Purge of the Haunted Hills - Nachexen, 2476
Winning vote:
---
Julia receives your instructions with barely-concealed glee and practically skips off to begin the arrangements to expand her network of gossipmongers; Jack is more reserved when you give him his instructions, though you can see the wheels begin turning in his head as he begins to work on a plan. The problem's in his hands now, and in six months you can come back and either harvest the credit for yourself or dump the blame on him. You're starting to understand why so many seek power.
With that organized, you secret yourself away in the Buried Palace. You seek no less than to wrest a weapon from the hands of the enemies of mankind and spread it to every Wizard that served Sigmar's Empire, and all around you are the weapons you will use to that end. The dense tomes of dry formulae of the Gold Alchemists, the slim books of metaphor and wordplay from the Celestial Astromancers, transcribed oral tradition from the Jade Druids and the collected snippets of deeply personal wisdom from the Amber Shamans. Even a few scraps from the Amethysts, who you'd regard as secretive if you were from any other Order, and some typically bombastic words on the subject from the Pyromancers of the Bright Order. The only orders to have not chimed in on the subject are the Light, who are more the 'fill it with holy radiance and see what happens' sort, and your own order, and you aim to change the latter.
It's rough going. Incredibly so. A dozen times you run into 'I did it this way because it collapsed in on itself if I didn't' and you have to either investigate further or codify the workaround. You're tempted, oh so tempted, to just leave it be, but this is to be your first true contribution to the realm of the Empire's knowledge of magic, and you refuse to give short thrift. So day after day you weave Ulgu again and again, dispelling and reapplying the bindings (the Matrix? 'Mathilde's Matrix' does have a ring to it...) to see how you can and can't anchor the bindings to the inside of the creature - first your test chickens, and then a lamb and a small pig to ensure that the size and species makes no difference, and finally a volunteer from the castle staff who was now enjoying some paid time off to visit their family in exchange for their cooperation. As you expected, species made no difference, only the physical dimensions of the host, but now you knew for sure. And it slightly helped to have a scaled-up host to work with, as it allowed you to measure angles with greater fidelity - if the word fidelity can be used at all, when you hold up a protractor against a pig's stomach and try to measure the angle of a lattice of energy on an entirely separate physical plane.
Hundreds of different ways to suspend the energy later, you find a pattern, and test it again and again until you hammer that pattern into a set of rules for how the matrix must be formed. Weeks pass in the spell-lit underground gloom, emerging only to forage for food for yourself and your test subjects and blinking owlishly in the sunlight. You send off for more and more books, until copies of every single tome the College Libraries are willing to share on the topic of magical lattices are surrounding you, and you persevere gamely against each and every one of them. Every wizard has their own view of how magic works, so every book requires the reader to learn a new set of fundamentals to begin to understand what is being said.
But the more you read, the more you detect a common thread, perhaps even a harmony underneath it all. You're reminded of a parable of the Blind Man and the Elephant from the Kingdoms of Ind, oft applied to fieldcraft in the lessons of the Grey Order but more relevant now than ever. A group of blind men encounter an elephant, or so the tale goes, and they seek to learn of it. One grasps it by the tail, and exclaims that an elephant is like a snake; another by the leg, and says that an elephant is like a tree-trunk, another finds the elephant's side, and says that an elephant is like a wall, and so on, and they end up quarreling, each insisting the small glimpse they had gotten of the whole was the truth of the matter.
You read the books through fresh eyes, seeking not to interpret what each of them are saying into terms you intuitively grasp, but instead accepting them as equally valid glimpses of magic. And it feels very much like you're trying to work out the shape of an elephant from the reports of those blind men, but you soon grasp that there's a finite amount of parts to it - though tragically, it's not limited to the eight traditional Winds. You find it breaking down, more or less, into an axis between two points. On one side, the Elemental, who draw meaning from the physical manifestations that the wind is drawn to - such as those that would see fire as burning. On the other, the Mystical, who deal more in metaphor - those that see fire as passionate, or as cleansing.
You consider Ulgu. Taken elementally, it is the interplay between light and dark. Taken mystically, it is the coming of dawn and dusk, of revelation and concealment. You consider your own magical repertoire, and find that you've drawn almost entirely from the latter. Your spells owe little to the elemental nature of Ulgu - no Invisibility or Shadowcloak, for instance. Your spells draw more from the mystical significance of shadows - the sudden plunge into darkness of Mindhole, the tireless advance of the dusk and dawn of Shadowsteed. Both directions are correct, or at least no more incorrect than each other.
You emerge from your months of solitude with a greatly deepened understanding of man's relation with magic. But, sadly, not with a completed paper on the subject of Mathilde's Matrix.
...name possibly pending.
[Writing the paper: Roll, Learning, 16+17+10 (Ranald's Blessing)=43.]
[Improve Learning: Learning, breakpoints 60/90, 79+17=96.] +2 Learning Gained!
---
You stumble into Julia's townhouse and start devouring equal parts reports, gossip, and marmalade toast one of the house staff brings you. The 1st Division is on the march to join the rest of the Army on the campaign, and news from said army is all positive - Vanhaldenschlosse was found to be entirely inoffensive, and the divisions separated to clear the largest segment of the Haunted Hills yet. You estimate about a fourth of the Hills have now been cleared; you skim the reports from the Attachés, and find that the undead found have remained largely the same, with a higher proportion of ghouls closer to the Hunger Woods on the northern edge of the Hills. Next stop on the army's agenda is to push on along the Old Road to Nachthafen, home of the only noble of Sylvania to pay even technical fealty to the Elector Count of Stirland, Countess Gabriella von Bundebad, which should prove interesting.
What little gossip that flows from Ostermark indicates that they're faring about as well in the Dead Woods as Stirland is in the Haunted Hills, but at least they show no sign of stopping. Even scanter gossip from the mountains tells that Zhufbar has gained the upper hand in the three-way war between subterranean beastmen and besieging greenskins; hopefully that means they'll be able to join in against Sylvania. No news from Averland, as sadly Anton was unable to convince them to contribute to the campaign, occupied as they were with greenskins in their own lands. No other news of note from the rest of the Empire, but then, your ears are mostly internal.
---
PLAN FOR THIS PURGE TURN
ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIONS - these are LOCKED IN for the next two purge turns, but personal actions can still be spent on them.
---
PERSONAL ACTIONS - CHOOSE BETWEEN TWO AND THREE. ANY CHOSEN BEYOND THE FIRST TWO WILL COME WITH RISKS - PLEASE SPECIFY THE 'ADDITIONAL' TASK:
Genießt den Krieg - join the divisions entering Sylvania:
[ ] Now that the land is cleared between Stirland proper and Nachthafen, spend some time in the court of the only Sylvanian noble to recognize and be recognized by the Empire, Countess Gabriella von Bundebad.
[ ] If you're feeling nosy, Vanhaldenschlosse is apparently free of anything that would object to you poking around in what was once the proud ancestral home of the Van Hals.
[ ] Something apparently quite similar to the Purge of the Haunted Hills is going on in Ostermark's southern regions; you could inspect goings-on up there yourself.
[ ] Attach yourself to the general staff, so you can be present for anything interesting that might happen and keep a finger on the pulse of the war.
[ ] Attach yourself to a specific regiment so you can spend some time in the thick of things.
Miscellany:
[ ] Hang Out A Shingle: Spymasters don't advertise, but wizards sometimes do. Make an official announcement that there's a wizard in residence, and see who comes out of the woodwork.
[ ] Formal Proposal: Your idea for an undead research team was received poorly, but Van Hal is still open to the idea in theory. Write in details: Name, who it is technically a part of (Watch, Witch Hunters, Military, College, none), and whether it reports directly to you (becomes a new Organization you command) or, if not, who it would report to.
[ ] Gun Shopping: You're currently using a pistol that was a spare for the pistoliers. Visit Nuln to upgrade. (Choose: dueling pistols for accuracy and range, repeater pistols for weight of fire, dragons for hand shotguns. Choose: whether you will acquire and use two pistols at once or keep one hand free.)
[ ] Write up a proposal for Wilhelmina to approve a short-term increase in Discretionary Income, for the duration of the crisis.
Self-Improvement: Things have been going well so far, but the skills of a Journeyman Grey Mage can only go so far.
[ ] Practice, Practice, Practice: Having been thrown into the deep end of imperial politics, it would probably be a good idea to brush up on your skills and internalize the lessons you've learned (choose which trait; can be taken multiple times; will be more effective if you've used the trait a lot lately).
[ ] Tutoring: One of your fellow councillors may be willing to teach you in their chosen field (choose who; can choose which, or you can let them decide).
[ ] Really Good Swords: You have achieved proficiency with the Greatsword. Future progress is possible, though it will take more effort to see results.
[ ] Combat Training: You're virtually surrounded by armed warriors of various sorts. See if you can convince one to teach you (choose who).
[ ] Combat Training, In The Free Market: You haven't made many heavily armed friends yet, but gold is good for that. Go out and buy some training. (-personal gold)
[ ] Enchantment: You're naturally talented at enchantment; so far, this just amounts to being able to make your desk meow for about an hour. See if you can improve on that, or at least figure out a way to make that useful.
Home Comforts: Your Palace-Shrine is bursting with potential. And also mud.
[ ] Diggy Diggy Hole, Remixed: You're getting sick of having workmen tramping in and out of your abode. Recruit an entire team and personally oversee them to clear out all of the reachable portions of the Palace-Shrine and be done with it. (-personal gold)
[ ] Enchantment: You've finally got the equipment, now you've just got to unpack it all and set up your laboratory.
[ ] Filled with Potential: You've got a room cleared out and ready to be put to use. Decide what you're going to put there and get started on equipping it. (write in the purpose of the room)
Research:
[ ] Undead Research: You know the basics, now. Perhaps a great deal of effort will allow you to advance further.
[ ] Snooping: Van Hal gave you a key to his Study. It's been a while since he's been in Wurtbad; he probably forgot he did so, and won't remember until he returns. And he didn't specifically say not to poke around and see what you could find.
[ ] Shyish-kebabs: The Shyish swords are hideously dangerous as weapons, but fascinating as a subject of study. Try to reverse-engineer the lost enchantments woven into them.
[ ] Publish Or Perish, Part 3: You spent a month running into roadblocks; hopefully that means that you got them all and now there's nothing between you and actually writing the damn paper. (NEW)
[ ] Qhaysh Juice: Whatever it is, it's dripping out of the box at a steady rate. You've got several gallons of the stuff and it's still coming out. It's got to be good for something.
[ ] Qhaysh Skunkworks: It would take careful study to unlock the secrets of the liquid. It would take considerably less time to find out if it can be made to burn, or explode, or do something militarily useful.
[ ] There's always room for more shadow spells in your repertoire. Send off to the Grey College for the basics on one of the others and get started on trying to learn it.
Influence:
[ ] Information Network: Work alongside to Julia to administer the network. Choose another Organizational Action for the Network.
[ ] Stirland Watch: Work alongside Jack to administer the Watch. Choose another Organizational Action for the Watch.
[ ] Financial Jargon: Everything with the EIC flew right over your head last time. Try again. Succeeding here will mean that you can take a more active hand in the company, adding it to the organizational actions; failing or not attempting means Mathilde will remain a silent partner.
[ ] Thieves Guild: It's currently little more than a church group, albeit of a very unconventional god. If it could be expanded under your aegis, it could be a powerful tool.
[ ] Biderhof: This village based on woodcutting and agriculture, has adopted you as one of it's own. Maybe you should adopt it as your own, in a literal sense.
[ ] Non-Thief Guilds: Wurtbad, like all major cities, is home to a number of guilds. Reach out to them and enforce your will.
Relations:
[ ] Getting To Know You: Spend time with one of your fellow councillors or your liege, offering your help in their tasks and generally getting a feel for them (choose one).
[ ] Getting To Know You Whether You Like It Or Not: Though you no longer mistrust them, perhaps you should see what your fellow councillors spend their time doing anyway (choose one).
[ ] Letters Home: You might be able to wring more information out of your Master, or you might just be able to get news, information and guidance in general from the Grey Order.
[o] Free Time: Now well-established in Wurtbad, you can spend some time in your scant off hours getting to know someone better. Pick one character. (not possible during Purge Turns)
---
SEPARATE VOTE: What is to be the name of the bound spell matrix?
- Apologies for not having the name vote be separate last time around; towards the end of things I'm itching to just hit the 'submit' button and be done with it and sometimes don't think things through properly.
- I've not formalized the rules for attribute advancements but as a general rule of thumb: the higher your base score is, the harder it is to advance, and if you've been using it a lot recently it improves your chances and can unlock the possibility of multiple levels of advancement at once.
---
Julia receives your instructions with barely-concealed glee and practically skips off to begin the arrangements to expand her network of gossipmongers; Jack is more reserved when you give him his instructions, though you can see the wheels begin turning in his head as he begins to work on a plan. The problem's in his hands now, and in six months you can come back and either harvest the credit for yourself or dump the blame on him. You're starting to understand why so many seek power.
With that organized, you secret yourself away in the Buried Palace. You seek no less than to wrest a weapon from the hands of the enemies of mankind and spread it to every Wizard that served Sigmar's Empire, and all around you are the weapons you will use to that end. The dense tomes of dry formulae of the Gold Alchemists, the slim books of metaphor and wordplay from the Celestial Astromancers, transcribed oral tradition from the Jade Druids and the collected snippets of deeply personal wisdom from the Amber Shamans. Even a few scraps from the Amethysts, who you'd regard as secretive if you were from any other Order, and some typically bombastic words on the subject from the Pyromancers of the Bright Order. The only orders to have not chimed in on the subject are the Light, who are more the 'fill it with holy radiance and see what happens' sort, and your own order, and you aim to change the latter.
It's rough going. Incredibly so. A dozen times you run into 'I did it this way because it collapsed in on itself if I didn't' and you have to either investigate further or codify the workaround. You're tempted, oh so tempted, to just leave it be, but this is to be your first true contribution to the realm of the Empire's knowledge of magic, and you refuse to give short thrift. So day after day you weave Ulgu again and again, dispelling and reapplying the bindings (the Matrix? 'Mathilde's Matrix' does have a ring to it...) to see how you can and can't anchor the bindings to the inside of the creature - first your test chickens, and then a lamb and a small pig to ensure that the size and species makes no difference, and finally a volunteer from the castle staff who was now enjoying some paid time off to visit their family in exchange for their cooperation. As you expected, species made no difference, only the physical dimensions of the host, but now you knew for sure. And it slightly helped to have a scaled-up host to work with, as it allowed you to measure angles with greater fidelity - if the word fidelity can be used at all, when you hold up a protractor against a pig's stomach and try to measure the angle of a lattice of energy on an entirely separate physical plane.
Hundreds of different ways to suspend the energy later, you find a pattern, and test it again and again until you hammer that pattern into a set of rules for how the matrix must be formed. Weeks pass in the spell-lit underground gloom, emerging only to forage for food for yourself and your test subjects and blinking owlishly in the sunlight. You send off for more and more books, until copies of every single tome the College Libraries are willing to share on the topic of magical lattices are surrounding you, and you persevere gamely against each and every one of them. Every wizard has their own view of how magic works, so every book requires the reader to learn a new set of fundamentals to begin to understand what is being said.
But the more you read, the more you detect a common thread, perhaps even a harmony underneath it all. You're reminded of a parable of the Blind Man and the Elephant from the Kingdoms of Ind, oft applied to fieldcraft in the lessons of the Grey Order but more relevant now than ever. A group of blind men encounter an elephant, or so the tale goes, and they seek to learn of it. One grasps it by the tail, and exclaims that an elephant is like a snake; another by the leg, and says that an elephant is like a tree-trunk, another finds the elephant's side, and says that an elephant is like a wall, and so on, and they end up quarreling, each insisting the small glimpse they had gotten of the whole was the truth of the matter.
You read the books through fresh eyes, seeking not to interpret what each of them are saying into terms you intuitively grasp, but instead accepting them as equally valid glimpses of magic. And it feels very much like you're trying to work out the shape of an elephant from the reports of those blind men, but you soon grasp that there's a finite amount of parts to it - though tragically, it's not limited to the eight traditional Winds. You find it breaking down, more or less, into an axis between two points. On one side, the Elemental, who draw meaning from the physical manifestations that the wind is drawn to - such as those that would see fire as burning. On the other, the Mystical, who deal more in metaphor - those that see fire as passionate, or as cleansing.
You consider Ulgu. Taken elementally, it is the interplay between light and dark. Taken mystically, it is the coming of dawn and dusk, of revelation and concealment. You consider your own magical repertoire, and find that you've drawn almost entirely from the latter. Your spells owe little to the elemental nature of Ulgu - no Invisibility or Shadowcloak, for instance. Your spells draw more from the mystical significance of shadows - the sudden plunge into darkness of Mindhole, the tireless advance of the dusk and dawn of Shadowsteed. Both directions are correct, or at least no more incorrect than each other.
You emerge from your months of solitude with a greatly deepened understanding of man's relation with magic. But, sadly, not with a completed paper on the subject of Mathilde's Matrix.
...name possibly pending.
[Writing the paper: Roll, Learning, 16+17+10 (Ranald's Blessing)=43.]
[Improve Learning: Learning, breakpoints 60/90, 79+17=96.] +2 Learning Gained!
---
You stumble into Julia's townhouse and start devouring equal parts reports, gossip, and marmalade toast one of the house staff brings you. The 1st Division is on the march to join the rest of the Army on the campaign, and news from said army is all positive - Vanhaldenschlosse was found to be entirely inoffensive, and the divisions separated to clear the largest segment of the Haunted Hills yet. You estimate about a fourth of the Hills have now been cleared; you skim the reports from the Attachés, and find that the undead found have remained largely the same, with a higher proportion of ghouls closer to the Hunger Woods on the northern edge of the Hills. Next stop on the army's agenda is to push on along the Old Road to Nachthafen, home of the only noble of Sylvania to pay even technical fealty to the Elector Count of Stirland, Countess Gabriella von Bundebad, which should prove interesting.
What little gossip that flows from Ostermark indicates that they're faring about as well in the Dead Woods as Stirland is in the Haunted Hills, but at least they show no sign of stopping. Even scanter gossip from the mountains tells that Zhufbar has gained the upper hand in the three-way war between subterranean beastmen and besieging greenskins; hopefully that means they'll be able to join in against Sylvania. No news from Averland, as sadly Anton was unable to convince them to contribute to the campaign, occupied as they were with greenskins in their own lands. No other news of note from the rest of the Empire, but then, your ears are mostly internal.
---
PLAN FOR THIS PURGE TURN
ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIONS - these are LOCKED IN for the next two purge turns, but personal actions can still be spent on them.
Information Network - pick ONE (no action expenditure required):
[ ] Expand your information network into another province (choose one)
[ ] Expand your information network into another county or barony (choose one)
[ ] Expand your information network into the military (choose a Division)
[ ] Expand your Intelligence Attaché program to another Division (choose one)
[ ] Off the Leash: Let Julia handle the network without your micromanagement from now on.
Information Network finances - can be chosen INSTEAD of a selection from the above.
[ ] Attaché Paperwork: The Intelligence Attachés are your biggest expense by far - see if you can have them paid for by the Army of Stirland instead.
[ ] Fixer: Work with the Wurtbad Thieves Guild, supplying them information in exchange for a portion of profits.
[ ] Special Branch: Pull some financial trickery to get the information network classified as part of the Watch, so that their costs are covered by the Stirlandian treasury.
[ ] Trade Delegation: Convince Wilhelmina and Markus to partner your network with the EIC based on the value of market information.
Stirland Watch - pick ONE (no action expenditure required):
[o] Expand the ranks of the Watch, so that they're able to start covering even the poorer parts of their covered area. (cannot be taken until army retirement resumes in six months)
[o] Expand the Watch into a new county or barony (choose which) (cannot be taken until army retirement resumes in six months)
[ ] Expand the Special Branch into areas already covered by the Watch, so you have an additional pool of manpower you can call upon to supplement the full-time Watchmen.
[ ] Improve the training of the Watch, hiring trainers and dedicating paid time each week to sharpening skills.
[ ] Integrate the Roadwarden network of covered areas into the Watch.
[ ] Investigate the possibility of adding a River Warden branch of the Watch.
[ ] Headhunt administrators from other organizations in Stirland.
[ ] Attempt to hire administrators and clerks from Altdorf and Nuln.
Stirland Watch finances - can be chosen INSTEAD of a selection from the above.
[ ] Formalize and organize the payments people make for the Gong Farmers to perform their service, as well as having the Watch start enforcing existing laws against dumping human waste in the street or the Stir.
[ ] Currently, solid waste is sent by cart and wagon out to the fields for a pittance. It could instead be used to create market gardens along the banks of the Stir (hopefully downwind) and increase revenue and provide jobs for the desperate by growing a variety of cash crops.
[ ] Tanneries have a seemingly limitless demand for urine, which explains a lot about the smell. A bit of fragrant research would allow you to identify how much demand there is and how much of a profit you can wring from this.
[ ] In Wissenland, there are a number of techniques in use to derive saltpeter from urine. It would take a great deal more effort than selling to tanneries, but saltpeter could be exported to Nuln for fantastic profit, or used to start gunpowder production in Stirland.
[ ] Expand your information network into another province (choose one)
[ ] Expand your information network into another county or barony (choose one)
[ ] Expand your information network into the military (choose a Division)
[ ] Expand your Intelligence Attaché program to another Division (choose one)
[ ] Off the Leash: Let Julia handle the network without your micromanagement from now on.
Information Network finances - can be chosen INSTEAD of a selection from the above.
[ ] Attaché Paperwork: The Intelligence Attachés are your biggest expense by far - see if you can have them paid for by the Army of Stirland instead.
[ ] Fixer: Work with the Wurtbad Thieves Guild, supplying them information in exchange for a portion of profits.
[ ] Special Branch: Pull some financial trickery to get the information network classified as part of the Watch, so that their costs are covered by the Stirlandian treasury.
[ ] Trade Delegation: Convince Wilhelmina and Markus to partner your network with the EIC based on the value of market information.
Stirland Watch - pick ONE (no action expenditure required):
[o] Expand the ranks of the Watch, so that they're able to start covering even the poorer parts of their covered area. (cannot be taken until army retirement resumes in six months)
[o] Expand the Watch into a new county or barony (choose which) (cannot be taken until army retirement resumes in six months)
[ ] Expand the Special Branch into areas already covered by the Watch, so you have an additional pool of manpower you can call upon to supplement the full-time Watchmen.
[ ] Improve the training of the Watch, hiring trainers and dedicating paid time each week to sharpening skills.
[ ] Integrate the Roadwarden network of covered areas into the Watch.
[ ] Investigate the possibility of adding a River Warden branch of the Watch.
[ ] Headhunt administrators from other organizations in Stirland.
[ ] Attempt to hire administrators and clerks from Altdorf and Nuln.
Stirland Watch finances - can be chosen INSTEAD of a selection from the above.
[ ] Formalize and organize the payments people make for the Gong Farmers to perform their service, as well as having the Watch start enforcing existing laws against dumping human waste in the street or the Stir.
[ ] Currently, solid waste is sent by cart and wagon out to the fields for a pittance. It could instead be used to create market gardens along the banks of the Stir (hopefully downwind) and increase revenue and provide jobs for the desperate by growing a variety of cash crops.
[ ] Tanneries have a seemingly limitless demand for urine, which explains a lot about the smell. A bit of fragrant research would allow you to identify how much demand there is and how much of a profit you can wring from this.
[ ] In Wissenland, there are a number of techniques in use to derive saltpeter from urine. It would take a great deal more effort than selling to tanneries, but saltpeter could be exported to Nuln for fantastic profit, or used to start gunpowder production in Stirland.
---
PERSONAL ACTIONS - CHOOSE BETWEEN TWO AND THREE. ANY CHOSEN BEYOND THE FIRST TWO WILL COME WITH RISKS - PLEASE SPECIFY THE 'ADDITIONAL' TASK:
Genießt den Krieg - join the divisions entering Sylvania:
[ ] Now that the land is cleared between Stirland proper and Nachthafen, spend some time in the court of the only Sylvanian noble to recognize and be recognized by the Empire, Countess Gabriella von Bundebad.
[ ] If you're feeling nosy, Vanhaldenschlosse is apparently free of anything that would object to you poking around in what was once the proud ancestral home of the Van Hals.
[ ] Something apparently quite similar to the Purge of the Haunted Hills is going on in Ostermark's southern regions; you could inspect goings-on up there yourself.
[ ] Attach yourself to the general staff, so you can be present for anything interesting that might happen and keep a finger on the pulse of the war.
[ ] Attach yourself to a specific regiment so you can spend some time in the thick of things.
Miscellany:
[ ] Hang Out A Shingle: Spymasters don't advertise, but wizards sometimes do. Make an official announcement that there's a wizard in residence, and see who comes out of the woodwork.
[ ] Formal Proposal: Your idea for an undead research team was received poorly, but Van Hal is still open to the idea in theory. Write in details: Name, who it is technically a part of (Watch, Witch Hunters, Military, College, none), and whether it reports directly to you (becomes a new Organization you command) or, if not, who it would report to.
[ ] Gun Shopping: You're currently using a pistol that was a spare for the pistoliers. Visit Nuln to upgrade. (Choose: dueling pistols for accuracy and range, repeater pistols for weight of fire, dragons for hand shotguns. Choose: whether you will acquire and use two pistols at once or keep one hand free.)
[ ] Write up a proposal for Wilhelmina to approve a short-term increase in Discretionary Income, for the duration of the crisis.
Self-Improvement: Things have been going well so far, but the skills of a Journeyman Grey Mage can only go so far.
[ ] Practice, Practice, Practice: Having been thrown into the deep end of imperial politics, it would probably be a good idea to brush up on your skills and internalize the lessons you've learned (choose which trait; can be taken multiple times; will be more effective if you've used the trait a lot lately).
[ ] Tutoring: One of your fellow councillors may be willing to teach you in their chosen field (choose who; can choose which, or you can let them decide).
[ ] Really Good Swords: You have achieved proficiency with the Greatsword. Future progress is possible, though it will take more effort to see results.
[ ] Combat Training: You're virtually surrounded by armed warriors of various sorts. See if you can convince one to teach you (choose who).
[ ] Combat Training, In The Free Market: You haven't made many heavily armed friends yet, but gold is good for that. Go out and buy some training. (-personal gold)
[ ] Enchantment: You're naturally talented at enchantment; so far, this just amounts to being able to make your desk meow for about an hour. See if you can improve on that, or at least figure out a way to make that useful.
Home Comforts: Your Palace-Shrine is bursting with potential. And also mud.
[ ] Diggy Diggy Hole, Remixed: You're getting sick of having workmen tramping in and out of your abode. Recruit an entire team and personally oversee them to clear out all of the reachable portions of the Palace-Shrine and be done with it. (-personal gold)
[ ] Enchantment: You've finally got the equipment, now you've just got to unpack it all and set up your laboratory.
[ ] Filled with Potential: You've got a room cleared out and ready to be put to use. Decide what you're going to put there and get started on equipping it. (write in the purpose of the room)
Research:
[ ] Undead Research: You know the basics, now. Perhaps a great deal of effort will allow you to advance further.
[ ] Snooping: Van Hal gave you a key to his Study. It's been a while since he's been in Wurtbad; he probably forgot he did so, and won't remember until he returns. And he didn't specifically say not to poke around and see what you could find.
[ ] Shyish-kebabs: The Shyish swords are hideously dangerous as weapons, but fascinating as a subject of study. Try to reverse-engineer the lost enchantments woven into them.
[ ] Publish Or Perish, Part 3: You spent a month running into roadblocks; hopefully that means that you got them all and now there's nothing between you and actually writing the damn paper. (NEW)
[ ] Qhaysh Juice: Whatever it is, it's dripping out of the box at a steady rate. You've got several gallons of the stuff and it's still coming out. It's got to be good for something.
[ ] Qhaysh Skunkworks: It would take careful study to unlock the secrets of the liquid. It would take considerably less time to find out if it can be made to burn, or explode, or do something militarily useful.
[ ] There's always room for more shadow spells in your repertoire. Send off to the Grey College for the basics on one of the others and get started on trying to learn it.
Influence:
[ ] Information Network: Work alongside to Julia to administer the network. Choose another Organizational Action for the Network.
[ ] Stirland Watch: Work alongside Jack to administer the Watch. Choose another Organizational Action for the Watch.
[ ] Financial Jargon: Everything with the EIC flew right over your head last time. Try again. Succeeding here will mean that you can take a more active hand in the company, adding it to the organizational actions; failing or not attempting means Mathilde will remain a silent partner.
[ ] Thieves Guild: It's currently little more than a church group, albeit of a very unconventional god. If it could be expanded under your aegis, it could be a powerful tool.
[ ] Biderhof: This village based on woodcutting and agriculture, has adopted you as one of it's own. Maybe you should adopt it as your own, in a literal sense.
[ ] Non-Thief Guilds: Wurtbad, like all major cities, is home to a number of guilds. Reach out to them and enforce your will.
Relations:
[ ] Getting To Know You: Spend time with one of your fellow councillors or your liege, offering your help in their tasks and generally getting a feel for them (choose one).
[ ] Getting To Know You Whether You Like It Or Not: Though you no longer mistrust them, perhaps you should see what your fellow councillors spend their time doing anyway (choose one).
[ ] Letters Home: You might be able to wring more information out of your Master, or you might just be able to get news, information and guidance in general from the Grey Order.
[o] Free Time: Now well-established in Wurtbad, you can spend some time in your scant off hours getting to know someone better. Pick one character. (not possible during Purge Turns)
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SEPARATE VOTE: What is to be the name of the bound spell matrix?
- Apologies for not having the name vote be separate last time around; towards the end of things I'm itching to just hit the 'submit' button and be done with it and sometimes don't think things through properly.
- I've not formalized the rules for attribute advancements but as a general rule of thumb: the higher your base score is, the harder it is to advance, and if you've been using it a lot recently it improves your chances and can unlock the possibility of multiple levels of advancement at once.
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