Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
I also support the idea of getting Skaven weapons (preferably by taking them from a dead Skaven - I don't want any witnesses) and using them during one of his hunts. Even if we fail, the evidence (warpstone bullets, or whatever Dark Magic their other weapons use) would point to Skaven in general or non-Order aligned people in general, and far away from someone like Mathilde.

I am also in favor of using Skaven weapons to assasinate Vladimir.

How else could we kill him in an easly deniable way?

Maybe we could lead him into the ambush of a Beastmen Warherd or find a Chaos Cultist and have him do the dirty work for us. Or we could use poison, that is a classic for a reason.
 
Lol we can just pay someone to deliver a letter to be vary of assassination attempts from someone within his confidence. Or tell our own Emperor and convince him that letting the assassination attempt or civil war come to pass is a bad idea, or just tell him the overall context and see whether he puts two and two together, or warn anti-Borisites in court and in the army or...

You get the idea. If we want to fuck Boris we can fuck Boris. And if we do it right, we can get rewarded for it once proven truthful.

Unless of course it turns out Boris really does have the palace guard as well as the secret police and the moment Vladimir goes to his guard to deal with his son they cut him down. That is... not without historical precedent when dealing with a strong heir and a weak king. As for the Emperor I am not the least sanguine about convincing him of anything, we barely know the man. Lastly Kiselv ha not had much in the way of relations with the Empire since the days of K the Bloody, odds are the empire has no clue to anti-Borisists are, much less can send them messages.
 
[X] Yes

Kinda sucks that Vladimir has to die, but he's not doing his job. Which, in this case, makes everyone who isn't Chaos less safe.
And very much sucks for Boris, to have that decision to make.
 
[x] No

I don't trust someone who sends an assassin to kill their own father. To be honestly I think that this request justifies investigating the crown prince much more deeply because this action is too drastic compared to everything we've seen from him on this Quest. Maybe I'm being too paranoid but, I don't know, this smells of a tzeentch scheme...
 
Unless of course it turns out Boris really does have the palace guard as well as the secret police and the moment Vladimir goes to his guard to deal with his son they cut him down. That is... not without historical precedent when dealing with a strong heir and a weak king. As for the Emperor I am not the least sanguine about convincing him of anything, we barely know the man. Lastly Kiselv ha not had much in the way of relations with the Empire since the days of K the Bloody, odds are the empire has no clue to anti-Borisists are, much less can send them messages.
If that were the case then why the hell would anyone need Mathilde for this. Poison his food, smother him in his sleep and claim it was a heart attack.

As for anti-Borisites, I'd just go to Vladimir's favorite well off generals and/or to Boyars that obviously profit from the status quo. And if it's harder than that, well, that's what the Intrigue stat is for.

That's if I wanted to betray Boris to his father. Which I don't. I just want to illustrate that Boris knows we could do so if we wanted.
 
I think we say yes, then investigate Boris just in case. I like him and want to trust him, but when it's something like this it helps to make sure.
 
If that were the case then why the hell would anyone need Mathilde for this. Poison his food, smother him in his sleep and claim it was a heart attack.

Because having the Tzar's guards cut him down like a dog would not play well with the Boyars who rather liked a leader who mostly did not lead, it is a terrible way to start a civil war and thus one that would only be used if Boris' hand was forced. Just because you have his guard does not mean you have his cook
 
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I am also in favor of using Skaven weapons to assasinate Vladimir.

How else could we kill him in an easly deniable way?

Maybe we could lead him into the ambush of a Beastmen Warherd or find a Chaos Cultist and have him do the dirty work for us. Or we could use poison, that is a classic for a reason.

Beastmen and Chaos could do the work but are unpredictable, especially since Mathilde got offered the Everchosen job. Poison is classic but for that very reason is predictable, and I wouldn't be surprised if Boris already has security measures against it.

I wonder if 'disappearing' the Tsar would work? As in, one day he goes hunting with his retinue, and they're never seen again? No body ever found? That would give Mathilde several effective but less 'clean' options
 
[X] Yes

After the deed is done, we need to find best alcoholic beverages from across Old World and possibly anywhere we have contacts, and have a drink with the prince, as a wake for his inner division.
 
urrently I only remember us talking to his son and to high end magic users. I am sure I am forgetting some others, but I am also sure we haven't asked for the opinion of any commoners.

But maybe I am wrong. Who were those of lesser status that complained about him to the point of insinuating incompetence?
Boyers and civilians during Drycha incident.

I'm not going to deny my biases (my gut reaction to this vote is No and I also see no issue with trying to make up numbers to translate gut feelings because I was a long time fan of a community that actively did that), but right now, based on the discussion of the two of you, it feels to me like you are the one engaging in a mix of misrepresenting facts and accusing the other party of intentionality in their oversights.

Specifically the ideas that the palace guards are majority loyal to Boris over Vladimir, that Boris is obviously transparent and sincere, that we'd need multiple nat 1s in a row to leave any evidence pointing towards Mathilde and that Vladimir is widely looked down upon by the majority of the nation are all ideas that I don't remember seeing such strong support for in chapter text or Boney comments. Which of course might just be my faulty memory.

Then considering it "moving the goalposts" when the two of you have been arguing about one aspect of why loonyphoenix considers this a bad idea, and loonyphoenix considers there to be other problems as well after conceding that they were wrong about that one aspect and the general belligerence (not helped by the liberal use of "fucking" for emphasis repeatedly used towards just one person) make you seem actively hostile, over what in the end is a vote in how this story we all love should continue.
And that speaks well of you, not my cup of tea it just feels like trying to obfuscate opinion with unwarranted empiricism to create a misleading impression.

The palace guards are the Kremel Guard, who are renowned for being devoted to him (one person even referred to them as his pets.)

Boris, based on our past experiences with him and his actions during the meeting, is being sincere. This is entirely in line with how he's acted in the past, to do what is necessary to keep Kislev safe from Chaos, and now his hand is being forced by factors beyond his ability to simply wait out, something we are also well aware is happening.

That isn't a fact its my opinion. I think its a reasonable one since we've nat 1'd in the past and not instantly had things go up shit creek. I am very confident that between Mathilde, her skills and Boris likely leading/having massive influence over any investigation that any evidence left can be hidden.

We've seen he is not well-liked by a large proportion of people because he's not seen as doing his job properly. Most people likely don't think about him on a day to day basis, why would they, but their impression of him from what we can tell is at best taking advantage of his neglect and at worst irritated at him not doing his job (this isn't including the ice witches etc.)

They originally said that they were against it because Mathilde might be bad at it, then they decided the reason it shouldn't be done was because Boris hasn't considered alternatives, and then it became Boris is suspicious. The first one I argued against because we have reason to believe that Mathilde can do it, and the latter two I argued vehemently against because it requires taking numerous negative assumptions of Boris while deliberately excluding any of the more reasonable ones that could be inferred from our prior experiences with the man.

From our meetings with him would you say it's reasonable to think that he is a thick-headed, unreasonable person who doesn't consider alternatives? As an example we refused his very generous offer of aid if we based the project in Kislev, but instead of being upset about it he was happy to see us again helping Kislev and was happy to provide what aid he could to the project. Do you think it reasonable from that to assume he hasn't spent ages thinking about how to deal with the problem of his father being very unreasonable on these matters (something he'd be best placed to know), or that he hasn't done that and is playing unreasonable hard ball to get his father assassinated?

Yes I use it for emphasis, hostility would look very different and fair doos if you like the story or don't remember things clearly, but then its cogent on you to also go and check them, not distort what has happened to support the outcome desired, which I feel is what was happening.
 
Beastmen and Chaos could do the work but are unpredictable, especially since Mathilde got offered the Everchosen job. Poison is classic but for that very reason is predictable, and I wouldn't be surprised if Boris already has security measures against it.

I wonder if 'disappearing' the Tsar would work? As in, one day he goes hunting with his retinue, and they're never seen again? No body ever found? That would give Mathilde several effective but less 'clean' options
Probably possible. Likely to start some problems though. Boyars are more likely to refuse to listen to Boris, and of course he'll need to have some kind of investigation done, preferably one the Boyars get to access themselves.
 
What an update to wake up to huh :V.

Now that i can comment more clearly. i wonder how much of this is caused because of Mathilde's action.

Boris seems to mostly been content to let his Father rule, and just prepare for when he could ascend the throne peacefully. His Father might not been the best ruler around, but he was still going around cleaning the house. Except, through our actions we've caused Boris to become much more tied to the magical side of the world.

And now, almost everyone with magical senses and mundane is starting to see the coming Storm. Boris would have hags and ice witches talking that Kislev would need to prepare. He has an Imperial Witch coming up with planks and nails ready to start fortifying the House of Kislev. Suddenly, all these different sides are all coming up to him saying the same thing. A storm is coming, and Kislev's current foundation will not survive that.

And his Father, while happy to clean the house isn't willing to actually fortify it. Doesn't matter how much he brushes away the flies and spiders if the house will not stand. In that sense, makes a lot of sense why Boris realises he cannot wait on his Father to pass. Chaos isn't coming in a couple of generation, he might not now when, but it is undoubtable soon. Anyone with magical senses can see it. Espesically in Kislev.

(There is of course the theory that he would kill his Father eventually, with the goblins as some people in thread theorized. Which means that if that is the case, Mathilde just made him come to the same realization that is Father will not prepare Kislev properly sooner)

Also, despite being killed by Goblins people weren't that suspicious of it. Seems to have a mostly "Of course if he constantly fight he would get unlucky eventually" belief. Probaly helped much by the fact that canon Boris is generally considered to be a pretty amazing ruler.

Most likely gonna be part of the next sub-vote, but Mathilde could probaly replicate something like the goblin death. Heck, just this chapter she showed how she could henge herself into an ork Shaman, in some ways perhaps ironic foreshadowing.
[X] Yes
 
Who would you like us to ask for their opinion on Vladimir's abilities as Tzar that we
a) don't already have
b) would value highly enough to swing our decision the other way if it turns out they really love the guy
c) can ask the question of a week or two before the man's "mysterious death" without breaking opsec
I don't care about Vladimir. I care about if Boris is a chaos cultist, likes vamps too much, etc.

And why the hell would we ask? We simply snoop a ton on Boris' stuff, looking for anything suspicious.
I mean the reason we're aware of these issues are pretty much all IC.

OOC we know basically nothing about him save that he got killed by "goblins."
We know about the issues with Vladimir IC, we don't know about "Boris is cool" except OoC.


Anyway, if Boris is anti-Order forces (Vamps, Chaos, etc), we kill him instead. We still tell him yes though.
 
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Beastmen and Chaos could do the work but are unpredictable, especially since Mathilde got offered the Everchosen job.

You make good points, but using Beastmen or Chaos would be probably the less suspicious way of killing the Tsar. Even if organizing such a scheme would probably be incredibly hard to pull off.

oison is classic but for that very reason is predictable, and I wouldn't be surprised if Boris already has security measures against it.

You are right, poison is too predictable.

I wonder if 'disappearing' the Tsar would work? As in, one day he goes hunting with his retinue, and they're never seen again? No body ever found? That would give Mathilde several effective but less 'clean' options

This could work, if we can ambush him and kidnapp him without begin seen. Then we would have to bury his body somewere remote or disintegrate it, that would be a bit hard to do without pulling other people in our scheme.

Unrelated to the current discussion, but do we have any plans for Mathilda fielf in Stirland? i feel like that land is a bit underutilized, we could do more with it. Maybe building something useful long term, or creating a retinue.

For now most of Mathilda power and influence is related to her relations to the various factions, wich is okay, but it would be nice to have resources of our own wich are not dependent by the Colleges goodwill or by the Dwarfs.
 
[X] Yes

An assassination does not require Mathilde, if she said no I'd expect Boris to try and find another but that opens up so many questions. Mathilde has a vested interest in the Waystone Project going smoothly so if I was playing Boris!Quest I'd find her at least nominally trustworthy to carry it out. This coupled with the Grey College's reputation which is something he's also banking on to pull it off.

Unless he has some other trustworthy assassin in his back pocket, Mathilde declining would mean he'd have to find one he can trust and not one that would betray him to his father. He would also have to find one competent enough to not plunge the nation into Civil War regardless of if they succeed or not. Boris does not want a Civil War for all he might be willing to fight one as that would weaken Kislev against Chaos.

To be honestly I think that this request justifies investigating the crown prince much more deeply because this action is too drastic compared to everything we've seen from him on Quest.
Really? I am not surprised at all given this being part of his introduction:
"And everyone comes running with promises. Well, here is Kislev's promise. You say there might be ways to push back Dewastacja? Restore Praag? Push back Troll Country? I say: to make this happen, all of Kislev will move mountains. You need gold? Kislev has gold. You need Ice Witch? They want make friends with me after father ignores them, they want me to take Ice Witch wife, I can make them cooperate. The Hag Witches? The kossars know they are mine, you can have Hag Witches. Ursun knows me, His priests will cooperate. If Elves in Erengrad want to stay in Erengrad, they must help. There is nothing I would not make happen if it means more Kislev and less Za. Do you understand?" You nod. "Good. I have gone to the returned Dwarves, spoken to them of you. You tore them from the grip of the Za after all had given up on them. After they had given up on them. Do the same for Kislev, and there would be no reward too great."
Emphasis mine here. This is a man who loves his nation and the people in it. Even in this update he says that he would've been alright with the current pace if not for the fact that Chaos is moving, Chaos is moving and Kislev is the frontline and he cannot trust his father to actually prepare the nation for the onslaught.
 
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We know about the issues with Vladimir IC, we don't know about "Boris is cool" except OoC.

This is our third major meeting with Boris, and in all three of them he's come off as a good leader with similar priorities to Mathilde's own.

He's also come off as very charismatic, which automatically makes me just a tad suspicious of him by default, but 'he's cool' is absolutely something you could decide purely from in character knowledge.
 
It's a pity we need to do this this turn. I want to do an assassination powered by the Deceiver. We get close to the Tzar by sneaking, tell him that the palace guard has betrayed him, he needs to escape out the window with us, then get him to kill himself by saying he needs to follow us, walk off a high balcony using sky walk, saying you'll have him safe too, then cutting the spell for him.
This is our third major meeting with Boris, and in all three of them he's come off as a good leader with similar priorities to Mathilde's own.

He's also come off as very charismatic, which automatically makes me just a tad suspicious of him by default, but 'he's cool' is absolutely something you could decide purely from in character knowledge.
That's nice and all, but no where near enough to tell if he's a secret tzeentchist. Greys don't trust people on 3 meetings. Or we will completely screw up. More paranoia is needed.
 
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As we're the magical version of IMF anyway...

Lady Magister Weber is uniquely trained and highly motivated - a specialist without equal - immune to any countermeasures. There is no secret she cannot extract, no security she cannot breach, no person she cannot become.
She has most likely anticipated this very conversation and is waiting to strike in whatever direction you move.

Tzar Vladimir Bokha, Mathilda Weber is a living manifestation of destiny - and she has made you, her mission.
 
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