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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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1. Do it as quietly as possible, leaving no evidence. If the way you do it could only have been done with magic
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2. As if a Lahmian had done it while doing their best not to leave evidence that a Lahmian did it.
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M / Shadow Knives: You conjure and throw several knives (scaling with magical ability and mastery of the spell) at a target at short range that passes through any non-magical armour.
Mastery - Shadow Dagger: Can be used as a melee weapon that completely ignores non-magical armour. Well suited for assassination.
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1. The thing about using Shadowknives/Shadow Dagger is that they ignore armour. If he wears pyjamas, casting Mockey of Death and stabbing with SD could demonstrate magic, as his skin would be cut but not his clothes.

If he sleeps topless, then we'd be a bit screwed.
(Edit: 2. No idea how to approach this, but it is 3am. Night, all)

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@Boney, sorry if you've responded to this already, but using the Matrix to store Shadow Knives did bad things to a chicken when activated. Did those bad things include breaking the skin, or was all the damage internal?

Also, Mathilde can manipulate Ulgu in her environment.
Is there anything stopping her from drawing any residual Ulgu out from his corpse to remove any remaining structure of her Matrix/Shadow Dagger?
 
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BeepSmile said:
@Boney, sorry if you've responded to this already, but using the Matrix to store Shadow Knives did bad things to a chicken when activated. Did those bad things include breaking the skin, or was all the damage internal?
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For reference:

Boney said:
Sinsystems said:
just to double check, what exactly would be the effects of the Shadow Knife (dagger variant) be if they went off inside a person via the Matrix. I'm asking so that we know the types of evidence it might leave behind.

I'm personally hoping for the knife just appearing inside of him and cutting up his internals which results in him looking find on the outside but clearly not dying of natural means if someone cuts him open.
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That's very likely what would happen, with a less likely possibility that it does that and then exits him and flies off on a random trajectory.
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Boney said:
It's on a per casting basis, it's just whether random chance gets it out of the ribcage without it using all its momentum on bone and organs.
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BeepSmile said:
@Boney, sorry if you've responded to this already, but using the Matrix to store Shadow Knives did bad things to a chicken when activated. Did those bad things include breaking the skin, or was all the damage internal?
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It broke the skin and flew out, but chickens are notably smaller than people, particularly premodern chickens. Shadow Daggers when fired at someone enter the body but generally do not leave it, so odds are good that a Matrixed Shadow Knife will not leave a human body.

BeepSmile said:
Also, Mathilde can manipulate Ulgu in her environment.
Is there anything stopping her from drawing any residual Ulgu out from his corpse to remove any remaining structure of her Matrix/Shadow Dagger?
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No, but she'd need access to the corpse to do so, so it's not compatible with most of the Matrix plans.
 
Incomplete list of things a Great Deed can buy:
Raising a topic at an Elector's Meet for serious discussion and contemplation, and anyone otherwise neutral on the topic would vote for it.
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So, here's a thought for a potential use for a Great Deed.

How about a monetary reward for the discovery and delivery of new students to the Colleges of Magic.

If a family or a town got an amount of money for giving their kid to the colleges of magic, we'd definitely get less dark wizards and less lynchings of magic users. After all, even if a family is fine with their kid having magic that doesn't mean they want to give them up, but being able to pay the bills and feed the rest of the family might change that. Similarly, a town or family that hates magic users might be less likely to lynch them if they know they can just deliver them to the colleges and get paid for it.

It'll be an extra expense on the government for sure, but one that reduces the number of dark wizards and gives them more wizards to strike against the enemies of the Empire with is one they might just be willing to go for.

It's not the prettiest way to get this sort of result, but anything that cuts down on lynchings and dark wizards is a net positive of some kind.

Gonna be a lot of people trying to scam this though.
 
cheesyme said:
Yeah, I'm gonna be honest, we don't need to get too fancy or overcomplicated, so Keep It Simple, Stupid.

[] A Quiet Death
-[] Use Mockery of Death so there is no sign of struggle, then stab him in the heart with a knife. Leave the room by Substance of Shadows or Smoke and Mirrors, leaving behind an unnaturally quiet death.
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Not that this is a bad plan. It's quite a good simple plan. But what's the benefit of voting for this over just the default [ ] Nighttime Visit option where we can leave Mathilde to work out the details?
 
BeepSmile said:
@Boney, sorry if you've responded to this already, but using the Matrix to store Shadow Knives did bad things to a chicken when activated. Did those bad things include breaking the skin, or was all the damage internal?

Also, Mathilde can manipulate Ulgu in her environment.
Is there anything stopping her from drawing any residual Ulgu out from his corpse to remove any remaining structure of her Matrix/Shadow Dagger?
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Wait when did Mathilde test the Matrix with Shadow Knives?
 
[] Immediate Matrix Activation
-[] Sneak into his chambers, apply Mockery of Death, apply MMM+Shadow Knives, immediately activate, sneak out.

Don't think this exact method's been expressed in write-in form yet

EDIT: IIRC she tested MMM with Shadow Knives when she was coming up w/ the spell, way way back when she was still Spymistress of Stirland.
 
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Redshirt Army said:
Why a shadow knife? Use a mundane blade.
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Personally I like the idea that it is discovered to be a magical killing because the body has a stab wound, but the clothes don't.

We aren't dealing with lore experts, we are dealing with people looking for spooky stuff. And it absolutely will be noticed by the person washing the clothes that they do not need repair- I can't imagine anyone throwing away an expensive outfit in a time before industrial spinning.
 
King Arthur said:
So, here's a thought for a potential use for a Great Deed.

How about a monetary reward for the discovery and delivery of new students to the Colleges of Magic.

If a family or a town got an amount of money for giving their kid to the colleges of magic, we'd definitely get less dark wizards and less lynchings of magic users. After all, even if a family is fine with their kid having magic that doesn't mean they want to give them up, but being able to pay the bills and feed the rest of the family might change that. Similarly, a town or family that hates magic users might be less likely to lynch them if they know they can just deliver them to the colleges and get paid for it.

It'll be an extra expense on the government for sure, but one that reduces the number of dark wizards and gives them more wizards to strike against the enemies of the Empire with is one they might just be willing to go for.

It's not the prettiest way to get this sort of result, but anything that cuts down on lynchings and dark wizards is a net positive of some kind.

Gonna be a lot of people trying to scam this though.
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But then there's the College debt system to consider. The way it is now, either the student themselves works to pay it off when they become a journeyman (thus tying them to their College more) like Mathilde, or the student's family pays the tuition (tying them to the Colleges more, on top of the whole "my relative who I'm on at least decent terms with is a Wizard" thing) like in Eike's case.

So it'd be kind of silly to give some money to a friendly relative, and then charge them more than that for the tuition. Might work with the magic-hating burn-my-own-kid-at-the-stake types, but, well, they kind of hate magic enough to burn their own kid at the stake despite the laws, so I'm not sure some extra money (even if it is a lot for a peasant) is enough to sway them.
 
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Could we silently kill him then leave some warp stone on his body for a bit just so latter the Duar can be detected?
 
King Arthur said:
So, here's a thought for a potential use for a Great Deed.

How about a monetary reward for the discovery and delivery of new students to the Colleges of Magic.

If a family or a town got an amount of money for giving their kid to the colleges of magic, we'd definitely get less dark wizards and less lynchings of magic users. After all, even if a family is fine with their kid having magic that doesn't mean they want to give them up, but being able to pay the bills and feed the rest of the family might change that. Similarly, a town or family that hates magic users might be less likely to lynch them if they know they can just deliver them to the colleges and get paid for it.

It'll be an extra expense on the government for sure, but one that reduces the number of dark wizards and gives them more wizards to strike against the enemies of the Empire with is one they might just be willing to go for.

It's not the prettiest way to get this sort of result, but anything that cuts down on lynchings and dark wizards is a net positive of some kind.

Gonna be a lot of people trying to scam this though.
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I foresee another problem with this. Who pays. The Emperor will want the ECs to pay, the ECs will want the Emperor to pay. Neither will want to shell out large amounts of cash for it.
 
I'd like to suggest a very simple night-time visit after putting some mindhole and illusion together.

Under an illusion that looks elegant and somewhat pale, we speak to a guard somewhere that is visible to other people. Then we mindhole that guard.

Possibly repeat a few times. When questioned these people will have zero recollection of interacting with a very memorable looking individual that they were seen interacting with - that screams magic.
 
Boney said:
If someone with good Magesight is watching it happen, or is available within minutes to inspect the body. After that you'd only be able to spot the difference if you already knew what the energies lingering in a Dhar-Matrixed body was supposed to look like.
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Given that MMM + Shadow Knife is basically just going to send a Shadow Knife going off at random inside his body, how certain is Mathilde that it would be lethal? Does the knife originate from center-mass or is it random? (Like, if it's based off where exactly the Matrix is placed, would Mathilde be able to 'aim it' by place the Matrix over his chest, for example, to have it go in his heart?)

(It seems pretty damn lethal, but I can't help but worry that the Tzar somehow survives)
 
[X] Plan: Spontaneous (Literal) Heart Attack While Hunting
-[X] Sneak into the Tzar's chambers while he is asleep and implant him with a Matrix set with the shadow dagger spell variation set to go off while off hunting.

[ ] Plan: Spontaneous Heart Attack
-[ ] Sneak into the Tzar's room, use mockery of death on him then implant him with a Matrix loaded with Shadow Dagger loaded. Set the matrix to go off the next day at a time the Tzar is likely to be in a public place.

Posting Spontaneous Heart Attack on behalf of @Sinsystems, just put in an X if you want to vote for it.
 
[X] The Locked Room Murder
-[X]Kill the Tzar in his sleep as if it was a mundane murder, but lock all the doors and windows from the inside before using Substance of Shadow or Smoke and Mirrors to leave the room. That way someone sharp will realise it would be impossible for a normal person to do it.

[X] The Locked Room Murder: Too perfect version
- [X]Use Mockery of Death so there is no sign of struggle when he is stabbed in the heart, then lock all the doors and windows from the inside and leave the room by Substance of Shadows or Smoke and Mirrors, leaving behind a perfect murder in a completely locked room.
 
Boney said:
No, but she'd need access to the corpse to do so, so it's not compatible with most of the Matrix plans.
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Oh. I was thinking of using the Matrix solely as a delivery mechanism for Shadow Knives/Dagger spell, so it would orignate inside the body and not break his skin.

Follow up question: would an autopsy be a thing that gets done to kings in this culture if they die unexpectedly?

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[ ] Plan Internal injuries killied him in his sleep. So tragic. (This plan assumes atopsies are a thing)
- [ ] Sneak in, all quiet-like.
--[ ] Like a fish.
-[ ] Cast Mockery of Death
-[ ] Use the matrix to implant either Shadow Knives or Shadow Dagger into his body, whichever is less likely to break his skin when activated.
-[ ] Activate the spell
-[ ] Remove all Ulgu from his body and leave.
 
As much as I've enjoyed all the back-and-forth on elaborate plans ever since the results of the first vote were clear, Boris' clarification that he wants it done fast and certain says to me that we really shouldn't be adding more opportunities for failure than we need to.

[X] Nighttime Visit

If Mathilde can arrange the crime scene to look Lahmian, great. If she can't while keeping herself safe, oh well. She knows the goals and knows what she can get away with. I just hope she picks her evening as one where the Tzar isn't entertaining company.
 
Ended up unable to sleep, so have my plan.

[X] Plan: Spontaneous Heart Attack
- Sneak into the Tzar's room, use mockery of death on him then implant him with a Matrix loaded with Shadow Dagger loaded. Set the matrix to go off the next day at a time the Tzar is likely to be in a public place.
 
[X] Plan: Spontaneous Heart Attack
-[X] Sneak into the Tzar's room, use mockery of death on him then implant him with a Matrix loaded with Shadow Dagger loaded. Set the matrix to go off the next day at a time the Tzar is likely to be in a public place.

Will update as information comes in, but first it's zzzz for me.

Edit: swapped to the nighttime version of this.
 
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Redshirt Army said:
Why a shadow knife? Use a mundane blade.
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It's conceivable that a person could sneak in mundanely who's just really, really good. Your option doesn't need a write in, it's simply the Nighttime Visit option.
Boney said:
[ ] Nighttime Visit
Sneak into his chambers at night, and leave a corpse to be found in the morning. Lowest risk, but leaves a killing that could have been done by mundane methods.
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The point of the MMM is that it can be triggered remotely, and we can trigger it whenever. We need to make the death magical, and discoverably so. Yours is just the perfect crime, which doesn't work. We need an imperfect crime that's magically linked or otherwise implicating the Lahmians.

The MMM option, given at night, triggered during a hunt while in front of people, not quite at risk. This way it looks like the Lahmians tried to get him to screw up a hunt, but instead killed him in a more obvious way.

[X]Plan: Remote Controlled 'Miscast' Killing
-[X] The night before a hunt, sneak into the Tzar's bed chamber, keep him asleep using Mockery of Death, apply MMM containing Shadow Dagger.
-[X] During the hunt, trigger MMM, causing the King to suddenly die. Ideally time this for a time when he is actually in a small bit of danger that is normal to a hunt, like getting ready to spear a boar.
 
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