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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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The Phoenixian said:
... *facepalms*
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On the bright side, that does imply that practicing it intensively would be good for our magical development, in theory.

After all, if we chain-cast it long enough we'll either get a crit and maybe manage to master it because, well, for once absurdly intense hyperfocus does seem like that might make it narratively appropriate, or we'll get a miscast bad enough to get an Arcane Mark. :p
 
Boney said:
No. You could pull it back before it reaches the target to sort of use it that way, but doing that too many times in a row is likely to aggravate it. One of the less immediately and directly destructive Apparitions might be better suited to being a sort of magic-detecting bloodhound.
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Good to know.

(Not a question to Boney: ) In that case, I think an Apparition with targets we'd always be okay with victimizing, or else an Apparition that doesn't exhibit as much volition or will, would probably be the better bets.
Abhorsen said:
Again, Black Essence is anti-necromancy,
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The Black Essence is actually against all Dark Magic, as a general thing. Dark Magic, Necromancy, and Foul Rituals, to be specific. The Black Essence is the one that victimizes only dark magic and appears inside people's faces. The Whispering Darkness also goes after Hedge Magic and psychological stuff, which has a greater chance of friendly fire (what with us being friends with hedge mages and wizards who cast spells effecting intelligence and psychology, and all).

The Whispering Darkness is a boiling evil fog filled with voices, and it appears in corners and tries to go get the offender, whereas the Black Essence is a creepy visual effect that just shows up in wizard sight as the sort of thing you'd see in a nightmare episode. The Whispering Darkness is also called the Soul Eater, and it's said to inflict madness on its victims, while the Black Essence is just really creepy.

So I suppose the Whispering Darkness would have a leg up on killing people because it attacks, while the Black Essence would be exceedingly passive because it's a mostly environmental thing that's only interested in definitely bad things. That passivity would make it better for a detector, while the Whispering Darkness would be better for a seek-and-destroy effect.
 
I'd honestly be down for the Band equivalent of Whispering Darkness, casting a pit of shades equivalent seems like cool trick, if people are genuinely that reticent about non-mist BM.
Also Dark Essence instinctive detector seems like a cool idea.
 
Parabola said:
I don't doubt it's harder to make a new spell than to learn an existing one, but that doesn't mean that rolling low in some of those actions would necessarily result in something exploding. Depending at which stage a low roll happens in, it could simply result in "oh actually I guess it can't be done at all by us", or needing revising at an earlier step, or, sometimes, dangerous consequences.

And this still doesn't answer the point of how using staff-compatible spells made by us would in fact literally be safer than using existing non-compatible spells.
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Please put those goalposts back where they came from. Here is the conversation I was addressing:

LightLan said:
That assumes making battle magic spells is at most as dangerous as learning them.

Which I disagree with.
I'd say making new battle magic spells is more dangerous than learning already existing ones.
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LightLan said:
It's still creating a new spell.

Which is definitely more dangerous than casting or learning a known one.
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Parabola said:
Why do you assume this, when we've been explicitly told you can always miscast when learning an existing spell? Why exactly would making a new spell (which may be staff-compatible) be more dangerous than learning an existing one?
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You responded to LightLan saying that creating new spells was more dangerous than learning or casting existing ones asking why this [that creating new spells is more dangerous than learning existing ones] by asking why this was the assumption when you could still miscast in learning existing spells.

I answered you explaining why this was the assumption. I am not interested debating this new line of argument you are now advancing.
 
[X] [BEHAVIOUR] Charge
The Rider will appear at your location and charge towards a specific group of people, and will engage them until it is slain or the group is destroyed or shattered.
[X] [BEHAVIOUR] Bodyguard
The Rider will lay dormant until you attack or are attacked by someone, at which point it will manifest and fight alongside you until combat is over or it is slain.

[X] [NUMBER] One
1 Knights, 0 additional actions, possibly sub-Battle Magic.
[X] [NUMBER] Trio
3 Knights, 1 additional action, low- to mid-level Battle Magic.
Ideally I want One Bodyguard, and then later us to make the Charging Trio as a separate spell, possibly with a different form - but given as I'd rather us do Windherding stuff I'll approval vote both sets for now and be happy with whichever works out.
 
Humbaba said:
You responded to LightLan saying that creating new spells was more dangerous than learning or casting existing ones asking why this [that creating new spells is more dangerous than learning existing ones] by asking why this was the assumption when you could still miscast in learning existing spells.

I answered you explaining why this was the assumption. I am not interested debating this new line of argument you are now advancing.
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My bad, that's exactly what I did. Shouldn't have mentioned the staff at all.
 
LawsOfRobotics said:
This is way underestimating the difficulty of the spell with one Rider even if we roll well and it ends up being Fiendishly Complex. There is no way a Journeyman or newly graduated Magister has Magic 5 to even cast it, let alone Magic 7 to cast it safely. They are also not going to be trusted enough yet to taught Apparition binding, and probably won't have the skill or resources to capture a Rider in Red. We should really focus on how we can make the spell useful for us, because it is most useful for Grey Wizards like us:
  1. Skilled enough in magic that FC spells are safe, and willing to push into a least low tier battle magic
  2. Trusted enough to be taught Apparition binding
  3. Has the martial skill to capture the Rider, and handle it breaking free on a miscast
I don't have a strong an opinion on what behavior we teach it, because I think we can get good use out of Bodyguard, Charge, or Duel. I do think that the value of having 3 riders outweighs the increased difficulty and risk, even for the Bodyguard.
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Journeyman is a bit much yeah, but Mathilde was using Dread Aspect as a Fiendishly Complex spell relatively soon after her graduation, in the K8P campaign. She was admittedly delayed in her graduation, but most Magisters I expect would be pushing themselves in this direction if not already at that level, and I expect many Battle Wizards would see this as a breath of fresh air compared to battle magic. Both of those I could see getting great use out of this spell, Mathilde certainly could and Battle Wizards on a literal battlefield probably as much so.

As for learning the spell, it might come with an extra cost in college favour to bring some help along with capturing the apparition but I don't see that being crippling. Especially if for example an agreement is made in which case hunting the apparitions itself could count as a favour, which could effectively mitigate said favour cost. For a potent melee defensive spell which can be pre-applied like this, well based on the thread shelling out for the healing seed I think we would have jumped on this.

I'm not confident saying for certain on the trust issue, but these are Grey Magisters we're talking about. For the Grey College to promote you there has to be some higher level of trust than other colleges anyway, so it could be possible.
 
chocolote12 said:
The Black Essence is actually against all Dark Magic, as a general thing. Dark Magic, Necromancy, and Foul Rituals, to be specific. The Black Essence is the one that victimizes only dark magic and appears inside people's faces. The Whispering Darkness also goes after Hedge Magic and psychological stuff, which has a greater chance of friendly fire (what with us being friends with hedge mages and wizards who cast spells effecting intelligence and psychology, and all).
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Yeah, I def didn't list it all, just gave a short summary.

Honestly, I think it'd be useful to make a list of which thing each targets. I might go do that..
 
Aliya said:
I'd honestly be down for the Band equivalent of Whispering Darkness, casting a pit of shades equivalent seems like cool trick, if people are genuinely that reticent about non-mist BM.
Also Dark Essence instinctive detector seems like a cool idea.
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The Black Essence also isn't a giant murder machine, so it'd probably be a lot more feasible to bind as a sub-battle magic effect that we could teach to normal Magisters.

I think it was said that giving it any solidity would turn it into an automatic choking hazard against its victims, so it could go up in lethality after binding, but the existence itself is pretty amorphous and without impact, so maybe if we tried to give it a somewhat harmless form we might reduce even the impact of a loss-of-control mishap to just deeply spooking the caster, perhaps (unless the Black Essence has a secret attack method we don't know about; that'd be cool to learn too).
 
FallenPears said:
I'm not confident saying for certain on the trust issue, but these are Grey Magisters we're talking about. For the Grey College to promote you there has to be some higher level of trust than other colleges anyway, so it could be possible.
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My guess is it'll bridge the gap between people who are loyal and reliable but not capable enough for battle magic.
 
chocolote12 said:
The Black Essence also isn't a giant murder machine, so it'd probably be a lot more feasible to bind as a sub-battle magic effect that we could teach to normal Magisters.

I think it was said that giving it any solidity would turn it into an automatic choking hazard against its victims, so it could go up in lethality after binding, but the existence itself is pretty amorphous and without impact, so maybe if we tried to give it a somewhat harmless form we might reduce even the impact of a loss-of-control mishap to just deeply spooking the caster, perhaps (unless the Black Essence has a secret attack method we don't know about; that'd be cool to learn too).
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Yeah, but it's victims are dark magic users, so there is only so badly I can feel about this. :V
 
Humbaba said:
Not going to lie, I heavily dislike the fact that bodyguard is winning, since I feel that this project was heavily sold by its proponents on the idea that this could fill in the hole in Mathilde's kit that is having some form of offensively used battlemagic that didn't rely on having a handy regiment of our own (and with having a reduced miscast risk by dint of doing the binding, negating the currently eing relitigated 'learning battlemagic is risky' lobby) .
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My understanding of the pitch was that Mathilde being tarpitted by Orcs featured heavily, and that's what Bodyguard is largely tailored to counter. The other big talking points I remember were the Greater Daemon of Slaanesh and the Champion of Khorne, both of which would have benefited from being able to precast it. More broadly, as I remember it, the argument ran that Mathilde has a problem of either melting stuff or getting bogged down, and the intent was to mitigate the latter.

Outside of that, now that we've gone for it, everyone is voting on it, not just the people who were making the pitches. I suspect this wouldn't be the first time that a vote has been pitched one way and then between people who voted for it on those grounds changing their minds when they see the other options and people who weren't voting for it but have to deal with it winning voting for something other than the pitch they weren't sold on, it goes a very different way.
 
One thing before I forget with all the conversation very nice spread of options on the control @Boney. They are all limited and in theme with some of the things we wanted this thing to do, but at the same time they all have trade offs, you cannot have it all and as with many things in Warhammer magic you cannot have as much as you originally hoped.
 
Here is the tally so far.
Adhoc vote count started by Aliya on Aug 12, 2023 at 3:58 PM, finished with 721 posts and 189 votes.
[behaviour] [number]
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Also while I was thinking of non-vote things. Look at this paragraph

You extend your will through the flow of power, and ease off the amount of Ulgu passing through you without letting the stream of energy narrow. Metaphysics has a bit more wiggle room than regular physics so it isn't necessarily a zero-sum game where something has to give immediately, but it does put a fair bit of pressure on everything involved to make up the deficit somewhere, and that pressure mounts by the moment as the trickle of magic slows further and further. On one end of this equation is your willpower, on the other is the Rider in Red, and in the middle is the structural integrity of your soul.

This does not sound like elven magic, specifically this sounds too likely to damage a wizard's ability to cast spells which to an elf, who needs to not only cast but do so with literally inhuman precision, would be a calamity.

I think this was an invention of some very adventurous Gold Mage, though how exactly they managed to get enough daemonology lore to do this without being compromised I have no idea. Maybe they got inspired by the Djinn Binders of the Ungol hags though that does not seem likely given how we have been told that there isn't enough crossover for any teaching from Baba N when I asked if we coudl persuade her to teach us something.

In fact I think the difference between apparition binding and spirit or fey binding is that apparitions appear to be very simple minded, enough so that we can trick them into doing what we want at no price.
 
DragonParadox said:
Also while I was thinking of non-vote things. Look at this paragraph

You extend your will through the flow of power, and ease off the amount of Ulgu passing through you without letting the stream of energy narrow. Metaphysics has a bit more wiggle room than regular physics so it isn't necessarily a zero-sum game where something has to give immediately, but it does put a fair bit of pressure on everything involved to make up the deficit somewhere, and that pressure mounts by the moment as the trickle of magic slows further and further. On one end of this equation is your willpower, on the other is the Rider in Red, and in the middle is the structural integrity of your soul.

This does not sound like elven magic, specifically this sounds too likely to damage a wizard's ability to cast spells which to an elf, who needs to not only cast but do so with literally inhuman precision, would be a calamity.

I think this was an invention of some very adventurous Gold Mage, though how exactly they managed to get enough daemonology lore to do this without being compromised I have no idea. Maybe they got inspired by the Djinn Binders of the Ungol hags though that does not seem likely given how we have been told that there isn't enough crossover for any teaching from Baba N when I asked if we coudl persuade her to teach us something.

In fact I think the difference between apparition binding and spirit or fey binding is that apparitions appear to be very simple minded, enough so that we can trick them into doing what we want at no price.
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Looks over at how the Grey Lords include a dude that went into a volcano to try to figure out where ithilmar came from

Humans do not have a monopoly on bold and dangerous ideas.
 
Big list of Apparitions:

Apparition Name​
Magic Targeted​
Form​
Action taken​
Notes​
Spells that use them
Black EssenceDark (Dhar?), Necromancy, Foul RitualsPools of darkness coming from other peopleJust sorta lies around, being creepy
Bleak Swarm, the (In Quest Name)Dark, Ghyran, Shyish, NurgleFlies with human headsCrawl into mouths (of other people)Maybe actually a demon of Nurgle?LM Gehenna thinks these are used by the Ambers for Crows Feast and Flock of Doom.
Dark HoundsAqshy, destructive spells (magic that harms another?)A big houndAttacksGehenna's Golden Hounds
Fat Man, theSlaanesh, 'Selfish' spellcastingA fat (like really, fat) naked manSits, is gross.Seems like an actual demon of Slaanesh
Handmaidens, theChamon, Azyr, Spells of transmutation and fortuneHumaniod with feathersAttack, leave 'iron' nails in victimsPure speculation, but could be the crows/flock of doom for ambers cause feathers
Lost ChildUlgu, Chaos, Deceptive MagicA childPours a river of blood from mouth
MalbrothaxNurgle, despair, diseaseLarge Humaniod with thin limbs ending in spikesNot stated, probably kills thingsSeems like a single named demon of Nurgle.
Riders in Red
Aqshy, destructive magic (magic that harms another)
Some fighter on horsebackLaughs and kills thingsWe got one in our soulWhatever we are creating now.
RotwyrmsGhyran, Shyish, spells that affect the fleshGiant maggotGoes through physical barriers like the ground, eats people
Whispering Darkness, theNecromancy, Chaos, Hedge, spells affecting intelligence or psychologyOily fog of blackness.Sends people insaneIs a fog. Staff will affect fog apparitions.LM Gehenna thinks these are used by the Jades for Dweller's Below.
Wisdom's Asp
(In quest name)		Hysh, Ulgu, Ghur, Illusion spellsSnake with thorns.Has cults, gives visions, kills target with thornsHaunted us, has AV blood

Any help would be appreciated if I missed stuff. I know I missed some of the spells we are reasonably certain about, but I can't be bothered to look it up today.
 
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DragonParadox said:
I think this was an invention of some very adventurous Gold Mage, though how exactly they managed to get enough daemonology lore to do this without being compromised I have no idea. Maybe they got inspired by the Djinn Binders of the Ungol hags though that does not seem likely given how we have been told that there isn't enough crossover for any teaching from Baba N when I asked if we coudl persuade her to teach us something.
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Or maybe they did as Mathilde has done (and plans to do again with the notes on that ring) and read some very naughty books they aren't supposed to be reading, but managed to come out of it with the lore they wanted and their soul unclaimed.

The fact that wizards occasionally get away with it really helps bring in the suckers who think they too will get away with it.
 
Parabola said:
Looks over at how the Grey Lords include a dude that went into a volcano to try to figure out where ithilmar came from

Humans do not have a monopoly on bold and dangerous ideas.
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It is not just the scope of the risk that makes me doubt that, it is the nature of it as well as the fact that you have to tie off a single wind tether to your soul. That sounds like it would throw off any attempt to use High Magic significantly even if done well, and if not done well... the words structural integrity of the soul were mentioned
 
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