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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Mellowfellow said:
She'd be using substance of shadow which achieves invisibility while in shadow, unless you're saying there's no shadows available in a room at night? If she's discovered before the Matrix can be performed, she can simply use Shadow knives at Vladimir to kill him like the normal plan. There's nothing complicated about it, Mathilde can hide from anyone in the castle, so multiple attempts at the Matrix shouldn't be an issue.
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We're in Kislev, it's cold. The Tzar most likely has a fire burning in his room. And what if someone comes in holding a candle, or lets in torchlight from the corridor? Light fucks up Substance, and the thought of being under the effect of it for an entire hour honestly scares me.

And even if the room was pitch black, Substance still wouldn't work, because it only works in shadow, not darkness.

Boney said:
K / Substance of Shadow: A single person or item that falls within a shadow becomes invisible, silent, and insubstantial, though they can selective choose to physically affect the world. Lasts until the item or character is illuminated.
- Must specifically be a cast shadow, not merely being in darkness. Think shadow puppets.
- Must be a single discrete object, not a selected portion of a larger object.
- Anything longer in any dimension than a meter, or heavier than 10kg/22lbs, will be much more difficult to cast this upon; anything more than twice that is approaching the limits of possibility.
- When cast on an inanimate object, it will only become insubstantial to anything touching it after the spell is cast. Anything it was acting on before the spell, it will continue acting on after the spell.
- If something becomes substantial while 'inside' another object, results will be thoroughly unpredictable, usually unpleasant, and sometimes dangerous.
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Nerdasaurus Rex said:
We're in Kislev, it's cold. The Tzar most likely has a fire burning in his room. And what if someone comes in holding a candle, or lets in torchlight from the corridor? Light fucks up Substance, and the thought of being under the effect of it for an entire hour honestly scares me.

And even if the room was pitch black, Substance still wouldn't work, because it only works in shadow, not darkness.
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Light fucks up substance of shadow if there's an object passing through your body, otherwise it just means the spell is dispelled. Are you really saying a bedroom that has a fire will have no shadows and is completely evenly illuminated at night while the Tzar is asleep?
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
The time to decide whether or not it is workable is now, not after the vote closes.
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Why are you portraying Mathilde as a thread-controlled automaton with no agency and no ability to react to new information?

1) If Mathilde believed it is unlikely she'll have the time to cast the Matrix with the information she has now, Boney would've vetoed the plan.

2) If Mathilde, the first time she actually enters the Tzar's chambers, discovers that it's brightly lit, full of guards, and lacking for any shadowy places to hide in, there will be a vote on what other approach to use instead.
 
DeadmanwalkingXI said:
If the room is pitch black, invisibility is meaningless anyway, and there's an easy spell to be completely silent. Like, if there are no shadows due to pure darkness you don't need invisibility because nobody can see you anyway.
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The point is that if somebody walks in, we wouldn't be invisible.

reignonyrparade said:
You know what fires do? they cast shadows.
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Mellowfellow said:
Light fucks up substance of shadow if there's an object passing through your body, otherwise it just means the spell is dispelled. Are you really saying a bedroom that has a fire will have no shadows and is completely evenly illuminated at night while the Tzar is asleep?
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A shadow big enough to hide Mathilde? What is she going to do, lie on the floor behind the bed for an hour?
 
Y'know, all this debate can be neatly avoided by just voting for the default options without writing in a specific detail and letting Boney take our write-in methods as suggestions that mathilde will consider instead.

Nerdasaurus Rex said:
The point is that if somebody walks in, we wouldn't be invisible.

A shadow big enough to hide Mathilde? What is she going to do, lie on the floor behind the bed for an hour?
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If someone walks in, we stop casting the Matrix (the only thing occupying our attention) and use Mindhole, or Take No Heed, or a myriad of other options to hide or get them to leave.

And yes, I expect there to be one big enough in the huge royal bedroom for a person to hide in, not to mention all the trophies that Vladimir likes to collect casting shadows.
 
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Mellowfellow said:
Y'know, all this debate can be neatly avoided by just voting for the default plan without writing in a specific detail and letting Boney take our write-in as suggestions instead that mathilde will consider instead.
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Boney is pretty big on quester agency. He is not going to just ram us into a bad end without common sense adjustment, but if you want something to be done that is not in the vote, you need a new vote.
 
@Nerdasaurus Rex Is Mathilde an elite infiltration agent, one of the best in the Old World for pulling off an assassination against amateur protections? Because the way you're talking about it sounds like we should not be trying this, if she can't find shadows or hide from unsuspecting mooks that have no way of detecting her.

agumentic said:
Boney is pretty big on quester agency. He is not going to just ram us into a bad end without common sense adjustment, but if you want something to be done that is not in the vote, you need a new vote.
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I meant the default options that Boney gave in the update (Nighttime Visit), which didn't specify using a method like Shadow Knife or Matrix.
 
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[X] Plan: Nighttime Heart Attack

This looks like the one to me. A Lahmian trying to cover their tracks (but, yk, still getting caught in our version) would use magic in a way that wouldn't be detected unless somebody was already suspecting magic - which wouldn't automatically be the case for a man the Tzar's age dying of a heart attack. In this era autopsies are far from standard, so a hypothetical Lahmian would have good reason to believe this murder would go undetected. But Boris, who is in the know, would be able to "have a suspicion" and order an autopsy to discover the Tzar was stabbed from the inside. Which is very obviously murder, and very obviously magical, but magical in a way that could normally be expected to have gone undetected by a competent plotter.

I'd say that fits the assignment to a T.
 
DeadmanwalkingXI said:
Sure, but I highly doubt the servants are so quiet Mathilde can't hear them coming and use mundane stealth from Intrigue 27 and/or magic to avoid them
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Except if that happens she'll have to restart the Matrix from scratch, prolonging the amount of time she spends in the Tzar's room and increasing the odds of getting caught. And the Tzar would be under the effect of Mockery as well, so if someone looks over at him and see's he's not breathing, they are going to raise an alarm.

Mellowfellow said:
@Nerdasaurus Rex Is Mathilde an elite infiltration agent, one of the best in the Old World that can pull off an assassination against amateur protections? Because the way you're talking about it sounds like we should not be trying this, if she can't find shadows or hide from unsuspecting mooks.
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I am saying that they are unnecessary risks to take so that we can overachieve on a secondary goal that we have already obtained on the basis that we are an invisible, teleporting assassin.

If someone sneaks into the Tzar's room without being detected, leaves a knife in his heart, and then leaves once again undetected, then either the guards are grossly incompetent or corrupt, or the assassin had supernatural stealth abilities. Pinning the blame on a coven of vampires would then be easy. Using a complicated bit of spellwork to inflict non-mundane damage on the Tzar is unnecessary, and the time it takes to set up that spellwork introduces unnecessary complications and risks.

We sneak in, stab him, sneak out, like the elite assassin we are, instead of screwing around trying to find an uninterrupted hour to cast a fancy spell, just because we don't think being an invisible teleporting assassin with perfect disguises is "magical" enough.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
A shadow big enough to hide Mathilde? What is she going to do, lie on the floor behind the bed for an hour?
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I mean why on earth shouldn't she? Or if you're going to get into a literalistic "can't get up if she needs to run away quickly" she could instead "merely" crouch behind the bed for an hour.

I suppose her calves might get sore but I suspect she'll manage to soldier on regardless.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
The point is that if somebody walks in, we wouldn't be invisible.
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It is very unlikely someone is going to walk into the Tzar's chambers in the middle of the night, waking a monarch up in the middle of the night makes them cranky and cranky monarchs are not good for one's health. Just about the only person I can think of who would dare to that regularly is a lover and as far as we know Vlad does not have one of those. Should someone do so the sound of the door opening will alert us and we can just turn invisible.

Fayhem said:
[X] Plan: Nighttime Heart Attack

This looks like the one to me. A Lahmian trying to cover their tracks (but, yk, still getting caught in our version) would use magic in a way that wouldn't be detected unless somebody was already suspecting magic - which wouldn't automatically be the case for a man the Tzar's age dying of a heart attack. In this era autopsies are far from standard, so a hypothetical Lahmian would have good reason to believe this murder would go undetected. But Boris, who is in the know, would be able to "have a suspicion" and order an autopsy to discover the Tzar was stabbed from the inside. Which is very obviously murder, and very obviously magical, but magical in a way that could normally be expected to have gone undetected by a competent plotter.

I'd say that fits the assignment to a T.
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Plus we copied the Matrix off Lahmians. If some overzealous investigator does figure out the precise magical mechanism of the 'heart attack' it is going to point at them.
 
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Nerdasaurus Rex said:
And even if the room was pitch black, Substance still wouldn't work, because it only works in shadow, not darkness.
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For what it's worth, I think this part in particular isn't as problematic as it could be:
Boney said:
K / Substance of Shadow: A single person or item that falls within a shadow becomes invisible, silent, and insubstantial, though they can selective choose to physically affect the world. Lasts until the item or character is illuminated.
- Must specifically be a cast shadow, not merely being in darkness. Think shadow puppets.
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(Emphasis mine, of course.)
Initially I looked at that and thought we wouldn't be able to use Substance usefully in a dark room at all, but on reading the wording closely, it seems like you need an actual shadow to cast the spell, but darkness doesn't break it — that takes actual light. ...Of course, I then realized that should have been obvious from the Ambush on the Skull River adventure plot, where we were in Substance while walking through a fully dark ship, which is clearly more like a structure than like something which casts a shadow. It might be I'm the only one who was worried about this, and you're just talking about the case where there are no available shadows at all, though that would be a little strange. Still, I thought I'd point this out just in case that's what was worrying you.

Edit:
[X] Plan: Nighttime Heart Attack
[X] Plan: Nighttime Dart Attack
Darts seem perfectly functional to me, assuming we have confirmation they'll do enough damage. (Or at least that the risk of, uh, underkill?, is minimal enough.) A shadow knife getting out of the body isn't a critical failure here (still dead Vlad and still clearly magic, given the trajectory), but it looks less well-done. In a plausible way, given that "oops the assassination weapon went at the wrong angle" would be an accurate description of why there are knife wounds exiting the corpse, but not ideal.
 
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For Substance of Shadow, you (or the target person or object) need to be in a distinct shadow when the spell is cast. After that you just need to be not illuminated for the effect to continue, pitch darkness works just as well as a distinct shadow at that point.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Except if that happens she'll have to restart the Matrix from scratch, prolonging the amount of time she spends in the Tzar's room and increasing the odds of getting caught. And the Tzar would be under the effect of Mockery as well, so if someone looks over at him and see's he's not breathing, they are going to raise an alarm.



I am saying that they are unnecessary risks to take so that we can overachieve on a secondary goal that we have already obtained on the basis that we are an invisible, teleporting assassin.

If someone sneaks into the Tzar's room without being detected, leaves a knife in his heart, and then leaves once again undetected, then either the guards are grossly incompetent or corrupt, or the assassin had supernatural stealth abilities. Pinning the blame on a coven of vampires would then be easy. Using a complicated bit of spellwork to inflict non-mundane damage on the Tzar is unnecessary, and the time it takes to set up that spellwork introduces unnecessary complications and risks.

We sneak in, stab him, sneak out, like the elite assassin we are, instead of screwing around trying to find an uninterrupted hour to cast a fancy spell, just because we don't think being an invisible teleporting assassin with perfect disguises is "magical" enough.
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You still breathe while under the effects of Mockery of Death. There's no sign of anything amiss for someone to check.

Except no, that secondary goal is not guaranteed to be achieved because the Tzar's protections are amateur so it doesn't require an invisible magical assassin to pull of a mundane assassination.

Just to be sure @Boney does the Shadow Knife spell bypass normal clothing as well as armor? (for it to be non-mundane enough)
 
[X] Plan: Nighttime 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 off immediately, so he dies in bed.

[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.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
I am saying that they are unnecessary risks to take so that we can overachieve on a secondary goal that we have already obtained on the basis that we are an invisible, teleporting assassin.

If someone sneaks into the Tzar's room without being detected, leaves a knife in his heart, and then leaves once again undetected, then either the guards are grossly incompetent or corrupt, or the assassin had supernatural stealth abilities.
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Hmm. Mathilde seems to disagree with you, though:
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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Emphasis added.
 
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