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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Nurgle said:
I would actually like to look into titanium more, because while it can be made into a better waystone . It is also metal that can conduct magic. Magic armor that can be produced would be incredibly valuable.
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Right! As i have been going forward in updates from the beginning, dwarves have discovered Electrometallurgy (thought currently likely mostly experimental). Now, the method for making Titanium is pretty far on the complicated end of scale for even that as far as we (and by we i mean current real world humanity) are currently aware, but they might get there in couple of centuries! Its the same update where Mathilde introduces Max to Dwarves.
 
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pucflek said:
Well yes, and you never will. But if you have enough favour with both, you can offer your reputation as a fulcrum that lets the two economies interact.

There's probably going to be fucked up exchange rate, there is no way someone like Kragg or even just a normal conservative runelord would ever buy a trinket from a wizard (or sell one to them) but there may be a way forward. Won't know until you try.
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There are plenty of opportunities for stuff that's useful for a karak that wizards can produce that runesmiths can't (or can't do economically). For example, charging up a Rune by use of eight mono-wind journeymen (AV exists, but in rare supply, certainly less than the demand for it)--and the only other way to charge them up without AV is to go to a Storm of Magic, which is difficult, dangerous, time-consuming, and unpredictable.

Hell, Belegar paid a lot to get the Colleges to help made the Eye of Gazul, and it's the shining jewel in the crown of Runesmith-College synergy.

You'd only have to pitch it as combining the strengths of both without combining their limitations, and consider the possibilities.
pucflek said:
Seed of Regrowth must not pass into hands of enemy. Putting it on a journeyman that will possibly wander the breadth of the world seems like an error of judgement.
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We got the Seed of Regrowth as a brand new magister, off to go adventuring in the Badlands. Into a place infested with several clans of skaven. We put the Seed at more risk going up against Alkharad and those Chaos-worshipping Norscans than Eike is likely to find journeying. After all, it's not just an item that you can use easily, you have to know the specific mneumonics (and that it even uses mneumonics) to activate a charge, to recharge from another being or corpse, and how to transplant it into yourself.

Eike is already approaching the level of fighter that Mathilde was as a Journeywoman, and we should be able to get her the rest of the way there before she goes on her journey.

More than that, the Colleges already have a policy that it's good to give journeymen a leg up so that they're more likely to survive their journeys, what with the Bright College handing out enchanted rings made by Teclis to new journeymen for that very purpose.

Had Mathilde had the Seed as a journeywoman, she wouldn't have almost died at Drakenhof and she could have saved Abelhelm with ease.
 
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SaltyWaffles said:
We got the Seed of Regrowth as a brand new magister, off to go adventuring in the Badlands. Into a place infested with several clans of skaven. We put the Seed at more risk going up against Alkharad and those Chaos-worshipping Norscans than Eike is likely to find journeying. After all, it's not just an item that you can use easily, you have to know the specific mneumonics (and that it even uses mneumonics) to activate a charge, to recharge from another being or corpse, and how to transplant it into yourself.

Eike is already approaching the level of fighter that Mathilde was as a Journeywoman, and we should be able to get her the rest of the way there before she goes on her journey.

More than that, the Colleges already have a policy that it's good to give journeymen a leg up so that they're more likely to survive their journeys, what with the Bright College handing out enchanted rings made by Teclis to new journeymen for that very purpose.

Had Mathilde had the Seed as a journeywoman, she wouldn't have almost died at Drakenhof and she could have saved Abelhelm with ease.
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No, see, i get all these points and i can't disagree because i don't want Eike to die either, but on the other hand i don't want to rock the boat on mage tradition either because Boney's had pretty good explanation of track record of "yeah some of this maybe touch dumb, but lot of it happens for a pretty good reason".

There is a world of difference between Apprentice, Journeyman and Magister, and that difference is how much institutional trust one is afforded, and it matters not one whit if the magister is fresh because that just means that the assessment did not get out of date. I'm not gonna rock the boat by giving a goddamn journeyman without any supervision access to battlemagic and all that it entails because i quite simply do not trust my judgement that much.

Maybe Collegiate standards should be relaxed. But they work so far.

EDIT: And to completely contradict the last line, i trust Eike to not die even without such blatant favoritism.
 
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It's worth remembering that the Seed of Regrowth is very powerful not just because it's a Battle Magic spell, but because the rolls involved in making it were much better than the average. That, and we got it at 9 favors instead of the 12 we'd have to spend nowadays.

If we tried to get another Seed of Regrowth, we would not be guaranteed to get something as good, and we also wouldn't have the factors of 'well she did take down Castle Drakenhof', 'she just graduated to Magister' and 'she spent almost all her College Favor at the time on this' narratively allowing it.

It'd be more in-line with the College's principles to give a Journey(wo)man an enchanted item with Earth Blood (the Moderately Complicated spell, not the Battle Magic spell of the same name).
 
SaltyWaffles said:
There are plenty of opportunities for stuff that's useful for a karak that wizards can produce that runesmiths can't (or can't do economically). For example, charging up a Rune by use of eight mono-wind journeymen (AV exists, but in rare supply, certainly less than the demand for it)--and the only other way to charge them up without AV is to go to a Storm of Magic, which is difficult, dangerous, time-consuming, and unpredictable.

Hell, Belegar paid a lot to get the Colleges to help made the Eye of Gazul, and it's the shining jewel in the crown of Runesmith-College synergy.

You'd only have to pitch it as combining the strengths of both without combining their limitations, and consider the possibilities.
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Also to this, that's sort of what i mean. I've no notion of what they will think of we actually manage to bridge that gap.

I imagine it could be cool. It could also tarnish our reputation forever.... But it could be COOL. Hard decisions.

But what i do not doubt is that someone would think of something, in either colleges or in the runesmithing guild, that could be synergized. Or maybe the finding out process would be the outcome which, also good! Maybe even better? That way our reputation won't break unless it goes really disastrously despite rigorous testing!

But yeah costs are not the issue here. They can figure them out. Favours transaction rate, actual payment,... not our problem. We would only be faciliator.
 
Boney said:
If they took so many casualties that they still had a net loss in population even after accounting for the influx of refugees from not just the fallen Holds but also the innumerable minor outposts that must surely have existed in a safer, Underway-linked, pre-Skaven, possibly even pre-Night Goblin world, then that's an extinction event and whatever emerged afterwards should have been completely unrecognizable. My take is that the surviving Karaks might actually have come out of the TIme of Woes with more population than they started with, and the decline only set in afterwards. I think the core tragedy of the Dwarves is that they are able to withstand the greatest of hardships but not the slow grind of a status quo where things are more or less okay but not as good as they used to be and they probably never will be again. They win the war but lose the peace. There's a visceral tragedy in closing a third of the Hold after a brutal war, but doing so one hall at a time every generation no matter what you do because nobody is able to believe that the world their children will inherit will be anything but worse than the one they were born into is a more Dwarven kind of horrible.
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I kind of don't remember the distance in time between the end of the Time of Woes and the beginning of the Time of Reckoning. I could look it up on the wiki, but I just came back from a party and probably shouldn't be replying in the first place. Still, the way Karaz-a-Karak is described as feeling downright empty must either mean it was overbuilt from the get go or that the slow decline wasn't all that slow.
 
Rafin said:
I kind of don't remember the distance in time between the end of the Time of Woes and the beginning of the Time of Reckoning. I could look it up on the wiki, but I just came back from a party and probably shouldn't be replying in the first place. Still, the way Karaz-a-Karak is described as feeling downright empty must either mean it was overbuilt from the get go or that the slow decline wasn't all that slow.
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It really does not. There is a difference of three millenia. In three millenia, Europe depopulated and repopulated multiple times over. The black death reduced it to a third of its population and it achieved multiple times that in hundred years.

Its best to assume Dwarven Karaks were built with comfortable leeway great enough that expansion in area once limit was hit would not affect expansion in population due to domicile shortage, but not so great that it would completely confuse potential estimation of their population count. The various holds that never got enough breathing room or were wiped out before census or what have you are probably much bigger tick on pop miscalculation.
 
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pucflek said:
Its best to assume Dwarven Karaks were built with comfortable leeway great enough that expansion in area once limit was hit would affect expansion in population due to domicile shortage but not so great that it would completely confuse potential estimation of their population count. The various holds that never got enough breathing room or were wiped out before census or what have you are probably much bigger tick on pop miscalculation.
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I doubt that Karaks were built from the beginning like that.

I'd expect a Karak was a process- as the population grew, new tunnels would be dug, with all minerals and valuables mined and the tunnels then turned into new halls and homes.

Of course, it's been a very long time since a Karak needed to carve new halls rather than close them.
 
Mopman43 said:
I doubt that Karaks were built from the beginning like that.

I'd expect a Karak was a process- as the population grew, new tunnels would be dug, with all minerals and valuables mined and the tunnels then turned into new halls and homes.
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I must've phrased myself very confusingly because thats kinda what i meant. Any given Karak would've always had enough place to welcome new population, but not too much as not to leave areas potentially unsettled (as threats grew and karaks got breached, this would've changed to unguarded, which is not impactful to Old Holds Volume but is to holds in idk, The Vaults). It would be just about enough space to settle people shortly while having time to carve yet more from the mountain for future purposes.

EDIT: Just my guess. If the total maximum pop of KaK is a million, then i would expect the maximum population of it during its absolute peak was like 9.5 million or something, that kind of deal. And if they got ten thousand beyond, they would've cleared 10K more worth of rooms while that was happening.
 
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Gavin Prince said:
A lot of the Elfcation plans came with setting up new book-buying contacts in Lothern, which would open up the option of getting the Asur material on topics that aren't covered by the Library of Mournings. Which is, despite the Library's size, probably quite a chunk of stuff given that a lot has happened outside of the forest in the last few thousand years.
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That would be good - we've got a decent chunk of Asur books on subjects we care about via the Eonir already though, so I'd like to get another country as well.

picklepikkl said:
Sure, but that's a KAU action, not a purchase action. We can only purchase-round stuff from places we actually have contacts.


Don't forget this. We invested a while back into everything we could about Beastmen and herdstone-related topics because we figured it was likely to come up. Hasn't yet, but.

I'm more interested in getting Tylos/Strygos/something, but finishing out the Winds is fine too.
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Yeah, I meant as a KAU action. I'll probably vote for finishing out the Winds this turn.
 
Angelform said:
It would be useful if we wanted to go explore Lustria.
Examine some gen one Waystones. Interview some Slann. Track down some lost colonial Dwarves. Collect some dino eggs.
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I feel like the problem with a flying ship is that it is incredibly easy for a ship to be shot of the sky when isolated. The same is true of a gyrocarriage as well, but buying a bigger thing to get shot out of the sky seems like a bad investment.

We could use the favors we get to get the start on a magical infrastructure project. Its been mentioned that we wanted to use the Vlag boon to start building teleportation towers, If we could use our Morb boon on it as well, then we could get the entirety of the colleges of magic and the dwarf hold of vlag helping us make some incredibly powerful magical towers.
 
French Cowboy said:
I feel like the problem with a flying ship is that it is incredibly easy for a ship to be shot of the sky when isolated. The same is true of a gyrocarriage as well, but buying a bigger thing to get shot out of the sky seems like a bad investment.
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Which is why neither is intended for combat. The gyrocarriage is for long-distance personal transport, the theoretical flying ship would be for exploration. For going to extremely hostile but not militarily aggressive places to poke around. If either are getting shot at we have done something wrong or someone has come to assassinate Mathilde specifically.

Flying over a Dawi Zharr or Clan Skryre fortress would be dangerous. But places with meaningful anti-air weapons are actually really rare. And while there are mages that could swat an airship, any that can do that can just as easily splatter a non-flying expedition. Which they would also be vastly more capable of catching.

Plus we must consider that this would be an alternative to walking around Lustria. AKA the part of the Deathworld that the inhabitants consider to be a Deathworld. All the worst parts of every rainforest added to all the worst parts of Australia then multiplied by dinosaurs and magic. Expeditions are considered lucky if anyone comes back alive.

We could use the favors we get to get the start on a magical infrastructure project. Its been mentioned that we wanted to use the Vlag boon to start building teleportation towers, If we could use our Morb boon on it as well, then we could get the entirety of the colleges of magic and the dwarf hold of vlag helping us make some incredibly powerful magical towers.
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To what purpose? What would we use teleport towers to do that the gyrocarriage isn't already doing? What tangible, narratively significant, benefit would it be to anyone we care about for Mathilde to have a network of teleport towers? Ones that maybe 50 other people could use, all of whom have other options for high-speed travel?

The Eye of Gazul was relevant to our job. The Rite of Way bridge through the Schadensumpf is relevant to our job. KAU is relevant to our interests and helps us with any and all jobs.
We make infrastructure because it serves a purpose. Not just because we have money and favours burning a hole in our pocket.
 
Just pour favor into BÓÓK that's what the library is for.
Or a statue, Mathilde is lacking in statues of herself.
A statue. "Dedicated to Mathilde's big orbs." Definitely.

I fully expect the reveal attendees being kitted with full anti Tzeentch wear cos Mathilde acting suss.
 
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Angelform said:
Which is why neither is intended for combat. The gyrocarriage is for long-distance personal transport, the theoretical flying ship would be for exploration. For going to extremely hostile but not militarily aggressive places to poke around. If either are getting shot at we have done something wrong or someone has come to assassinate Mathilde specifically.

Flying over a Dawi Zharr or Clan Skryre fortress would be dangerous. But places with meaningful anti-air weapons are actually really rare. And while there are mages that could swat an airship, any that can do that can just as easily splatter a non-flying expedition. Which they would also be vastly more capable of catching.

Plus we must consider that this would be an alternative to walking around Lustria. AKA the part of the Deathworld that the inhabitants consider to be a Deathworld. All the worst parts of every rainforest added to all the worst parts of Australia then multiplied by dinosaurs and magic. Expeditions are considered lucky if anyone comes back alive.

To what purpose? What would we use teleport towers to do that the gyrocarriage isn't already doing? What tangible, narratively significant, benefit would it be to anyone we care about for Mathilde to have a network of teleport towers? Ones that maybe 50 other people could use, all of whom have other options for high-speed travel?

The Eye of Gazul was relevant to our job. The Rite of Way bridge through the Schadensumpf is relevant to our job. KAU is relevant to our interests and helps us with any and all jobs.
We make infrastructure because it serves a purpose. Not just because we have money and favours burning a hole in our pocket.
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I figure any major settlement on Lustria is going to have some kind of antiair defenses given the massive dinosaurs that fly around there. My biggest concern with an airship is just that they're not very stealthy and they're not very agile. And most of the factions on Lustria have the sort of artillery you'd want to knock a ship out of the air.

What narrativly significant purpose do the canals serve? And where did you get the number 50? We're talking about using the power of the waystone network to create a network of teleportation across large sections of the empire. That would have massive narritive consequences. Transporting goods across long distances instantly is incredibly powerful and incredibly useful, and the ability to transport powerful heros across the empire in moments is huge. It means that if middenheim is under siege, then Altdorf can reinforce, it means that when pragg faces the next everchosen the armies of the empire can reinforce before he arrives.

Even if it was just wizards who could get around the empire more quickly, that would be huge. The transmission of information is incredibly powerful, and would let the empire react far more swiftly to threats, and allow news to propagate incredibly fast.

We made the KAU because we thought it would be fun, and we had a boon and money burning a hole in our pocket. There's precedent for burning transcendent boons on things which are just cool and help us and other a little bit.
 
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dpara said:
Just pour favor into BÓÓK that's what the library is for.
Or a statue, Mathilde is lacking in statues of herself.
A statue. "Dedicated to Mathilde's big orbs." Definitely.

I fully expect the reveal attendees being kitted with full anti Tzeentch wear cos Mathilde acting suss.
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Exchange the special orbs for one super special orb, so that we may ponder it.
 
If it's a perfect duplicate, they should be just as good. Instead Mathilde should wield all eight simultaneously, Killer Bee style to get that sweet +16 magic bonus.
 
Parabola said:
It'd be more in-line with the College's principles to give a Journey(wo)man an enchanted item with Earth Blood (the Moderately Complicated spell, not the Battle Magic spell of the same name).
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On that subject, let's not underestimate the value of some multi-wind enchanted spider silk armour. The most qualified person to equip her apprentice is in fact Mathilde.
 
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