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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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[X] Spinning Lyre
My top pick from the contenders
[X] Bagpipes
My secret love

also can you imagine, the grey college musters to war, and their marching column is shadowed by the doomdlesack!
 
DragonParadox said:
No way to be sure
A) Older instruments could have been made and just not preserved since they were made of more fragile materials like reed
B) Most importantly it makes sense for the oldest instrument used by humans to be our voice and that would leave no trace
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Heck, don't even need to use your voice. Clapping, stamping, whistling, and various other noises are all possibilities too.
 
[Y] One Man Polka Band
[Z] Fine, just the Accordion then.


[X] Portativ


Logistics over all. Some enterprising soul looking to piggy back on our developments and rep can do the fiddly work to fill in the gaps.
 
If I had a nickel for every sacred grove captured by dark forces found in a Warhammer quest in the past couple of months, I'd have two nickels - which isn't a lot, and honestly it's not at all weird that it happened twice because both were in the Empire, which is about 50% spooky forests by volume.

In terms of instruments...

[X] Spinning Lyre

This appeals to me for the reasons set out in the post itself: it can be played regularly without people needing to be reminded to play it. Given that it's powered by rotation, a spinning lyre could be hooked up to a pulley well, a mill, a trip hammer or any number of similar devices in frequent, but not constant, use, which would provide pseudo-passive detection capabilities without having to encourage any kind of new behaviour.
 
Boney said:
You don't quite burst into King Belegar's private quarters. One does not burst into the private quarters of a King. But the unseemly haste with which you jam the necessity of a meeting with him through the usual procedures are the royal equivalent of doing so. "I need to know what your plans are for restoring Karak Eight Peaks' Runesmiths Guild," you open the conversation with when you finally reach him.

"Still being negotiated between the Thungnissons and the Ironbrows. Very much in the Ironbrows' favour, considering the circumstances. Why?"

"I approached Karak Vlag about a book exchange deal, thinking they might have books that the Fire Spire had left with them for safekeeping. The Fire Spire being a tower of magical research in Praag that was destroyed during the Great War Against Chaos, it predates the Colleges but it sounds like at least some of their precursors might have been involved with it, so ours would be the best remaining claim, and the only one that can be legally made under the Empire and Kislev's laws. The problem is, they had thought about what I might be after and come to a completely different conclusion, that I was there to solve the question of the property of their Runesmiths Guild."
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I like that Mathilde is pretty much able to meet with Belegar when she feels like it. Also Vlag would have some neat infomration.

Boney said:
"They tried, but made their claim while also saying that the Vlagians with knowledge of Runesmithing they allegedly shouldn't have should also be turned over to Thungnisson custody. That didn't put the Vlagians in much of a mood to turn over anything. So their theory was that I was being sent as an adit to bypass the obstacle - if the books are turned over to the custody of the Karak that currently hosts Thorek and Kragg, then there's nothing to criticize and they can be held in trust until the Runesmithing Guild can be properly refounded - which could then happen alongside that of Karak Eight Peaks'. I didn't want to correct the misconception without checking to see if you might actually be interested in the idea."

Belegar's brow furrows, his initial wary frown giving way to one of careful consideration. "There might be something to that," he says after some rumination. "Part of why the debates are dragging on is because they can. The refounding of the Ironforges is going to be entirely from scratch, all of the secrets that were once unique to them are now all either lost or absorbed into the Thungnissons or the Ironbrows, so there's nothing to tempt anyone into transplanting themselves to here. But Karak Vlag's Runesmiths were descendants of those driven enough to go north on the research expeditions, but loyal enough to remain within the World's Edge Mountains - that's a respected combination. And they had a very respected reputation for stone-based Runes, where most others specialize in metal-based. All the orphaned knowledge that might be recovered from their notebooks and private libraries... that would get some heads to turn. It would give me a pick to wield in this whole situation." He looks to you. "For this to not come across as you intruding on business that you shouldn't, I would have to cast you as the avalanche that uncovered the seam. Not the most flattering role."

You shrug. "It wouldn't even be inaccurate. It's not the first time I've reshaped the landscape to fill the shelves, and knowing my luck, it won't be the last."
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Basically it's Vlag's information is notable enough that they can't really discard it. Mathilde is willing to put in work to get this information though.

Boney said:
That answers a suspicion you had and then some, all but confirming to you that in their long tenure in the Aethyr, not only did they bend the trust of the Fire Spire enough to peruse the books left in their custody - people already dead at that point, though the Vlagians had no way of knowing - but they did so thoroughly enough that there might be some dogears or margin notes or collateral damage that would raise unanswerable questions.

"It would be," you reply, "especially since I believe that nobody remains who would have greater authority than the Collegiate side of the KAU partnership to demand those answers."

"Empire authority over Kislev Wizards?" Interestingly, they use the Reikspiel word for Wizard instead of the Khazalid Zhufokri or any of the less flattering alternatives.

"Kislev's Ice Witches are dominant, and they see users of magics other than that of the Hag Witches as guests in their lands at best, to be cautiously watched and not allowed to outstay their welcome. The Fire Spire was able to exist in Praag because the Ice Witches avoided the city, not because they had any kind of agreement with it."

"Would they agree with that if the full facts were presented to them?" Their language is terse, even by Dwarven standards, and it would be easy to take it as hostility, but that just seems to be how the Vlagians speak of important matters.

"If the question was presented alongside a stack of books on magical lore looking for a claimant? Probably not. But to my understanding, that is the current state of affairs."
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Vlag dawi would have their linguistics effected by their culture change I like that Mathilde is noting it because she's a expert in that kind of stuff and it shows.

Boney said:
After a few hours for the Goblins to muster and charge off, you have Adela fly to the point where the Waaagh had been concentrated and find a point where the canopy is interrupted by a lattice of spiderweb. The battle between your curiosity and caution is decided when Adela points out that the clearing is too regular to be natural, formed by a rectangle of ancient trees that cannot have been cultivated by Goblin hands, and the girl needs only a word from you to unleash flames onto the webs and burn enough of a hole through them for the Gyrocarriage to fit through - though only after waiting long enough to see if there are any remaining spiders that might respond to this destruction, of course. Adela touches down inside the clearing without powering down the engine, and the moment you step out you can feel it. The power of Mork, yes, but it is out of tune with the power you're familiar with, underlaid with something else. This holy place is a pentiment, a palimpsest - a surface layer over something deeper and older and truer. The shadows here are impenetrably deep, and would remain so even if the webs above were removed entirely. They retreated in a circle around the hole of sunlight that Adela's fire let in not as a surrender to it, but as a welcome.

You called on a divinity to seek something ancient and lost, and in this place, it is impossible for that divinity to find anything but this. This place was sacred to Them before the name and form that you know, before the name and form that others know, before any name still spoken on this world. This place is more ancient than anything you can name, and more lost than anything you can comprehend.
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Okay that's some insanely deep lore and cool stuff that I'd like to look into eventually.

Boney said:
From above, you watch the Waaagh advance deeper into the forest, and then deeper still in a direction that cannot be found on a compass. Those that eventually emerge claim victory, and you have no way of knowing or caring whether they are telling the truth. The fulcrum you seek is held by the Shadowgor Warherd within the Beast-Paths of the Forest of Gloom. Recovering the legacies lost within the Forest of Gloom would take your full attention for more time than you can spare from the Waystone Project, but would be about much more than one specific rock.
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They had fun and learned some really cool stuff but they have obligations.

Boney said:
The immediate relevance of which is that when you request a Journeyman with auditory Magesight to assist with your idea for an auditory seviroscope, the Wizard that responds - who is able to take a break from their undercover duties in a Reikland troupe due to their overwintering in Altdorf - you're not sure whether their aggressively contradictory approach to gender cues is a personal choice or a professional requirement. You do know that your inability to read how complimentary or not their calling you 'My Lady Sotto Voce' is, is going to get very distracting in the coming weeks. Their name, at least for the purposes of this collaboration, is Kas.

"This isn't that novel an idea," they say once you've laid out the idea: a device that translates the amount and type of ambient magical energies into something audible. "The Wissenland circuits are filled to bursting with expensive automata that perform a single task poorly. Ones that do music especially. Start turning a crank on the wrong corner in Nuln and local shopkeepers will beat you with sticks."

"It did strike me as a novel application of very well-established principles," Egrimm agrees. "There'll be some trial and error in getting the Wind-sensitive side to properly harmonise - sorry - with the musical side, but that's it."
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Getting auditory magesight to help makes sense. Egrimm making puns without meaning to.

Boney said:
"And yours, in some areas," Egrimm replies with an odd little smile. The tone he used is odd, an inch away from well-practiced slickness but some element deliberately left out to prevent it all from harmonizing, which must have taken more effort than actually following through. Your first thought is that he's toying with you, but he's not watching you closely enough for that. He's not amused by your reaction, but by his own - he's mocking himself for defaulting to that form of oily flattery when it's entirely unnecessary.

"There are mystics in eastern province troupes that find grey to be the colour that gets the best reception," Kas... agrees?

"In any case," you find yourself saying to move the conversation along, "the question becomes one of which form of auditory seviroscope we'll be building."
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Man's habits stuck and he's not happy about it.

DragonParadox said:
Well now that explains those runesmiths turning to stone when the hold went into the Aethyr, they tried to do magic to reverse the daemon's work, actual proper wizard's magic. When that did not work it was left to the apprentices they considered too young for such a desperate gamble to teach the runkit and then take the oath.
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Artemis1992 said:
Kinda ironic I guess, that it was so technically easy from the outside (just give the Stop command to the next Waystone) to break out Vlag, but so desperate from the inside.

Like being locked in a vault that has a simple doorknob on the outside, but nothing on the inside.
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fictionfan said:
So now we might well have the greatest collection of research notes (outside the chaos dwarfs) on how a dwarf would go about using the winds directly if they were desperate or crazy enough to try.

I expect that the experiments that turned them to stone actually had a chance of working. Shame that they didn't.
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They got really desperate about breaking out and their experiments got recorded and are bleeding edge save for chaos dwarfs.

Boney said:
Johann knows Mathilde has a different relationship with luck than most people do.
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At this point I think he's aware that Mathilde is in really good with Ranald.

Asheram said:
Ah yes, I suspect that Vlag would be very hesitant to disrespect Mathilde and her profession after freeing Vlag with the protector coin in place. It might even be that they excised any such references in their language and refuse to use them in honour of her.
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Pretty much.

pucflek said:
Okay, so we have come across all these, Ranald is Loec is Qu'aph is whatever, but i think here we saw some glimpse of truth. We assumed they are all facets of same being, and my guess here is that, well, that is right, but actually no.

Some gods may have started as terminals for old ones to act through and like, why not just take entire subset of them. So my guess is this. The trickster archetype god was like a glove, with Ranald, Loec, Qu'aph and however many gods being its fingers. And there was one Old One who used this glove to interact with mortals. But when chaos came, it just yanked the glove off, or cut off the fingers, whatever. Point is, the same essence still fills the "fingers" of the glove, despite there being no real overarching brain (or maybe yes, who knows, Old Ones are beings of such onthological mass that whatever scraps got left behind are still One Mind) anymore.

That's how you get three or more gods that are all very similar, feel the same to some of the best senses that can gauge so, and yet differ. Because Qu'aph was entirely comfortable with human sacrifice, demanded it even, and Loec has entire subset of warriors, but Mathilde is pretty unique in being primarily ranaldian that wars. Idk. Prolly wrong but there might be something to it?
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Interesting theory.

[X] Spinning Lyre
 
Won't this increase the number of wizard kids burned? If the notes change in accordance with the presence of magic and we teach them that it means danger this could end badly. If their mere presence causes the instrument to act up then it's fine.
 
Eisenhelm said:
Won't this increase the number of wizard kids burned? If the notes change in accordance with the presence of magic and we teach them that it means danger this could end badly. If their mere presence causes the instrument to act up then it's fine.
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Presumably since the insturment is going to be called holy they are going to be given to more trustworthy people, making sure that they know what to do if they find wizard kids is easy enough. If they go around seeking kids to burn it would be visible enough to take away their tool.

At any rate I don't thing insturments can detect wizards unless they are actively casting spells.

Might catch invisible people tough, which would make Eshin lives harder.
Edit: Eshin'ed by the QM.
 
Boney said:
The problem is, they had thought about what I might be after and come to a completely different conclusion, that I was there to solve the question of the property of their Runesmiths Guild."
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Not the first time someone has seen Mathilde turn up and immediately jumped to a conclusion far beyond her actual intent.
I fondly recall the time she first learned she was the Dämmerlichtreiter.

"Kislev's Ice Witches are dominant, and they see users of magics other than that of the Hag Witches as guests in their lands at best, to be cautiously watched and not allowed to outstay their welcome. The Fire Spire was able to exist in Praag because the Ice Witches avoided the city, not because they had any kind of agreement with it."
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Some parallels to how most Wizards are seen in the Karaz Ankor.

And until the day when they take shared possession, there will be an extremely well-defended chamber deep in your library that not even you can enter.
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Another new concept for the We: An echo that the holder isn't allowed to hear.

but a great deal of Khazalid notes in the margins that, from the brief skims you've been able to give them, would raise a great deal of questions that it is now your responsibility to not answer.
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Another big reason to never answer any questions is that these notes likely give insight into runic knowledge that a more traditional runesmith clan would be very unhappy with anyone outside the clan knowing.

"We could get lucky."

Johann gives you a searching look. "Do you know something I don't and you're being coy about it, or do you mean the other thing?"
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Lucky does take on a rather different context when you are best buds with a god of luck.
Although I am amused that even after all this time Johann cannot tell when Mathilde is being wizardly mysterious to cover ignorance.

Side note: How does a man that sees only with his soul give someone a searching look?

You wonder if it's worth pursuing more information on the subject with an eye to future papers - it's somewhat outside your usual specialities, but the pleasing symmetry of the names of the two conceptual roads begs to be elaborated further upon.
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And what, pray tell, would Mathilde say if asked what her 'usual specialities' are? To all indications she writes about whatever odd thing she happens to stumble across.

If you put in enough time, effort, and perhaps the assistance of someone as knowledgeable about Beastmen as you are about Greenskins, you could probably keep the flames stoked for long enough to exterminate one side and greatly weaken the other, but that would be a far greater investment of time and effort than you've slated for the task at hand.
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Recovering the legacies lost within the Forest of Gloom would take your full attention for more time than you can spare from the Waystone Project, but would be about much more than one specific rock.
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There will always be paths we haven't the time to walk.

Eike pipes up
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Good to see that she has become confident enough to actively take part in the discussion.

[X] Spinning Lyre
[X] Portativ
 
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I'm delighted that getting Vlag's books was so fortuitously helpful that they took on the burden of the copying themselves. More magic books would have been worth the 2nd AP, but we've got such a backlog of libraries we've copying rights to already. And it didn't cost us any boons either!
 
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