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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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SaltyWaffles said:
Also supporting that is how a number of the Colleges name their wind after things less associated with color--the Bright College is a great example, but there's also Celestial, Jade, Amber, Amethyst, Light, and to a lesser extent Gold. The Bright College in particular, where it associates not with a color at all but brightness itself.
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And then there's the Grey College, which uses a colour because it is a much more benign word than literally anything else they could use.
 
Boney said:
Yes.
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Well, that's definitely going on the list. Out of curiosity, do the dwarves make longer-barreled versions with a scope for truly long-range shots, or at least longer-barreled rifle versions without a scope? I could see Rangers being interested in that sort of thing given their love of killing high value targets from afar, and bullets are a lot more lethal than a crossbow bolt from long range.

---

Looking back at our choice of Librarian for KAU, I'm caught between the genius of our choice and longing for what could have been had we chosen Cython. An Ice Dragon librarian is the kind of thing that puts your library on the map across the world, both because of how exotic it is and because of what your library must represent in terms of knowledge for it to be that appealing to an Ice Dragon to treat as their hoard. And in terms of protection, an Ice Dragon is the kind of obstacle that an army would balk at.

And, well, I doubt giant spiders are going to make it enticing for all but the bravest or most determined to visit KAU. On the bright side, their silk production means that they'll be able to easily secure a lucrative revenue stream for themselves and the library pretty much indefinitely.

It's a shame we couldn't recruit them both, with the We serving as staff and Cython a partner-chief librarian. Mathilde is only going to be around for so long, after all, and having Cython be the negotiating face of the library after Mathilde dies would have undoubtedly come with many benefits. Hm...perhaps at some point we'll go more hands-off with the library and try to convince Cython to take over our position in our stead? It might be easier to convince them to do it at that point, since the library would have a truly impressive breadth and depth (not to mention exotics) of knowledge within it and room for plenty more. There must be a great appeal in a hoard of more knowledge than Cython could collect on their own while sitting on an already-built system for securing a steady trickle of more as time goes on.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
And then there's the Grey College, which uses a colour because it is a much more benign word than literally anything else they could use.
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It's also a very fitting word. Even if the association of "grey" with "murky" "ambiguous" and "shady" is purely cultural, it fits way too well with the Grey Order beyond just being a color for the Wind.

The Grey Order teaches its students to think in shades of grey morally, ethically, practically, and dutifully. The Grey Order has to be the most loyal to the Empire because its very Wind is too well suited for doing shady things, so those shady things must be done only for the best of reasons. But importantly, "grey" includes the variation of "grey" activities, so it's not all assassination or theft or whatnot; it's a measured mix of what's necessary and effective when the circumstances call for it.

Note the distinction between the Grey College and Alkharad's Black College of Necromancy, too. Grey is dubious but acceptable depending on the context and circumstances; Black is straight-forbidden and for terrible ends anyway.

And at the end of the day, the Grey Order still operates in the light sometimes, too. It's not the Shadow Order, because they are still accountable and follow rules and principles. They still sometimes operate in plain sight because they may operate in grey areas sometimes but not all the time. They are not an absence of light, but a proper color.
 
Parabola said:
I feel like it uses Grey because they can have fun by alternating between spelling it as Grey or as Gray. Ambiguity made manifest in language :V
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Given the era we're in, there's good odds that the idea of 'proper spelling' seems foreign. Spelling didn't become standardized in European languages until mass printing & schooling and the invention of the dictionary.

Even people's own names was basically 'if it sounds right'. Shakespeare wrote his own name a different way in every record we have of it.
 
Hmmm, @Boney would there be a enchantment to effectively "bless" each bullet without us having to do so for magic damage. I remember that we can use magic weapon on them but need to do so individually. If so does Mathilde think we could enchant our marksdwarf pistol ourselves for silence and magical ammunition?
 
Before people get too into the weeds about the marksdwarf pistol, please let me remind you about the slots rules.
Boney said:
To streamline the existing de facto system of metaphysical limitations, I've codified a hard limit of how many enchantments Mathilde can carry upon her person.

Melee Weapon: Branulhune
Ranged Weapon: Runed Revolvers
Staff/Banner: Staff of Mistery
Protective: Robes of Aethyric Armour
Healing: Seed of Regrowth
Talisman: Belt of the Unshackled Mountain
Social: Ranald's Coin
Activated 1: Candle of Cleansing Radiance
Activated 2: Grounding Rod
Activated 3: Dragonflask

- The Weapon slots can each be filled with a matched pair of weapons, such as dual pistols or a sword and dagger. They must be intended to be used together.
- Any item that directly makes Mathilde more able to take a hit must be in Protective; something that protects her less directly can be in Protective or Talisman.
- No healing effects outside of the Healing slot.
- Activated refers to items that do not have a constant effect. These can include single-shot ranged weapons as these would be effectively identical to wands or rings enchanted with similar effects. These cannot automatically detect when they should be used. They need to be manually activated in some way.
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We cannot have both magic revolvers and magic marksdwarf pistol in our ranged slot. We would need to choose, or to follow the bolded text's guidance and replace one of our Activated slots (probably the Candle, because it's much less likely to be needed on short notice in the field) but doing so would entail that we could only use it once per combat. That said, once per combat would be more than the never times we've used it, so.
 
picklepikkl said:
Before people get too into the weeds about the marksdwarf pistol, please let me remind you about the slots rules.

We cannot have both magic revolvers and magic marksdwarf pistol in our ranged slot. We would need to choose, or to follow the bolded text's guidance and replace one of our Activated slots (probably the Candle, because it's much less likely to be needed on short notice in the field) but doing so would entail that we could only use it once per combat. That said, once per combat would be more than the never times we've used it, so.
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True, though I'd probably replace the grounding rod personally. When we need the grounding rod we generally also have some other options when we need the candle we generally need to go back home and get the candle.
 
picklepikkl said:
We cannot have both magic revolvers and magic marksdwarf pistol in our ranged slot. We would need to choose, or to follow the bolded text's guidance and replace one of our Activated slots (probably the Candle, because it's much less likely to be needed on short notice in the field) but doing so would entail that we could only use it once per combat. That said, once per combat would be more than the never times we've used it, so.
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The absence of Nurgle in the narrative thus far is a complete coincidence, and nothing to be paranoid about. :)
 
Derpmind said:
The absence of Nurgle in the narrative thus far is a complete coincidence, and nothing to be paranoid about. :)
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Tbf we initially got the candle for clan moulder or skryre (spelling might be wrong). nurgle was just tangentially on our radar. And then the whole skaven diaspora in k8ps collapsed into a black hole and mathy got to hand belegar all of it in an exciting afternoon.
 
Really not too keen on changing up our toolset. Grounding Rod is always a gate from instant game end when we cast battlemagic, the revolvers perform well, and while the goddamn hysh candle doesn't seem like it will see much use going by its history, diseases are pretty bad and chaos is stirring.

We could optimize more ofc but it just doesn't feel necessary?
 
picklepikkl said:
Before people get too into the weeds about the marksdwarf pistol, please let me remind you about the slots rules.

We cannot have both magic revolvers and magic marksdwarf pistol in our ranged slot. We would need to choose, or to follow the bolded text's guidance and replace one of our Activated slots (probably the Candle, because it's much less likely to be needed on short notice in the field) but doing so would entail that we could only use it once per combat. That said, once per combat would be more than the never times we've used it, so.
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I think it would be valuable even with one use per combat, since it would be an assassination weapon anyway. Enchanted for silence and no muzzle flash, there would be no real giveaway of the shot aside from the target's brains being ejected at speed. While we are still quite able to go invisible and attack with Branulhune, that requires getting within melee range of the target, and our pistols are quite loud. Shadow Knives is a decent ranged option, but its range is a lot more limited. With the marskdwarf pistol, we could land a lethal shot from far enough away that we could flee before the enemy even realizes they've been infiltrated.

Now granted, I could also see the argument that we'd be better off with a high end wand or enchanted active item instead of a silent and flash-less marksdwarf pistol, but on the other hand we could enchant it and gift it to Eike as a present for when she starts her Journey, where the ability to make a quiet assassination up close or at range would be very valuable for surviving the experience.
 
SaltyWaffles said:
I think it would be valuable even with one use per combat, since it would be an assassination weapon anyway. Enchanted for silence and no muzzle flash, there would be no real giveaway of the shot aside from the target's brains being ejected at speed. While we are still quite able to go invisible and attack with Branulhune, that requires getting within melee range of the target, and our pistols are quite loud. Shadow Knives is a decent ranged option, but its range is a lot more limited. With the marskdwarf pistol, we could land a lethal shot from far enough away that we could flee before the enemy even realizes they've been infiltrated.

Now granted, I could also see the argument that we'd be better off with a high end wand or enchanted active item instead of a silent and flash-less marksdwarf pistol, but on the other hand we could enchant it and gift it to Eike as a present for when she starts her Journey, where the ability to make a quiet assassination up close or at range would be very valuable for surviving the experience.
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Is there a reason Mathilde can't just cast the spells that you would want to enchant manually before shooting?
 
consequences said:
If we're in a situation where we can't just shadow knives the target and smoke and mirrors out, active Wind usage might give us away more than an existing enchantment.
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Is activating an enchantment to produce an effect less detectable than casting a spell? I'd imagine that when the magic starts to work, it's just as noticeable or even moreso than directly casting would be, since there's no mind to try to make producing the effect subtle.

And smoke and mirrors is another good point, if she tries to hide it with, say, Illusion, that Illusion lets her Smoke and Mirrors concurrently with shooting where an enchantment wouldn't.
 
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Catspaw New
  • Apocrypha
    • What definitely will happen if we get the armor

    Catspaw

    You step carefully around another lump of unidentified matter on in what passes for a street in the most non-descript section of the largest city you have ever been in. You mentally scoff at the wiki 'intelligence' report that placed inhabitants at 250,000. The Great City clearly held many more than that. At least before you had managed to sabotage your nth food production site. You mentally congratulate yourself again for the nth time for taking the Armor of Von Tarnus, which proved key in allowing yourself to fight your way out of any scrape before vanishing into the city again.

    You had originally planned to find the poorest place to vanish between raids, but the rats there seem to most frequently get eaten, so not looking out-of-place would be inadequate protection there.

    Thankfully the now-everpresent attention of Ranald had pointed out many locations where a revolutionary could hide, especially as the best places in the city to hide have changed dramatically. Increasingly, the city had splintered somehow, instead of the whole city counting as one, which made it harder to hide, but reduced the pursuit possible in each one.

    Walking at a normal pace, you take a moment to stop and examine the residue from what likely was a long-ago warpstone explosion. In less Dhar-tainted lands, you might have been able to tell how long ago it was from the gradual sublimation of the crystal fragments, but here they seemed to be in equilibrium.

    You contemplate how as the city continues to eat itself, that it may not count as a city at all much longer.

    Hopefully you can damage the black warpstone pillar again before that happens. You wonder again what would happen if you used the second secret of Dhar on it. Your belt would probably protect you, right?

    Ranald began this war, as the cat tried to stamp out the Rat at the beginning. You plan to see if this catspaw can cut the Rat back down to size.
     
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    • ReImagined said:
    Is activating an enchantment to produce an effect less detectable than casting a spell? I'd imagine that when the magic starts to work, it's just as noticeable or even moreso than directly casting would be, since there's no mind to try to make producing the effect subtle.

    And smoke and mirrors is another good point, if she tries to hide it with, say, Illusion, that Illusion lets her Smoke and Mirrors concurrently with shooting where an enchantment wouldn't.
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    An enchantment is a spell already woven into being. Activating an enchantment is like pulling the trigger.

    Regardless, you'd want Silence and Illusion on the pistol for the same reason that we have anything enchanted--so we don't have to cast it manually every time we want to use it. It can be faster and easier, it can be more reliable.
     
    SaltyWaffles said:
    Well, that's definitely going on the list. Out of curiosity, do the dwarves make longer-barreled versions with a scope for truly long-range shots, or at least longer-barreled rifle versions without a scope? I could see Rangers being interested in that sort of thing given their love of killing high value targets from afar, and bullets are a lot more lethal than a crossbow bolt from long range.
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    No. The tech is barely nudging at that being plausible, and Rangers have thousands of years of having internalized that loud Rangers are dead Rangers.

    Tobtorp said:
    Hmmm, @Boney would there be a enchantment to effectively "bless" each bullet without us having to do so for magic damage. I remember that we can use magic weapon on them but need to do so individually. If so does Mathilde think we could enchant our marksdwarf pistol ourselves for silence and magical ammunition?
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    Yes to both.
     
    I have gone back and forth on what plan to vote for literally dozens of times. I think I've voted for every possible combination of the top three actions at least once and now I don't even have the excuse of propaganda to not vote for one option or another. This is agony😩Alright lets try this week's choice and see if it sticks :lol2:

    [x] Plan: The Prismatic Wanderer
    [x] Break College Favor/ Tenure
    [x] Support in dispatching Battle Wizards to one major conflict of Mathilde's choice
    [x] Dispensation to study methods of destroying or beneficially transforming Dhar
    [x] Plan: Wrong Turn at Albuquerque
    [x] Save the boon until we choose our next project
     
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