lose sleep over it: better have an inefficient intake of stuff we can use than an efficient intake of stuff that won't do anything for us. That said, I do think Backfill is a better choice this turn.
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I agree that we should probably backfill, but if we're going for an inefficient Barak Varr purchase than we might consider getting even more inefficient and going to the Eonir or the Colleges to get a smaller number of books but on topics and from sources that we can't get from Barak Varr. Actually you know what, let me play devil's advocate and give a possible Library of Mourning purchase, the least efficient purchase option of them all.

Assuming that the next turn plan looks something kind of like this there's not a lot of topics that could really use new human or dwarf or College books: we have the maximum bonus on all relevant magical topics, and the Empire and the Dwarves are unlikely to have many relevant books on Lustria. In light of this I propose the following purchase:

[ ] [LIBRARY] Library of Mournings (Linguistics, Ladrille)

Linguistics will assist our study of the Lustrian Rubbings. Mechanically the Eonir books will increase our library bonus from +11 to +16, which perhaps isn't that impressive, but narratively I think they could actually make a big difference - Eltharin isn't a phonetic language, so linguistic books written by elves could offer a unique perspective that our current books lack.
Ladrielle is for our EIC action. Why? Because we're proposing a mist path through the Ward of Rain, and the Major House that rules that Ward worships Ladrielle, Lady of Mists (and also of travelers in the wilderness which makes her doubly relevant but Mathilde doesn't know that). I imagine they'll be involved in the negotations, at the very least I imagine they'll have input on the exact path the road will take, so those books could perhaps help Mathilde somewhat when she talks to them. This is a sensible argument, and I am not at all looking for an excuse to get books on Ladrielle because I think she might be Halétha.
 
MossPiglet said:
Shouldn't we be able to get the Imperial ones from Barak Var or am I missing something?
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Pretty sure they got renamed to Liminal Realms in the library.

Magical Phenomena
Apparitions +5 - Extensive and Esoteric Imperial
Elementals +6 - Extensive and Esoteric Imperial / Kislevite
Forest Spirits +5 - Extensive and Esoteric Imperial
Liminal Realms +5 - Extensive and Esoteric Imperial
Prophecy +6 - Extensive Imperial / Esoteric Vampiric
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I would assume Liminal Pathways would be from the Colleges due to being about a magical topic.

Thomasfoolery said:
Pretty sure they got renamed to Liminal Realms in the library.
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I could swear that Liminal Realms and Liminal Pathways are different from one another, in the same way that this turn we got both Elementalism and Elementals books.
 
Honestly, I just would like to follow up on some old threads left hanging.

[x] The Black Water Canal
[x] Gold College
[x] Skull River Ambush
 
I don't really get the interest in the Gold College (or the Amber one for the matter).

Almost all the other interactions look like they could give us fun plot hooks to follow or actionable information next turn (or are just about a character we like).

Meanwhile the Gold College... It just doesn't feel like it will give us such information or hooks.

We may go and the Golds may tell us they have cracked machine guns but... Why should Mathilde care? I see nothing that she could do with such information and whether she sees it or not is irrelevant to whatever the Golds will do with it.
 
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