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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Resonant said:
know there's been a lot of momentum behind the Rider in Red aesthetic, but wouldn't the Whispering Darkness have more synergy with Mathilde's Staff of Mistery? I feel like the massive bonuses we could apply to a shadow/fog-based apparition is really underrated, especially since they can also track and eat Dark Magic.
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We've had Mist based spells for summing (and binding IIRC) the Red Rider Ok-Ed, so no, not really.

Also, the Red Rider breathes out a cloud of smoke, which I hope is easy enough to reskin to mist for the Staff to count for any spells we want to develop based on that.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
The Whispering Darkness can grapple foes and pull them to the ground. The only Ulgu spell that can do that isn't a spell, it's a mastery, and has a very short range.

Sending an independent, non-corporal fog to harass and hinder our foes is, in my eyes, better than sending out a fully corporal knight to act as a meat shield.
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We've had solid fog approved, so think, and combined with the selective applicability that does the same thing without the apparition.
 
Rider in Red strengths:
+It's a dude on a horse who can stab people
+Immune to non-magical attacks
+Eats Aqshy
+Cool nazgul aesthetic

Rider in Red Weaknesses:
-its a dude on a horse, he can't dismount
-can only be in one place at a time
-one man cavalry charges aren't that great
-Mathilde can already stab things

Whispering Darkness Strengths:
+Amorphous fog that can spread out and effect multiple people
+Grapples and trips anything within its reach
+Can be combined with mist based effects
+Hunts and consumes dark magic
+Immune to non-magical attacks
+Drives people insane
+Possibly act as a miniature pit of shades for a fraction of the effort

Whispering Darkness weaknesses:
-we don't know what happens if it eats too much dark magic
-spreading it too thinly may weaken it
-might be very noisy—shrieking etc
-might not work with our staff of mistery
-Mathilde has the ability to develop actual fog based battlemagic in the future
 
Tobtorp said:
But generally the question is, do we want to be better at assassination and ambush or at combat and battlefield usefulness.
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Depending on how loud you want the assassination to be, a bound Red Rider can be a great help with that. This is particularly true if we develop the Knight in the Mist spell I proposed.

Dropping an armoured knight next to someone who doesn't expect it and s a big distraction, and is likely to make it much harder to defend against us simultaneously teleporting in and hitting them with a cannon sword.

Something I've not mentioned much, but that I think is relevant is that Boney has previously mentioned that we need to train/induce a blind Apparition to do what we want. I think that will probably be easier with something based on the archetype of a knight than whatever the Whispering Darknessis based on.

We may well be able to hook into expectations about what knights do; and even if we can't, the Red Rider should be quite happy with being sent out to act as a soldier and should be skilled at fighting people, so will be able to understand our orders and interpret them in a useful fashion, rather than having to be micromanaged.

There's also something so have mentioned before, that as Apparitions can be trained, one that is shaped by a Knight may well be able to use Mathilde's combat style. It may come with the ability to materialise and dematerialise if we build the right summoning spell, and when we invent Shadow Swords we may be able to incorporate that into the summoning.

The other thing that hasn't been mentioned much is the possibility of using the Red Rider as a decoy. It may take some work, but we may be able to make the Red Rider look like Mathilde on her Shadowsteed, or more ambitiously like any mounted warrior by integrating Doopleganger into the summoning spell. This opens up a large number of options both on the battlefield and off it.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Rider in Red strengths:
+It's a dude on a horse who can stab people
+Immune to non-magical attacks
+Eats Aqshy
+Cool nazgul aesthetic

Rider in Red Weaknesses:
-its a dude on a horse, he can't dismount
-can only be in one place at a time
-one man cavalry charges aren't that great
-Mathilde can already stab things

Whispering Darkness Strengths:
+Amorphous fog that can spread out and effect multiple people
+Grapples and trips anything within its reach
+Can be combined with mist based effects
+Hunts and consumes dark magic
+Immune to non-magical attacks
+Drives people insane
+Possibly act as a miniature pit of shades for a fraction of the effort

Whispering Darkness weaknesses:
-we don't know what happens if it eats too much dark magic
-spreading it too thinly may weaken it
-might be very noisy—shrieking etc
-might not work with our staff of mistery
-Mathilde has the ability to develop actual fog based battlemagic in the future
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This is a pretty wildly biased list utterly ignoring a lot of the strengths of Rider In Red (most notably its ability to work as a pocket tank and draw fire), the possibility of giving it a less limiting form if we want to (a giant spider has been stated to work), the very real possibility we can make it mist-based as well (which has been brought up a few different times), and the biggest down side of Whispering Darkness (that it doesn't do much of anything other Ulgu spells don't already...it's maybe okay for Mathilde but much worse for the College as a whole for that reason).
 
Other advantages for the Red Rider.

- Knights are a type of troops, so Warrior of Fog is more likely to be directly applicable to summoning one.
- Traits in general make spell development possible//easier/better IIRC. Mathilde's Knoght trait may apply here.
- Mathilde is developing skills for how to deploy knights on the battlefield.
- The Red Rider appears to be corporeal and has hands, so may be able to pick things or people up and carry them.
- Being corporeal and large, the Rider can act as a physical obstacle to block choke points or impede enemies. Being mostly immune to non-magical damage means that it can block them for a long time.
- The Red Rider is likely to move a lot faster than the Whispering Darkness; which may be useful for scouting and carrying messages, or when running down escaping enemies. Given the likely limits on summoning time, being able to move faster makes them much more useful as fire and forget weapons, as Mathilde can summon them from further away before sending them in.
- The Red Rider has a human shaped body (on top of an equine one). That means it may be easy to teach other skills to, such as scouting.
- The Red Rider can vocalise, as it can laugh, so it may be possible to teach it to speak, which would open up a whole lot of possibilities. Even if it's not sapient simply being able to repeat things others have said could be very useful.
- In many scenarios having a knight escorting you is a lot more low key than having a writhing cloud of darkness doing so.
- Binding multiple Riders stacks in a much more obvious way than binding multiple Whispering Darknesses would, giving more option value.
- On the archetypes I mentioned in my last post, if cultural perceptions of what a knight/mounted warrior is do influence the nature of the Rider, then it may be easier to teach Riders to work together or with others than it would other Apparitions (save the Hounds). It may also be easier to make the Riders loyal, as that's part of the Knightly archetype. I'd prefer a relationship with an Apparition where they're vassal rather than slave, if they're sapient enough for that to be meaningful.
- Grey Wizards are particularly likely to operate without backup, so having the ability to create it out of nowhere is particularly useful for the College.

Nerdasaurus Rex said:
What Ulgu spells can the Whispering Darkness imitate? I keep seeing this point raised, but which specific spells already exist that make the Whispering Darkness redundant?
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Some of the already Ok-Ed fog spells like ones that are selectively applicable or the corrosive fog one.
 
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Nerdasaurus Rex said:
What Ulgu spells can the Whispering Darkness imitate? I keep seeing this point raised, but which specific spells already exist that make the Whispering Darkness redundant?
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Every time you've brought it up it's been either in terms of mental effects or as pit of shadows part two electric boogaloo. Even if we spend effort making it more distinct I don't see how it would ever be not similar to other stuff already in the Grey Wizard spellbook.
 
AsuraAtlas said:
Every time you've brought it up it's been either in terms of mental effects or as pit of shadows part two electric boogaloo. Even if we spend effort making it more distinct I don't see how it would ever be anything but similar to other stuff already in the Grey Wizard spellbook.
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There also the aoe grappling effect, combined with the mental thing and the Dhar eating thing in one convenient package.
 
Alratan said:
Other advantages for the Red Rider.

- Knights are a type of troops, so Warrior of Fog is more likely to be directly applicable to summoning one.
- Traits in general make spell development possible//easier/better IIRC. Mathilde's Knoght trait may apply here.
- Mathilde is developing skills for how to deploy knights on the battlefield.
- The Red Rider appears to be corporeal and has hands, so may be able to pick things or people up and carry them.
- Being corporeal and large, the Rider can act as a physical obstacle to block choke points or impede enemies. Being mostly immune to non-magical damage means that it can block them for a long time.
- The Red Rider is likely to move a lot faster than the Whispering Darkness; which may be useful for scouting and carrying messages, or when running down escaping enemies. Given the likely limits on summoning time, being able to move faster makes them much more useful as fire and forget weapons, as Mathilde can summon them from further away before sending them in.
- The Red Rider has a human shaped body (on top of an equine one). That means it may be easy to teach other skills to, such as scouting.
- The Red Rider can vocalise, as it can laugh, so it may be possible to teach it to speak, which would open up a whole lot of possibilities. Even if it's not sapient simply being able to repeat things others have said could be very useful.
- In many scenarios having a knight escorting you is a lot more low key than having a writhing cloud of darkness doing so.
- Binding multiple Riders stacks in a much more obvious way than binding multiple Whispering Darknesses would, giving more option value.
- On the archetypes I mentioned in my last post, if cultural perceptions of what a knight/mounted warrior is do influence the nature of the Rider, then it may be easier to teach Riders to work together or with others than it would other Apparitions (save the Hounds). It may also be easier to make the Riders loyal, as that's part of the Knightly archetype. I'd prefer a relationship with an Apparition where they're vassal rather than slave, if they're sapient enough for that to be meaningful.
- Grey Wizards are particularly likely to operate without backup, so having the ability to create it out of nowhere is particularly useful for the College.



Some of the already Ok-Ed fog spells like ones that are selectively applicable or the corrosive fog one.
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Don't forget the fact that the Riders can be scary, like it would be fairly simple to tie a Dread Aspect effect to them to give them Terror. Because keep in mind the psychological effect of a knight charging you is pretty strong and can cause people to break, especially if the knight can so "lol no" to the mundane spear wall.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
What Ulgu spells can the Whispering Darkness imitate? I keep seeing this point raised, but which specific spells already exist that make the Whispering Darkness redundant?
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I mean, as you note, Pit of Shades does a lot of its offense better (if at higher difficulty) and Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma has a lot of its effects as a debuff, while Universal Confusion duplicates the mental effects. Like, none of those actually do exactly the same thing...but very rarely is having Whispering Darkness sicced on an enemy unit better than doing one of those three things instead.

If you have a group of enemies and want them dead, there's a better spell for that, and if you just want them to have serious troubles there's a better spell for that as well. Someone who already knew all the Ulgu Battle Magic would have basically no reason to learn the Whispering Darkness option, as it is too redundant with their existing tools. The Rider In Red, meanwhile, does something very different.

Nerdasaurus Rex said:
There also the aoe grappling effect, combined with the mental thing and the Dhar eating thing in one convenient package.
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The grappling isn't better than something like MMM, the mental effect probably isn't much better than Universal Confusion, and the Dhar eating is not certain by any means...it's been heavily implied that if you let bound apparitions eat, they shortly are no longer bound.

Like, Whispering Darkness combines lesser versions of three other Ulgu spells into one combined thing that does all of them but not as well as specialized versions. Which isn't necessarily a bad spell, but it sure isn't one you need an apparition for, and brings nothing new or unique to college and the Lore. Rider In Red does something legitimately different that cannot readily be duplicated with other Ulgu spells.
 
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Nerdasaurus Rex said:
There also the aoe grappling effect, combined with the mental thing and the Dhar eating thing in one convenient package.
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I never said it wouldn't be powerful, but it's battlemagic, it's gonna be powerful no matter what. The post I was replying to asked why people think Whispering Darkness feels redundant. Do you see why mental effects and an aoe attack feel more redundant for Ulgu than a more direct damage ability?
Sinsystems said:
Don't forget the fact that the Riders can be scary, like it would be fairly simple to tie a Dread Aspect effect to them to give them Terror. Because keep in mind the psychological effect of a knight charging you is pretty strong and can cause people to break, especially if the knight can so "lol no" to the mundane spear wall.
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I don't think a Nazgul charging you is inherently more scary than a living mass of shadows enveloping you and physically pushing itself into your mouth.
 
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Thomasfoolery said:
The fact it might eat dhar is not actually a plus, it's a very concerning variable that might kill the whole idea seeing as we don't know what it does with it.
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Based on previous QM comments, I actually don't think this is a concern.
StormySky said:
Are Dhar-eating apparitions safe to bind? I think someone was saying that nobody could control those due to any miscast causing Dhar, but if it's just one Wind and the apparition itself doesn't produce Dhar when it comes into contact with it...

And the Whispering Darkness is fine as long as we stick to elemental Ulgu, right?
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Boney said:
It's not a matter of never being allowed to have any of what they eat near them ever, it's that you're going to have a bad time if they straight up eat your magic raw and you try to use that magic to bind them. For Ulgu, that's only the case with the Asp and the Lost Child.
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It's probably fine if it gets to chow down on its preferred food every now and then, you just shouldn't make its chains out of steaks.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
So spells we haven't invented yet? The point was that other grey wizards can already do all the things the Darkness does, so we don't need to invent that spell because they won't use it.
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Spells that haven't been invented yet, yes. But spells that we can do without an Apparition so we don't need to overcomplicate by adding another point of failure/complexity into the mix.

We can just invent the spell without binding an apparition first.

Nerdasaurus Rex said:
There also the aoe grappling effect, combined with the mental thing and the Dhar eating thing in one convenient package.
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I think we've been told that the ability to eat magic is blocked by wizards developing Apparition binding spells as it's too dangerous.

And we have had selectively solid fog Oked I think, which is pretty similar to grappling.

Sinsystems said:
Don't forget the fact that the Riders can be scary, like it would be fairly simple to tie a Dread Aspect effect to them to give them Terror. Because keep in mind the psychological effect of a knight charging you is pretty strong and can cause people to break, especially if the knight can so "lol no" to the mundane spear wall.
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That's a good point, but also probably applies to the Whispering Darkness, which would also be pretty terrifying.

picklepikkl said:
It's probably fine if it gets to chow down on its preferred food every now and then, you just shouldn't make its chains out of steaks.
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I don't think that's what Boney is saying. He doesn't say it's fine for them to eat their favoured magic, but that it's safe for them to be near it. That could be because you block their ability to eat any magic when you bind them (if you're sane)
 
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Nothing about apparition binding sounds like anything approaching a convenient package. It's a very inconvenient package, even. Yeah whispering Darkness POTENTIALLY offers some slight tweaks to some of the existing spell options (although frankly probably regular spell development could just as easily offer many of those same tweaks) but I think when faced with the prospect of a 20% different pit of shade/miasma, it makes more sense to just learn pit of shade/miasma and not deal with the mess of apparition binding.

Meanwhile yeah what the red rider offers is 100% something it's going to be your only option for.
 
Alratan said:
I don't think that's what Boney is saying. He doesn't say it's fine for them to eat their favoured magic, but that it's safe for them to be near it. That could be because you block their ability to eat any magic when you bind them (if you're sane)
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Where are you getting a block on their ability to eat magic? I can't find that in any QM post, and I find an opposite implication in some, for example here:
Boney said:
If you want to catch a wolf, don't use a net or collar made out of steak. But once caught and tamed, you can teach them not to automatically eat every steak in their general vicinity.
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The fact that the bolded part says "you can teach them to not automatically eat" strongly implies that eating is possible and that they need to be taught not to do it, otherwise the analogy Boney would have used would have been something like "But once caught and tamed, you can muzzle them so they can't scarf down any passing steaks." So yeah, I don't think such a block exists unless you can find something contradictory in WoQM.
 
picklepikkl said:
It's probably fine if it gets to chow down on its preferred food every now and then, you just shouldn't make its chains out of steaks.
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The problem is with apparitions if they're performing some other effect with any of the winds they eat it's whatever. If one does so with Dhar however, you're looking at a potential argument that after making a spell utilizing it you are breaking the articles.

Now since we suspect the Jades use it for Dwellers (and maybe some of their lesser thorn spells) it probably isn't a deal killer. But we're obviously not going to end up with the same spells they did, so however they resolved the issue won't be applicable to us.

Honestly though, considering it was a legitimate vote option to straight out kill the waystone project because it utilized a much more obviously benign (and well understood end result) dhar manipulation. I don't really see it as worth the hassle to dip our feet in these waters, it was worth it for waystones considering the benefit is literally saving the world. For this? Not feeling it so much.
 
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At the end of the day we are I think facing the prototypical question of Collegiate magic:
  1. Do you make spells to take advantage of the narrative/conceptual space of your wind... (Whispering Darkness)
  2. Or do you make spells that expand that space (Rider in Red)?
We can see that mages before us have gone both ways. For every Bewilder and Mystifying Miasma spell there is a Shadowsteed and Penumbral Pendulum. I think that given her deep understanding of magic beyond just Ulgu Mathilde would be better served doing the latter as opposed to the former. From her knowledge of Dhar and the Waagh to the breadth of her Mage-sight she seems to be one who looks to the edges. Many of our other spell ideas likewise such as the shadow sword also do non-standard things with the Wind.
 
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Thomasfoolery said:
The problem is with apparitions if they're performing some other effect with any of the winds they eat it's whatever. If one does so with Dhar however, you're looking at a potential argument that after making a spell utilizing it you are breaking the articles.

Now since we suspect the Jades use it for Dwellers (and maybe some of their lesser thorn spells) it probably isn't a deal killer. But we're obviously not going to end up with the same spells they did, so however they resolved the issue won't be applicable to us.
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Well, or it would be a deal killer, but they've got their version locked down so it does not eat the magic that would turn it into a deal killer.
 
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