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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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It would be kind of hilarious if the whole, "A man will taint ice magic" thing was just that the Widow will remarry someday and with her heart thawed she won't make ice magic anymore and make some other kind of magic instead :V. Granted, that would be a bit too heartwarming a tale for Warhammer. Have to add on, "And then kislev all died because the ice witches didn't have time to figure out their new magic before the Everchosen swept over their nation" to get the proper grimdark.
 
Boney said:
The Grey Order canonically and explicitly rejects the control of any central authority.

"The only non-Collegiate authority the Grey Order is theoretically answerable to is the emperor, but in effect this is not as clear cut as it would seem ... An Emperor could be forced to abdicate, or worse, may fall to the seductions of Chaos and would then stop being an ally and become a potential enemy to the Empire. It was deemed unwise to let the full truth of the Order's abilities and activities get into the hands of a potential enemy; so the Emperor, the Electors, the religious authorities, the Merchants' Guilds, and burgomeisters of the Empire know little or nothing of the clandestine activities undertaken by the Shadowmancers right beneath their noses."

The Grey Order was formed shortly after the end of a thousand years of civil war, which was also an era where state policy was to murder all magic users. At one point in the time since, central authority dictated that the Colleges of Magic should be disbanded, which would also have resulted in all its members being executed. So it hasn't got a lot of institutional trust in central authority.
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While I know its not an option, and bearing in mind that I know they'd prefer to never hear about this, I am curious:
If the assassination gets accepted, would the Grays prefer that a regular magister was the one who agreed, so it was more easily deniable as a rogue asset rather than a Lord Magister who should be expected to be able to speak for the empire and its interests. Or would this regular magister really be overstepping their rank to attempt something like this and they'd prefer it in the hands of more experienced LM? Or would it be that success changes what the next big problem they're looking at, and if the assassination fails they'd prefer a magister they disavowed failed and if it succeeded they'd prefer it was a LM they trusted.
 
Dark as Silver said:
While I know its not an option, and bearing in mind that I know they'd prefer to never hear about this, I am curious:
If the assassination gets accepted, would the Grays prefer that a regular magister was the one who agreed, so it was more easily deniable as a rogue asset rather than a Lord Magister who should be expected to be able to speak for the empire and its interests. Or would this regular magister really be overstepping their rank to attempt something like this and they'd prefer it in the hands of more experienced LM? Or would it be that success changes what the next big problem they're looking at, and if the assassination fails they'd prefer a magister they disavowed failed and if it succeeded they'd prefer it was a LM they trusted.
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They'd probably prefer someone like Regimand, LM-level skill without the level of endorsement officially being promoted to LM would bring making him more deniable. That might be part of why they don't insist on promoting him, he's a good deniable asset for politically sensitive operations like high profile assassinations. And the assassination of the Empress was him fulfilling that role without his superiors even knowing that they should be asking him to do such a thing.
 
Wiggy said:
It would be kind of hilarious if the whole, "A man will taint ice magic" thing was just that the Widow will remarry someday and with her heart thawed she won't make ice magic anymore and make some other kind of magic instead :V. Granted, that would be a bit too heartwarming a tale for Warhammer. Have to add on, "And then kislev all died because the ice witches didn't have time to figure out their new magic before the Everchosen swept over their nation" to get the proper grimdark.
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Boney has mentioned how this prophecy has some sort of commonality across all sorts of different cultures, from Bretonnia to Kislev to even Naggaroth, so maybe there is some bigger thing at play here.

In my opinion, the reason why these things exist is Doylist, and it's because the creators thought it would be interesting and appealing to make magic traditions that are exclusively made up of women, instead of depicting mixed gender magical traditions properly like they should be. And also it's appealing to some nerds to fantasise about a world where men are the ones being oppressed I guess.
 
Wiggy said:
It would be kind of hilarious if the whole, "A man will taint ice magic" thing was just that the Widow will remarry someday and with her heart thawed she won't make ice magic anymore and make some other kind of magic instead :V. Granted, that would be a bit too heartwarming a tale for Warhammer. Have to add on, "And then kislev all died because the ice witches didn't have time to figure out their new magic before the Everchosen swept over their nation" to get the proper grimdark.
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Maybe~ Warhammer Fantasy has always been a lot less insistent on the Grimdark then 40k.
 
Wiggy said:
It would be kind of hilarious if the whole, "A man will taint ice magic" thing was just that the Widow will remarry someday and with her heart thawed she won't make ice magic anymore and make some other kind of magic instead :V. Granted, that would be a bit too heartwarming a tale for Warhammer. Have to add on, "And then kislev all died because the ice witches didn't have time to figure out their new magic before the Everchosen swept over their nation" to get the proper grimdark.
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Archeon's Evil Plan to conquer Kislev - a Bachelor style event to find her a husband.

Contestants include
  • The God with a big heart, and a bigger stomach; The Great Maw!
  • He's old, he's bold, he's not actually around a lot; Grombrindal!
  • Lord of the seas, lord of your heart? He might be married, can't remember; Mannan/Mathlan!
The plot sorta-succeeds when the Ancient Widow sees Esmeralda in the audience and falls in love.
 
Codex said:
Boney has mentioned how this prophecy has some sort of commonality across all sorts of different cultures, from Bretonnia to Kislev to even Naggaroth, so maybe there is some bigger thing at play here.

In my opinion, the reason why these things exist is Doylist, and it's because the creators thought it would be interesting and appealing to make magic traditions that are exclusively made up of women, instead of depicting mixed gender magical traditions properly like they should be. And also it's appealing to some nerds to fantasise about a world where men are the ones being oppressed I guess.
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They probably also wanted to make mono-gendered units so they didn't have to make as many model molds for the tabletop and needed to justify a unit being girls only to chud fans. (Notice how cannoically unisex units don't need to come up with an explanation of only having guy models because no one questions it)
 
[X] Yes

I can just imagine Mathilde's alibi for this, if she wasn't outright caught doing this, she was:
-Doing an international collaborative magical project
-Revolutionizing Windsight for Runesmiths
-Creating her own Orbs of Sorcery
-Making off with an entire bloody library
-Inventing a new spell.

Mathilde(Fingers crossed): Where would I even find the time?

Preferably she would accomplish this by means that aren't Artillery Sword, since thats kind of distinctive, and IIRC he IS actually very good at fighting.
Ideally she'd somehow find the leeway to make it look like Natural Causes.

So, poison?
 
Goblins are actually a great cause of death. Doesn't implicate Hags or Ice Witches, sounds good because the ruler died fighting the enemies of Kislev, but doesn't force his heir into some long drawn out conflict to avenge his father's death (like blaming the Skaven might do). And no long investigation and finger pointing like poisoning might result in.
 
Codex said:
And also it's appealing to some nerds to fantasise about a world where men are the ones being oppressed I guess.
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It was an interesting trope especially during the civil rights era, it's just that it's been explored for the better part of a century and is now well beyond the threshold of overplayed. And I suspect the reason the Ice Witches are all female is less people fantasising "what if there was a group which discriminated against men instead of women" and more people fantasising "what if there was a group composed entirely of women, most of them probably sexy, and are immune to cold so they can be as scantily dressed as we can imagine them to be despite them living in the coldest country in Warhammer".
 
Are we even that good with poisons? We have assassination, but my understanding was that was more physical weak points and where to stab rather than how to create a particular cocktail of drugs.
 
NexusEye said:
It was an interesting trope especially during the civil rights era, it's just that it's been explored for the better part of a century and is now well beyond the threshold of overplayed. And I suspect the reason the Ice Witches are all female is less people fantasising "what if there was a group which discriminated against men instead of women" and more people fantasising "what if there was a group composed entirely of women, most of them probably sexy, and are immune to cold so they can be as scantily dressed as we can imagine them to be despite them living in the coldest country in Warhammer".
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That is the case for the Druchii, not Kislev. The only notable Ice Witch is Katarin, who is well dressed for the north, and a good portion of the Ice Witches are old women to represent the "Hag" archetype. Damsels and Druchii Sorcerosses fit the sexy archetype far more than Ice Witches.
 
Wiggy said:
I feel like the bewilder matrix plan triggered when he gets in a fight seems a lot more reliable than trying to get some perfect mix of drugs.
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Plus the matrix is an obscure spell, relatively new, only three Colleges have it, and Kislev has no reason to keep an eye on the Empire's exact spell list. They almost certainly don't know that we have a way of setting up time delayed spells and so we can easily craft an airtight alibi with multiple witnesses at the time of death.
 
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