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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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I can't help but wonder if we're not looking at this the wrong way. Why do we need to manufacture magical evidence? So Boris can point the finger at it being Lahmians. What stops us from just killing the Tzar normally while invisible, casting an illusion of a Lahmian doing it, and then when Boris brings in a Hag Witch with Past Revealed, the spirit will just report what was in the illusion, or otherwise evidence that there was a female magic-wielding assassin?
 
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What actually scares me is that the events outside our control are probably subject to the luck of the dice as well, so the succession itself could go poorly (or at least less smoothly than hoped) regardless. Doing the job well would probably give a bonus to whichever rolls might be made idk?
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
True, the residual Ulgu from the Matrix would leave sufficient evidence of magic—except we'd be spending an hour trying to enchant it into him, whilst under the effect of Substance of Shadow and trying to avoid any illumination, and having to restart the process if anyone enters the room whilst we are there.
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Why is it a given that we need to restart the process if someone enters the room? Matrix can be cast silently and invisibly. Do you find it unlikely for there to be a hiding spot with sufficient shadow in a palatial bedroom? All of the scenarios for being discovered requires a higher level of protection than has been shown, the update explicitly states that Vladimir does not expect an assassination and his defenses are rated against amateurs.
 
Abhorsen said:
People don't wander into other peoples rooms at night every hour. That's not an issue.
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I find it hard to believe the the Tzar doesn't have a servant visit his room, even when he's sleeping, to take care of things like stoking the fire.

This isn't a modern day thing, were people can expect privacy in their personal quarters. The Tzar is a king, and kings have, throughout history, explicitly never had privacy. Henry VIII had to consummate each of his marriages in front of an audience. Elizabeth I shared her bed with her Ladies in Waiting. Eleanor of Aquitaine had to prove in front of the Pope that she was sexually incompatible with her husband in order to get a divorce.

Privacy is simply not a thing for these people, and I do not trust the assumption that the Tzar will be completely alone throughout the night. The longer we stay in his room, the higher the chance we have of someone walking in on us. It is an unnecessary risk.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
I find it hard to believe the the Tzar doesn't have a servant visit his room, even when he's sleeping, to take care of things like stoking the fire.

This isn't a modern day thing, were people can expect privacy in their personal quarters. The Tzar is a king, and kings have, throughout history, explicitly never had privacy. Henry VIII had to consummate each of his marriages in front of an audience. Elizabeth I shared her bed with her Ladies in Waiting. Eleanor of Aquitaine had to prove in front of the Pope that she was sexually incompatible with her husband in order to get a divorce.

Privacy is simply not a thing for these people, and I do not trust the assumption that the Tzar will be completely alone throughout the night. The longer we stay in his room, the higher the chance we have of someone walking in on us. It is an unnecessary risk.
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Okay, walk me through this scenario. A servant walks into the room, where Mathilde is currently invisibly hidden in shadow and casting the Matrix. They're obviously not going to disturb the Tzar peacefully sleeping and snoring like usual under the Mockery of Death. There's no sign that could give away Mathilde's position. How is she being discovered? And why can't Mathilde mindhole the person who has no magesight?

If there is someone in the room standing guard over Vladimir sleeping, we'd neutralize them regardless of the method used to kill, whether that's Matrix or a direct stabbing.
 
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In fact, here's what it says:
Boney said:
The Tzar's protections are adequate enough, you suppose, against disgruntled peasants and amateur assassins, but you don't see anything that will present much of an obstacle to you, or towards a theoretical Lahmian. You suppose that if he'd considered the matter at all, he'd considered his non-interference with the Boyars' business to be adequate defence. This allows you the luxury of choosing your approach.
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So our main issue here isn't our safety, or choosing that one very specific window of time that's shorter than an hour, or anything. There isn't even anyone with Magesight in there, he keeps them away! We can choose how we go about it with an eye on the results, rather than the possibility of success on the assassination itself.
 
Abhorsen said:
So I've done a little research.

If it's actually modeled as a sling stone, not necessarily a kill:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGFCR5oDjKI

Look at how small the wound channel is, and knowing the sling bullet would disappear, it would be like inserting a skewer somewhere in the chest. Obviously bad, but also survivable if you get lucky. It depends all on where it hits.

For just dumping the joules generally, it'd be a blunt cardiac injury. And people seem to survive those, but not always.

Because there's not a ton of joules in a bullet. Using this for speed and weight, 100mph and 1 oz, we plug this into Wolfram Alpha to get 28.33 Joules, which again, Wolfram Alpha tells us is a little more than the amount of work done to compress a bike spring 5cm. We then spread this work around the thoracic cavity, and I think you come off alive, but in pain. Sling stones don't seem to have a ton of energy, but they have enough to put someone down for the battle, and that's enough for military work.

And from this, I don't think I can endorse a Dart Attack. Too little damage, with a fail state of the dude surviving.

[X] Plan: Nighttime Heart Attack
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Yeah, sharp or pointy is a lot more efficient at doing damage than blunt. Even with explosions, you generally add pointyness to do real damage.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
This isn't a modern day thing, were people can expect privacy in their personal quarters. The Tzar is a king, and kings have, throughout history, explicitly never had privacy. Henry VIII had to consummate each of his marriages in front of an audience. Elizabeth I shared her bed with her Ladies in Waiting. Eleanor of Aquitaine had to prove in front of the Pope that she was sexually incompatible with her husband in order to get a divorce.

Privacy is simply not a thing for these people, and I do not trust the assumption that the Tzar will be completely alone throughout the night. The longer we stay in his room, the higher the chance we have of someone walking in on us. It is an unnecessary risk.
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All your examples other than the stoking fire thing are examples where witnesses were important. There's no need for someone to witness that the Tzar sleeps.

As for the fire stoking person, those were actually let to die down at night for fire safety. Usually in the morning a servant would come and restoke the fire.
 
...god, now I so want a fireplace and to have someone whose sole job is to keep it going at night. That sounds immensely cozy. (I live in Siberia, it's getting colder here, and the central heating is yet to turn on, brrrr)
 
Mellowfellow said:
I don't quite understand the difference. Nighttime Visit with Style makes us stab the body from the outside and leave an obvious wound for anyone to find. So that is already [assassin fails at being sneaky].

If we use Matrix but the knife flies out the body and breaks the skin, that has no difference with stabbing the body from the outside, except that it leaves horrible internal injuries that do not match a single stab.
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External knife method makes it clear from a glance that he was killed rather than dying from genuine natural causes.
Internal knife method requires that he undergo an autopsy to, presumably, discover his messed up insides.

The intention, as I understand it, is to create a situation where an investigation can 'discover' that he was killed, rather than have it be obvious just by looking at his body.

It's [assassin fails at being sneaky], but a much more believable 'failure' than just stabbing a dude.
 
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BeepSmile said:
External knife method makes it clear from a glance that he was killed rather than dying from genuine natural causes.
Internal knife method requires that he undergo an autopsy to, presumably, discover his messed up insides.

The intention, as I understand it, is to create a situation where an investigation can 'discover' that he was killed, rather than have it be obvious just by looking at his body.

It's [assassin fails at being sneaky], but a much more believable 'failure' than just stabbing a dude.
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Pretty much! The way I see it the theoretical assassin assumed that without an external wound any investigators would only check for signs of poisoning, which would come up empty, and thus rule it as a natural death. The failure wouldn't come in the form of a bit of carelessness during the assassination itself but instead in underestimating the lengths Boris would go to investigate his father's death.

Which is a mistake that is a lot more understandable than forgetting that your magic knife will leave the Tsar's clothing undamaged.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
I find it hard to believe the the Tzar doesn't have a servant visit his room, even when he's sleeping, to take care of things like stoking the fire.

This isn't a modern day thing, were people can expect privacy in their personal quarters. The Tzar is a king, and kings have, throughout history, explicitly never had privacy. Henry VIII had to consummate each of his marriages in front of an audience. Elizabeth I shared her bed with her Ladies in Waiting. Eleanor of Aquitaine had to prove in front of the Pope that she was sexually incompatible with her husband in order to get a divorce.

Privacy is simply not a thing for these people, and I do not trust the assumption that the Tzar will be completely alone throughout the night. The longer we stay in his room, the higher the chance we have of someone walking in on us. It is an unnecessary risk.
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The degree of privacy is very much variable, as it always is. Some rulers were very low on that. Ludwig XIV spent his every waking hour surrounded by people. But that's because he made himself the explicit centerpoint of the state. His every action had to be witnessed, because every action was an act of state. I suspect a certain degree of narcissism was also involved. The two other examples were also official, stately matters, so witnesses were important*.

But the rulers personal opinion and wants will obviously influence that**. If he wants someone around at all times, that'll happen. If he doesn't, then they'll fuck off except for the important parts. Culture and such will define a starting point, but a ruler can very much shift it, and they can also redefine the expectation. The one requirement is that if it's important and symbolic, there's gonna be people around to see it.

As for Vladimir? He does hunt and kill gribblies, but that will automatically be witnessed by his soldiers, and whatever nobles he's taking along. I imagine he's not disinclined to the occaisional feast. He probably holds court when he can't get away from it. Plenty of his active life will be witnessed, because it's relevant to Kiselv as a state. His sleepy time is not.

*Elizabeth probably just enjoyed someone in her bad (I was going to make a joke about her being one of those raging lesbians historians describe as being "good friends" with other women, but a quick search tells me she did have sex with men, so she was at most bisexual). Or because, of her rep as "Virgin Queen", having witness that there were no (male) escapades was again important.
Anyway, it wouldn't be an issue, because casting mockery of death twice is no greater strain than doing it twice.
**One of the best rules of thumb for history is that people have been people for all of it. Some people require solitary time after a while around others, and some of those people will have been rulers and made sure to get it.
 
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BurnNote said:
As for Boris? He does hunt and kill gribblies, but that will automatically be witnessed by his soldiers, and whatever nobles he's taking along. I imagine he's not disinclined to the occaisional feast. He probably holds court when he can't get away from it. Plenty of his active life will be witnessed, because it's relevant to Kiselv as a state. His sleepy time is not.
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Small correction: current Tzar is Vladimir, Boris is the soon to be Tzar :p

(...if he marries an Ice Witch, there'll be a powerful woman with Magesight probably sleeping in the same room, which certainly bodes well for his safety.)
 
Somic said:
Small correction: current Tzar is Vladimir, Boris is the soon to be Tzar :p

(...if he marries an Ice Witch, there'll be a powerful woman with Magesight probably sleeping in the same room, which certainly bodes well for his safety.)
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*Ulgu Poof* Whatever do you mean? Of course I said Vladimir all along.

The wards would probably be more helpful, because being asleep means she wouldn't be too helpful. But yes, that would help.
 
After the assassination we should totaly give advice to Boris abaout how to improve the security of the Palace. Its honestly ridicolus how easy it is to kill the Tsar for a magical assassin in our position.
 
Mellowfellow said:
Why is it a given that we need to restart the process if someone enters the room?
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Y'know, on the off chance someone does interrupt when we're busy in the room, it seems like aborting the Matrix, killing the Tzar, and leaving immediately (possibly by using an Illusion of turning into a bat and flying out the window to teleport) would actually do a decent job of achieving our mission?
 
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