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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Alratan said:
I suppose technically they already are doing that, as the Stone Flower is a High Magic enchantment, so the precedent has been set.
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Very true. And the Jade component of the waystones proves that the Colleges have useful and unique capabilities to offer in return. Kind of a shame we didn't go with the Light College's cantrip solution to the Waystone enchantment itself, but I get the reasoning that the Light College has a more limited availability of capable wizards than other colleges and it would likely prove to be a bottleneck for widespread production. Though it does mean that future waystone models could employ that method without tapping existing labor pools for that component.

And I have to hand it to the Grey Lords for the Stone Flower itself. While not exceptional in its own right, it replicates the hardest-to-reproduce part of Golden Age waystones with a very simple High Magic enchantment and no precious metals, all without any loss in capability. In terms of mass production without sacrificing capability--and the fact that Ulthuan hadn't figured out a replacement component for the capstone themselves in all this time--it's an elegant solution worthy of their name.

Eltharion is probably doing his version of basking in vindication that the Waystone Project has outright produced wholly new, fully-functional waystones that can be made in numbers using means readily within Ulthuan's grasp, and affordably. I'd bet that a version using a non-dwarven rune is already in the works to be made solely by Ulthuan to shore up Yvresse's damaged network. And in his eyes, it cost Ulthuan nothing important anyway other than leverage best used for this exact purpose.
 
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SaltyWaffles said:
Very true. And the Jade component of the waystones proves that the Colleges have useful and unique capabilities to offer in return. Kind of a shame we didn't go with the Light College's cantrip solution to the Waystone enchantment itself, but I get the reasoning that the Light College has a more limited availability of capable wizards than other colleges and it would likely prove to be a bottleneck for widespread production. Though it does mean that future waystone models could employ that method without tapping existing labor pools for that component.
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Do you mean this?
Boney said:
Speaking of enchanters, Egrimm and Elrisse found enough components, cantrips, and theoretical writings in the Light Order's libraries that a purely human-sourced enchantment could be cobbled together. While the resultant enchantment would be simpler than that designed by the Grey Lords, it would also make the Colleges directly implicated in the creation of Dhar. It is also dependent on the properties of Hysh specifically, so it would rule out seven out of eight Collegiate enchanters.
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Because excellent rolls kind of nullified all of its advantages:
Boney said:
The Grey Lords had delivered a set of enchanting instructions so complex and interwoven that they would have had reason to believe that human enchanters would be capable of no more than slavishly following them. Overwhelming smugness exuded from Elrisse and Egrimm as they reported to you in private that the Grey Lords were severely mistaken. Deep within the pyramid of the Light Order, the thaumaturgic schematics were scrutinized not just by their enchanters, but also by their mathematicians, philosophers, cipherers, and steganographers, as well as anyone else interested in locking horns with minds that predate the Empire. Under the collective scrutiny of minds honed by finding hidden messages in correspondence and hidden mental traps in benign-seeming books and pamphlets, the enchantment schema has been unravelled, studied, and recompiled in ways more conducive to the Light Order's enchantment paradigm. The insights gleaned from the process are making their way through the Colleges' publication process, though it remains to be seen whether anything of practical use could come of it, or if it is merely of academic interest as an insight into a specific subset of Elven enchantment techniques. Also produced is a block of shiny white marble, into which the enchantment and its material components have somehow been embedded while leaving the stone intact.

[Pharological Perspective on Recursion in Elven Enchantment, 2491. Subject: Rare, +1. Insight: Revolutionary, +2. Delivery: Competent, +0. Very Exotic, +2. Varied, +1. Contributor, -3. Classified, -2. Total: +1.]
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And then the Jades took a look at it too:
Boney said:
Monitoring their work with careful discretion, you're unsurprised to learn that the Jades are hesitant to turn over the details of their side of things, but as the Lights are working with someone else's secrets they don't hesitate. This brings a new set of eyes onto the vivisected enchantment and before long another paper is in the works and the Jades are able to make the necessary corrections on their side to bring the two components into harmony. You don't have time right now to give the papers more than a skim, but what you do manage to grasp from them convinces you that it could be wise to find the time in the near future.

[Agrological Perspective on Recursion in Elven Enchantment, 2491. Subject: Rare, +1. Insight: Agreeing, +1. Delivery: Competent, +0. Very Exotic, +2. Varied, +1. Contributor, -3. Classified, -2. Total: +0 (rounded to +1).]
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So, essentially, we now have the advantage of using an elven-sourced enchantment (compatibility with enchanting done by any Wind, no direct implication in the creation fo Dhar) and the advantage of the Light Order method (lower difficulty when done by Lights). Plus, smugness points at taking the Grey Lords' blackboxed work and publishing a paper going "here is exactly how it works and also some notes on how we were able to improve it," which as we all know is the most precious coin of all.
 
Andres said:
Why was Teclis able to partially translate the Talastein Carvings? If he was unable to translate the carvings, that could make sense, since Ulthuan is far away. If he was able to, that could also make sense, since the Belthani helped out the waystone project with oghams. But him only being partially able? That implies the Belthani weren't important to Ulthuan in ancient times but are important to them now, and I don't know why.
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I vaguely recall this line of questioning is how Mathilde reasoned out the existence of the Old One's language. As in Teclis as wide learned as he is, has approximately zero reason to know the language of a human tribe across the globe from Ulthuan. This was implied to be an on the spot translation--thus no time to look stuff up--and he probably did not have the time to learn a whole ass dead language during his time in the Old War (fighting the Everchosen, making the colleges, etc). These fact imply somehow a dead language from a human tribe with zero practical way of contact with the elves shares enough linguistic similarities with a language Teclis already knew for him to derive meaning immediately.

I think missing a few steps, but from the above Mathilde ultimately intuited the existence of the Old One's language as a shared root between Anoqeyan and various other old and/or magical langauges.
 
WFRP 4e: Winds of Magic, Lore of Light, page 65, Perfect Comprehension spell
Perfect Comprehension
CN: 5
Range: You
Target: You
Duration: Willpower Bonus minutes
You can understand any language clearly, regardless of whether it's being spoken, written, or communicated in another way. You can also understand coded or garbled communications. The GM can make exceptions for ancient, obscure languages such as those of the Slann or Old Ones. Dark Tongue is also impossible to understand using the spell. You cannot communicate in unknown languages, only understand them.
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Maybe Teclis used something like this spell? The Belthani's language is ancient and obscure, but not as ancient and obscure as Old One tongue, so maybe this spell provides a partial translation.

Hm, I just had a thought that canon dwarves may be able to translate stuff like that because of the Belthani refugees they took in, but probably not. I imagine writing would've been stuff that the druids did, so not something the dwarves would need or want to know.
 
The funny thing is slaan arguably isn't really ancient or obscure. Its origin is old, but it's a living language with a fair few active speakers. Though the fact that Dark Tongue is also on the banlist may imply that the problem is less age and more how inherently magical the language is.

Anyway, I wouldn't feel confident saying either that Teclis can't solve a theoretically magicable problem with magic or that he can't solve a theoretically bookable problem with book, he's real good at both.
 
I'd like to make an argument against the skyship. Or rather, make the case that the skyship might seem like a cool thing to have, but in practice might not be something that we want.

First thing first, I do think a skyship would be cool and useful. Being able to explore foreign locales much easier and travelling with incredible style. Not to mention the carrying capacity and being a floating artillery platform.

However, there is a cost. The ship will be an important investment of time both in the quest and outside of it (at least any ship research boney does might be dual purpose considering the other quest lol). At the very least I'd expect a turn for completion and an AP to participate at the minimum. The ship will need to be built or purchased, modified, enchanted and finally but not the lest, crewed. There is also the opportunity cost of whatever else we might do with our boon which might be useful to us immediately for our current goals or as a general upgrade to our survivability or knowledge.

And thereein lies the crux of the issue in my opinion. How useful the skyship really will be? Sure we can explore foreign locales, but we've had an invitation to shadowelves land since forever and haven't used it. Let's be honest, it wasn't the lack of transportation that stopped us from visiting/going to places like Nehekhara, Nagarythe, Lustria, etc. As for style, I'd argue that from dwarven gyrocarriage to skyship, the change is more horizontal than vertical, both ways of transportation are cool.

I admit that, myself, I'm more excited about actions we can actually take next turn : build another waystone prototype, study waystone enchantements, visit Nagarythe, learn battle magic, learn nehekaran, install the Barak Varr Nexus, etc. Sure, a flying ship would be cool, but the Armor would be just as useful to our current goals (if not more) and would allow us to continue on our momentum.
 
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Koguyra said:
Counterpoint: we can use it to eventually reach Cathay and see what's up over yonder. After everything is comparatively settled at least.
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When have we ever just gone somewhere just for the heck of it, especially a far away destination that would be an adventure to get to, even with a skyship.

When Mathilde goes somewhere exotic, she has a reason (K8P, Chaos Wastes, Laurelorn) and if she has a reason, it's not the lack of a Skyship that would stop Mathilde from going to far away lands. We don't currently own a skyship and still have/have had to option to go to Ulthuan, Nehekhara, Lustria, etc.
 
Best as I can tell, about a third of the quest are upset that the Waystone Project has been too boring for them and are looking to lock us into "adventuring full time, rest of the quest" by way of having a super expensive thing to demand be justified in the plans constantly.
 
Godwinson said:
Best as I can tell, about a third of the quest are upset that the Waystone Project has been too boring for them and are looking to lock us into "adventuring full time, rest of the quest" by way of having a super expensive thing to demand be justified in the plans constantly.
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To be honest, both the armor and the sky ship could be argued to be something which encourages us to go on more adventures - and if your reasoning is correct that means a large portion of the voters of the quest want to be going on adventures.

Personally I want the armor because I just think it's cooler than a skyship, feels more in line with Mathilde as a character so far, and a skyship won't be useful for most of the adventures we're going to be going on, what with most of the being inside of mountains or in incrediblely hostile terrain covered in trees that limit our line of sight. But I think most people who want the skyship want it because it is cool, not because of some desire to demand the quest go in a certain direction.
 
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Sparsebeard said:
At the very least I'd expect a turn for completion and an AP to participate at the minimum. The ship will need to be built or purchased, modified, enchanted and finally but not the lest, crewed.
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Waiting is not a problem as far as I'm concerned. And we don't have to spend that AP, that's a purely optional thing that someone brought up in regards to seeing more about high-end enchantments and Boney said 'sure'.

Like, we're asking the Colleges to make this for us. We absolutely don't need to do any of the steps ourselves unless we want to, and of them, the one that's only really worthwhile to do something with is the enchantment part.

Sparsebeard said:
There is also the opportunity cost of whatever else we might do with our boon which might be useful to us immediately for our current goals or as a general upgrade to our survivability or knowledge.
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Mathilde's survivability is already pretty high as far as I'm concerned. Like, the Armor is cool and I won't be bummed out if it happens to win, but Mathilde's not such a dedicated fighter that I feel like we need the best armor known to the Empire. We've been so busy with the Project that we've hardly gone on adventures lately!

As for knowledge, I've been approval voting Plan Pickle Requests mk IV all this time. I am not opposed to getting knowledge in various forms, to finding out general stuff about the Colleges and also about how Hexensohn died. But people seem to prefer the Wanderer, so I can't object to that.

If I had to rank my choices, they'd be somewhere along the lines of Prismatic Wanderer = Pickle Requests > Armor of Von Tarnus. If Pickle Requests surpassed the Armor, I would give serious thought to throwing my weight behind it.

To me, the short of it is: airships are cool, both for travel and for war. I did not see a need to include Research in there because we already have some very good labs and I don't think a lab is all that fitting in a vehicle aesthetics-wise. And I like the idea of the ship serving as a tool to reclaim fallen nexuses from enemy hands, to be used when war next comes to the Empire, or to be used as the base of an expedition somewhere really far away.
 
A blemish marks Cruor Maraigh's otherwise perfect skin. Praying to Khaine, god of murder, she has learned that only the blood of heroes will revitalise her pristine beauty. She has led an expedition from Naggaroth across the Great Ocean to kidnap the folk of Reikland, in whose veins runs the blood of the ultimate hero: Sigmar.
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Cruor Marigh: Lord Khaine, I have devoted myself to you unerringly. I have murdered thousands in your name across all the coasts of the world, and dozens of would-be heroes besides. I have only one wish, to free myself of this single blemish upon my skin. How may I accomplish this?
Khaine: More murder.
Cruor Marigh: Lord Khaine, if I may speak out of turn, I think murder might not be the right answer this time. I only got this scar because someone got in a lucky shot. I think more violence could only result in more such lucky shots and more blemishes rather than fewer...
Khaine: Child, who is it that you are praying to?
Cruor Marigh: I'm praying to you, Lord Khaine.
Khaine: And what am I the god of?
Cruor Marigh: The god of murder?
Khaine: And in your long, violent life, what is the one thing you have always turned to in order to get what you want?
Cruor Marigh: Murder?
Khaine: Exactly. And this will be no different. Go and murder.
Cruor Marigh: But Lord Khaine! As I said, I have murdered thousands across all the seas and the coasts of the world, and dozens of would-be heroes besides. None of this has done anything to remove my scar. What more can I do?
Khaine: Only the coastal areas? Then go find an inland area and murder in my name there. Wait, what was that foreign hero who achieved godhood called again? The one whose worshippers live inland? Grimnir? Sigmar? One of them. Go murder their followers and progeny.
Cruor Marigh: Begging your pardon Lord Khaine, but I've already killed dozens of the followers of Grimnir. I'm not sure it even counts as murder to be honest. I mean, they run into battle naked. I think getting killed needlessly might sort of be their entire thing.
Khaine: Fine. Sigmar then.
 
Curtains said:
Cruor Marigh: Begging your pardon Lord Khaine, but I've already killed dozens of the followers of Grimnir. I'm not sure it even counts as murder to be honest. I mean, they run into battle naked. I think getting killed needlessly might sort of be their entire thing.
Khaine: Fine. Sigmar then.
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Cruor Marigh: Begging your pardon again Lord Khaine, I just wanted to be sure about something. Killing these barely clothed, half-dead followers of Sigmar called "Flagellants" does also count as murder, right? They're even worse than the followers of Grimnir!
Khaine: I care not from whenc— er, *cough*, yeah, sure, that counts as murder.
 
I'm still in favor of using our other boons to create and outfit a knightly order based in the flying warship, but alas, it wasn't in the cards this time.
 
Godwinson said:
are looking to lock us into "adventuring full time, rest of the quest" by way of having a super expensive thing to demand be justified in the plans constantly.
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Setting aside the question of how many voters would actually be thinking that plan...

It's a terrible plan. We absolutely will stick horribly expensive things under the mattress and forget about them rather than doing anything to justify the expense, and have in fact done so previously in quest.
 
I would also have to give serious thought to dropping my armor vote if Pickles plan got those eleven votes. Pickle requests has been my favorite vote this entire time! I would just feel so much better with what I previously wanted to do in the quest before the vote, If we got metric tons of money and favor while saving a truckload of AP on things we thought we'd have to do ourselves. Getting a mile of slack on the tug of war knife edge of planvoting.

That's not even mentioning finding out what the fuck was up with Hexensohn what was your deal man-
 
AsuraAtlas said:
I would also have to give serious thought to dropping my armor vote if Pickles plan got those eleven votes. Pickle requests has been my favorite vote this entire time! I would just feel so much better with what I previously wanted to do in the quest before the vote, If we got metric tons of money and favor while saving a truckload of AP on things we thought we'd have to do ourselves. Getting a mile of slack on the tug of war knife edge of planvoting.

That's not even mentioning finding out what the fuck was up with Hexensohn what was your deal man-
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Y'know what, bet.

[X] Plan: The Prismatic Wanderer
[X] Plan Pickle Requests mk IV

If we can get (and keep) the request pile over top of the armor I'd be on board to ditch the airship for it - I just don't care for the idea of permanently locking down a unique relic that we don't really need.
 
I feel that Pickle Requests isn't quite getting the bang for our buck, but there are some good things in there and I still prefer it over the armour.

The tower and the elector countess are still my favourite options, though.

[x] Plan Pickle Requests mk IV
[x] Plan Tower of Doom! and Research!
[x] Elector-Countess
 
I prefer not knowing about Hexensohn. Mainly because my theory is "he thought the original Liber Mortis was in that catacomb/tomb" but then it turns out that Abelhelm, the guy he thought was there for nefarious purposes, had it the whole time. At once point he was like 3 feet away from it and didn't even suspect. If that's not the truth, I don't want to hear it.
 
xamaplak said:
I prefer not knowing about Hexensohn. Mainly because my theory is "he thought the original Liber Mortis was in that catacomb/tomb" but then it turns out that Abelhelm, the guy he thought was there for nefarious purposes, had it the whole time. At once point he was like 3 feet away from it and didn't even suspect. If that's not the truth, I don't want to hear it.
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Well, this WASN'T my position until this very moment, but now it sure as hell is.
 
[X] Armor of von Tarnus
[X] Elector-Countess
[X] Plan Tower of Doom! and Research!
[X] Plan The Looming Phantasmic Tower
[X] Plan : Sky Citadel
[X] Plan Pickle Requests mk IV

I guess I can add the requests to my approval voting too.

Parabola said:
Waiting is not a problem as far as I'm concerned. And we don't have to spend that AP, that's a purely optional thing that someone brought up in regards to seeing more about high-end enchantments and Boney said 'sure'.

Like, we're asking the Colleges to make this for us. We absolutely don't need to do any of the steps ourselves unless we want to, and of them, the one that's only really worthwhile to do something with is the enchantment part.
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I feel that even if we DON'T invest an AP in the ship (and realisticly we will spend an AP on our new shiny toy for sure), we definitely are going to spend AT LEAST a few updates on customisation, crewing annd other choices.

And that's not counting the time Boney will have to spend on research and deciding how to implement our choice to get a frikin flying ship. If we had a real plan on why we want a skyship it would be one thing, but we don't really.

Not to mention that between the Skyship Proposal and now, Boney has started a whole new quest based around sending ships around the world to gather remote lore. Hell, we even got offered a flying ship hovercraft in "It Belongs to a Museum", so personally, much of the temptation to travel to remote location in DL has been sated. Now, I get that some people don't like the arguement, but considering both quest are concurrent, by the same author and in the same-ish universe, it think it's fair to make the argument.
 
This is why the tower is the superior option. It's not a tool for travelling, it's a mobile headquarters that we bring with us when we start a new arc. We invested resources in the Underground Palace into a wizard workshop, we invested resources into K8P to make a wizard workshop, and we invested resources into the waystone project to make yet another a wizard workshop.

If we go to Lustria or Nehekara or Kislev or Reikland or anywhere, we're probably going to need a workshop nearby. Why not just bring one with us?
 
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