Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Boney]

Spoiler: Winning Vote

[*] Plan Much to Do Before Magistery
-[*] Free action: Bring in prospectors to search for minable metals (100+50 gc).
-[*] Free action: Investigate the farming possibilities of the land (50+25 gc for test crops).
-[*] Free action: Gun Shopping: You're currently using a pistol that was a spare for the pistoliers. Visit Nuln or Zhufbar to upgrade. (does not take an action; will trigger a subvote next turn for what type and how many; will cost 100-300 gc, don't take this just to window shop - this is committing to the purchase)
--[*] Zhufbar
-[*] 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.
--[*] Wilhelmina
-[*] Internalized Lessons: If you've been using a particular trait a fair bit in the last year, you can spend some time on it to internalize what you've learned and increase the trait (Stewardship).
-[*] 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.
--[*] Doppelganger
--[*] Shadowcloak
-[*] 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.
-[*] 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. (-100 gc)
--[*] Ranald's Blessing
-[*] The New Boss: Keep an ear to the ground, learning what you can of Roswita's actions and plans.

There's a great deal of work to be done, and luckily for you, money translates to work very simply. Money flows out to miners, to prospectors, to farmers, to natural philosophers, and closest to home, to a dozen men willing to live and work underground and surrender their memories of you in the end in exchange for thrice what they'd earn anywhere else. You pay careful attention to the workers, making sure they don't stray into any of the rooms in use and remain in their work areas, and they're sufficiently cowed by money and your close attention that they obey.

They clear out enough of the hallway to show you what you're working with: six former rooms, filled almost entirely with long-hardened mud, too soft for picks but too hard for shovels. Mounds of broken clay are carried up and out to be piled in the alleyway, to the equal amusement and annoyment of the cats that call it home. One of the rooms is written off when it's found that the ceiling has collapsed, and is filled back in with scree from the other rooms and bricked shut. To empty it of the dirt filling it would be to remove the foundations for whatever is built above, and having a house fall into your Sunken Palace would instantly ruin all the work you've put into keeping it secret.

Weeks pass of digging during the day and hauling scree to rented wagons at night as the rooms empty of the debris filling them, and eventually the long-hidden contents of some of those rooms are revealed.

[Rolls: 89, 11, 22, 94+20(Ranald's Blessing)=114, 70, 24. Five usable rooms; three loot rolls.]
[70: Rolling...]

Two of the rooms are empty, but three are interesting. One is, from all appearances, a former stable, which confirms that the Palace once stood at street level. The wooden carriages are long since rotted away to nothing and the skeleton of a horse that was uncovered is just depressing, but adjoining the stable is the long-lost workshop of a blacksmith, anvil and forge and a wall covered in hundreds of useful tools, implements and devices.

[89: Rolling...]

The second room is far less prosaic. Uncovering silver candles and fragments of stained glass gave you the hint that the room was once a chapel, but when the workers finally uncovered the altar the shocked oaths and murmured prayers drew you over immediately. The open jaws of a great silver shark greets your gaze, and you lift the idol free from the debris that encased it and almost stagger under the weight. Scrutiny of the scratches it already bears reveals it to be silver-coated iron rather than pure silver. Still valuable... at least, if you're willing to risk the wrath of Stromfels, the outlawed Shark God of Shipwrecks and Drowning, by further profaning what must have once been a shrine to him.

[114: Rolling...]

The last room is even more striking. The door, now that you pay more attention, was once reinforced with iron before time and moisture turned it to a few scraps of rust; that helps explains why a skeleton was found chained to one wall of the buried room. Once, this was a dungeon.

The skeleton yields scarce few clues as to its identity. What clothes it once wore are long since rotted away to nothing. There is one item that appears untouched by time, despite the raw iron it appears to be wrought from, and the Aqshy running through it is as much proof of its identity as the starburst of rubies mounted on the ring. Forged by the first of the Bright Wizards under Teclis for use in the Great War Against Chaos, capable of emitting great fireballs in the hands of the untrained and doing even more in the capable hands of a Bright Wizard; this is a Doomfire Ring.

---

The work is done soon after, the men more than happy to exchange their memories for a few gold coins apiece. You're left alone once more with four new rooms and one unwanted shrine to a forbidden God.

Meanwhile, work continues elsewhere, urged on by your outlay of coin. It is a fact of life that precious metal can buy just about anything, but it's a fact that takes a great deal of scrutiny to actually understand. Gold, unless one is a Gold Wizard, is mostly useless. It's shiny, sure, so it makes for nice jewellery and ornaments, but why does that mean that everything revolves around it? Steel, now steel is useful, and steel ingots would be a much more sensible medium of exchange... but also hideously unwieldy. Is that it? Is gold the medium for exchange just because it's rare enough that a single unit of it is light?

You observe the actions of the workers you hired, you observe the inner mechanisms of the EIC, you see over and over useful items and valuable labour exchanged for shiny metal. And then you look once more at a piece of that shiny metal, seeing not just the composition of it but the markings stamped upon it: a year, the familiar skeleton of Stirland's banner, and causing a clench of sadness in you, Abelhelm's name and his head in profile.

Not just any gold, but gold issued and guaranteed by the Empire...

[Studying Stewardship: Roll, Req 60, 76. +2 Stewardship]

---

You've always had a talent for enchantment. The first spell you cast was not the magical lights or telekinesis common to those that develop magic young, or the self-defensive magical backlash sadly common to those that develop it older; it was making your toy horse neigh. But with one thing or another, you've never had the time to refine your ability beyond that. There was always fires to put out and dire secrets to uncover and wars to be fought, no time for academia that wasn't of immediate benefit.

The circumstances are less than ideal, but now you have time.

Enchantment, you learned long after you had accidentally achieved it, is one of the more difficult of magical feats. Casting magic is simple - humans are naturally able to channel magic through their bodies, each wind of magic is naturally inclined to affect reality in a certain way, so all that's left to cast a magical spell is channelling the correct wind and in such a way that acting according to its nature has the desired effect. Outside, perhaps, of Chamon and the associated Lore of Metal, no type of magic naturally 'wants' to be bound into an object. The natural state of the winds of magic is either flowing freely through the air, gathering in certain places according to its nature, or flowing through those attuned to it. So enchantment requires one to overpower the very nature of the magic one wields and cramming it into an object it doesn't want to go into. One can make it easier for an object to hold magic - runes, appropriate components, preparatory rituals, and so on - but it's never easy.

To say nothing of Ulgu, the ephemeral wind of confusion and shadows, which by its nature is even more reluctant to be trapped in a static and unchanging form...

You begin with stones, taken from the cobbles on the streets above, worn smooth by the passage of ten thousand feet. Inherently shaped and tamed by human artifice, but constantly overlooked, you carve the rune of the Grey Wind into them and hope that they will serve as a vessel for Ulgu. And then, over painstaking hours, you begin to focus your will and channel wind into stone.

Days pass in mind-numbing concentration, and progress is gained an inch at a time as Ulgu lies trapped within the stone a little longer before breaking free once more and dissipating in a puff of smoke. As tedious as the work is, you refuse to let your concentration falter, even as days turn to weeks. Each day the Ulgu bends a little easier to your will. Each day the gap between you releasing your mental grasp on the stone and the Ulgu wriggling free lengthens. And finally, at long, long last, the day comes when it doesn't escape at all, so thoroughly cowed by your will it remains where it is placed, the nature of the wind leaking into the rock itself and turning it ever so slightly translucent when held up to a light.

It is the least of victories. But it is a step forward on a very valuable road.

[Studying Enchantment: Req 70, Learning, 42+18+10(workshop)+10(Enchanter)=80]

---

Other magical pursuits draw your attention. One of them is Shadowcloak, the deceptively subtle spell of enveloping oneself in shadows and making oneself significantly harder to see. The other is Doppelganger, to shroud oneself instead in illusion and imitate the appearance of another. Both among the most basic of the spells of Ulgu, both potentially incredibly useful.

Your personal envisioning of Ulgu is not of shadow, but of fog. Neither is more correct than the other; most spells deal with shadow, but elemental Ulgu is more commonly drawn to fog. So, after weeks of study and practice, when you finally perform Shadowcloak, it isn't so much the drawing of shadows to you but the summoning of mist to envelop you, rendering you slightly translucent rather than blending you into the shadows around you. In practice the difference is negligible, but you find it an interesting demonstration of the nature of magic.

Sadly, Doppelganger proves frustratingly elusive. It is easy enough to wrap your form in Ulgu - you did as much for Shadowcloak, and before that with Aethyric Armour - but to shape said magical energy until it changes your appearance is a leap you're unable to make, no matter how many times you carefully read through the scroll of instruction. You try and try until you become frustrated enough that trying any further would be dangerous, and then, sensibly, you put the scroll aside. You can come back to it later, with a fresh mind and outlook, and hopefully without the risk of miscasting due to being emotionally compromised.

On another note, with the scrolls came a note from your Master, hinting that soon you should either pursue advancement or find another way to serve the Empire. It's not quite a command, but it is a reminder that he has the ability to give that command, at least until you graduate from Journeywomanship, and that you are expected to at least metaphorically journey. But you still have some time before those nudges turn into shoves.

[Learning Shadowcloak: Req 60, 55+18=73]
[Learning Doppelganger: Req 60, 30+18=48]

---

"I've given notice," Wilhelmina says, over the extended working lunch that your Shareholder's meetings tend to turn into. "The Council had enough holes kicked in it, would have been bad if I had quit on the spot."

"Her own doing," you note, trying to keep bitterness out of your voice.

She nods. "That as may be, but I've long experience with putting up with unruly children who know a great deal less than they think they do. Might have been satisfying, but it would be Stirland that suffered for it."

You nod, conceding the point. "Schultz? Kasmir?"

[Rolling... 95]
[Rolling... 97]

"Schultz is staying on - the girl has some plan for reinforcing the bridge across the Drak, turning it into a memorial to her father. And Kasmir briefly reappeared. He apparently spent most of a year tending to the people of the town of Drakenhof, filling the spiritual void left by the necromancers and vampires. Searching for meaning, he said. Seems to have found it."

You swallow a hundred bitter comments. If Kasmir's made peace with Sigmar having failed Abelhelm, that's his business. Instead, you move on to an equally bitter topic. "And my... former position?"

[Rolling... 14]

"The Witch Hunter that was travelling with her has taken the job. Abelhelm kept that lot on a leash, but I worry that they've got her on one."

You say nothing directly, but your stomach twists at the ugly possibilities that that could lead to. You knew that Julia hadn't managed to claim your former job, but says she fancies her chances of staying on under the new regime. "What's her approach to the EIC?"

"She'll leave well enough alone as long as it keeps dropping money in her coffers. The campaign did real damage to the treasury, and refilling the ranks of the army will do even more."

You nod and look down at the paperwork scattered across the table. That's something, at least. With a free hand for this half of the year, Wilhelmina has been focusing on making sure her supply contracts with the Army of Stirland are iron-clad. You note that much of the EIC profits come from the treasury of Stirland in the first place, and smile a nasty little smile.

Then you see the logo of the EIC atop each piece of paper, and your smile fades. Three swords, it represented. And you're the only wielder of those swords still alive.

---

Through Wilhelmina, Julia, and word on the street, you piece together the rest of what Roswita has been up to. Despite dearly wanting to, you're unable to fault her priority: the securing of the gains her father paid for with his life. The Witch Hunters are moving in force into the secured portion of Sylvania to ensure that no necromancers remain.

The Chancellor's position remains as yet unfilled; on a related note, Anton, after a tearful farewell to you and extracting a promise that you'd stay in touch, has returned to Blutdorf to prepare to take up his ageing father's position as Baron.

[Minable minerals: 21]
[Farming Possibilities: 5]

Word comes back to you from those investigating your land for mineral wealth and farming possibilities; one figuratively barren and fruitless, the other literally. There appears to be no mineral wealth at all lurking under the thin topsoil of your land, and no plant can be persuaded to take root in it save for the hardy grass and scraggly bushes that the sheep and goats thrive upon. You had been watching them on and off through the months as part of your study into the mystery of gold's command over people, and you know they actually performed the work, so you're forced to accept their conclusion and thank them for their time.

Finally, as the year comes to a close, you make your way at last to Zhufbar. Your reputation gets you in the door, and that you're here to buy a gun garners approving nods, and you're shown through the workshops of a number of different dwarves, each at least five times your age and each eager to have crafted the firearm that ends up on your hip. You single out a number of designs for further consideration:

Marksdwarf's Pistol: This pistol is based on the tried and true single-shot design that still reigns supreme in the Empire, but both the firearm itself and the odd self-contained capsules of powder and ball are so finely built that the only restriction on accuracy is the wielder. It is currently missing the handle, for the simple reason that one will be built to match the wielder's hand when it is purchased.

Spoiler

Hand Blunderbuss: The brilliance of this design is not in the firing itself, but in the system of tubes and piping that absorbs the blast of the massive blackpowder charge, making recoil manageable with one hand. It fires anything that can be crammed down the barrel and does so without breaking the wielder's wrist.

Spoiler

Dwarven Revolver: Similar to the Repeater Pistols of Nuln, except instead of having eight separate barrels it has only one, and the chamber holding the balls revolves to line up with the one barrel instead.

Spoiler

Dwarven Pistol: A cutting-edge single-shot Dwarven design, this fires a massive, spiralling bullet with extreme velocity and decent accuracy.

Spoiler

Blacksmithing Tools:
[ ] Keep
[ ] Sell (+75 gc}

Shrine to Stromfels:
[ ] Sell the idol for its silver, tear down the altar and use the room for something else. (+150 gc, +1 room, ???)
[ ] Melt down the idol, cast it into a new one to Ranald, call in your priest friends to re-sanctify the room. (bonus to rolls and reduced cost to creating a second shrine to Ranald, either in your Estate or elsewhere, +1 room, ???)
[ ] Leave the idol on the altar and brick the room up. No sense taking risks.

Doomfire Ring:
[ ] Keep it.
[ ] Sell it (+??? gc).
[ ] Return it to the Bright College (???).

Pistol:
[ ] Marksdwarf's Pistol, 75 gc.
[ ] Hand Blunderbuss, 50 gc.
[ ] Dwarven Revolver, 125 gc.
[ ] Dwarven Pistol: 100 gc.

- To vote to purchase multiple guns, include them in one vote like so: [*] Dwarven Pistol and Dwarven Revolver or [*] 2x Dwarven Pistol.
- Ask any questions you have about what Roswita's up to, if it's the sort of information Mathilde can get I'll add it below.

Any big motivation speeches where she states her goal for the years to come?
She isn't the bombastic type, and keeps everything compartmentalized. If there's a bigger picture she's keeping it to herself.

Her stance on Dwarves and Halflings?
Neutral on the former. Somehow she got her hands on the amount of extra tax that would be coming in if the Moot was part of Stirland, so she's miffed at the latter.

How's new boss treating Julia?
Fairly well, actually; he seems delighted to have a ready-made intelligence network dropped into his lap. Current orders are to expand into Nachthafen and Drakenhof.

Any changes to the watch?
No major changes yet, but information on identifying illicit magic-users has been distributed among them.

Does Roswita have any idea we're still in the city and if so where we are?
You've made no secret of the fact that you're still in Wurtbad, but absolutely nobody knows your address.

I take it she hasn't taken us up on our offer of correspondence?
Her silence is a pretty clear answer.

Any news on what's she's planning on doing to the newly liberated lands of Drakenhof and the Haunted Hills? Count's demesne or new/expanded vassals?
She's desperate for money to refill the treasury, and seems likely to create new counties or baronies to sell off.

Have we heard of any tidings from Gabriella? (That vampire noble lady)
Her name was on the list you gave your Master, and as such you were unsurprised that she up and disappeared. Succession is for Roswita to decide..

Is Haunted Hills land for sale? Can we invite the dwarfs to prospect it and how much would it cost? The goal is to buy out the best mineral spots for EIC.
It's not currently on the market, but likely will be soon, one way or another. You could spend four favours to do a surface survey of the entire Hills, though it'd only catch the very obvious stuff - it's a massive amount of land to cover and a proper survey of it all would take lifetimes.

Do we know anything about how/what Gustav is doing?
Trying to refill the ranks of the army as best he can with the treasury as pitifully low as it is.

Any significant shifts in military deployments?
No, they're remaining mostly concentrated on the frontier.

Any action been taken to replace the greatswords? If no, what bodyguards does she use when in public?
A new cohort is being raised in Altdorf for her.

Has Abelhelm had a funeral yet? Based upon a previous vote option ("attend the long-delayed funeral of Abelhelm") it was implied that one would be held after his successor's arrival.
If there was a funeral, and you assume there was, it was kept private.

Has she had any events/meetings with the various prominent nobles of Stirland, as we know?
No.

Any significant public efforts to restore Stirland's coffers as yet, either as reducing expenses or moneymaking initiatives?
Not yet, but it does look like she's going to be liquidating the Haunted Hills in one way or another.

Has she brought in friends, forces, or visible assets of any kind other than that one witch hunter? And what is his name, anyway?
Either she brought a lot of Witch Hunters or they've become a lot more visible without Abelhelm keeping them in check. The new Spymaster's name is Lucas von Salkalten.

Anything we've learned about her personal traits/habits?
Reserved, bookish and private.

What do we know about the Witch Hunter who replaced us? Like general attitude, province of origin, Hat sizes and the weapons he carries around.
By name and accent, a northern Ostlander; combined with Abelhelm's taste in brandy you suspect that's where his children were holed up. He's equally suspicious of damn near everyone and seems to be really jumpy to suddenly find himself on the front line of the whole Sylvania business. He favours a falchion.

 

[Boney]

Spoiler: Winning Vote

[x] Melt down the idol, cast it into a new one to Ranald, call in your priest friends to re-sanctify the room. (bonus to rolls and reduced cost to creating a second shrine to Ranald, either in your Estate or elsewhere, +1 room, ???)
[X] Keep Blacksmiths Tools
[X] Dwarven Revolver, 125 gc.
[X] Return to the Bright College (???)

All of the options appealed to you to some extent, and the temptation was there to purchase more than one of the examples of fine art arrayed before you. But in the end, it was the revolver that won out over the others. It may lack for accuracy or raw stopping power, but it could be fired eight times without reloading and was compatible with the powder and shot that could be found in any town in the Empire instead of requiring some exotic Dwarven 'bullet'. You are given a short lesson on the firing, reloading and maintenance of your new weapon, as well as directions to the Leatherworker's Guild for a complimentary holster.

When you leave Zhufbar and head back to Wurtbad, it's significantly more heavily armed than before, with the revolver tucked into a holster beneath your robes.

---

It's been quite some time since you spent much time with Wolf and Heideck, but they answer your summons without hesitation. After you explain the fact that your hidden underground palace is, well, a hidden underground palace, they agree to being blindfolded and led through the streets as well, either trusting you not to pull anything or in Ranald to protect them, their arms full of various tools and props for the task ahead of them.

Wolf lets out an impressed whistle as you led him into the alley. "Don't know what you've done, but I'm liking the energies here." Getting them down the ladder is trickier, but you manage. And then, finally, you release them from their blindfolds in the hallway outside the Shrine, and they blink and peer around them into the darkness, lit by a glowing orb of light you summoned. Heideck steps through the doorway, takes a look inside, and steps out again. "Found your problem."

You roll your eyes. "I know what the problem is, I want you to solve it."

Heideck glances after Wolf, who has stepped through the doorway and is complaining loudly about river pirates. "We'll see what we can do."

"Glad to hear it. What do I owe you?"

He shakes his head. "Stromfels is no friend to Ranald, so should this work it will grant us favour with our mutual friend. No payment necessary."

You nod and leave them to it, occasionally looking in to see how it goes. Incense is lit, chants are chanted, games of chance played and outrageously cheated at. The clatter of rolling dice and the soft sounds of shuffled cards echo unnaturally in the air.

[Re-sanctifying the Shrine: Roll, 50]

Energies gather, energies simultaneously akin and completely different to the magical energies you're so used to manipulating. The now-familiar presence of Ranald is in the air, as well as one completely alien to you: violent, brooding, and eternally hungry. You make sure that raw iron runs from everything sensitive down to the floor to allow stray magical energies to earth themselves harmlessly. In the shrine, the two priests ceremoniously smash apart the shackles they brought with them.

[The Grappling of Gods: 52]

The presences grow in strength as energy crackles through the air. The two priests are kneeling before the Altar, chanting in incomprehensible Thieves Cant with their arms crossed in front of them as they reinforce Ranald's presence. It seems like it's working, that Ranald is growing slightly faster than the terrible hungry God that called this place home...

[Forces brought to bear: 8]

And in a single bloody instant, Wolf disappears from the waist up and gore sprays across the room, snatched up by the jaws of a hungry God. You're unable to keep from flinching away in horror, but Heideck's prayers redouble in strength as the terrible God is occupied with Wolf's mortal remains.

[A momentary distraction: 69]

That distraction is all that is needed, as Ranald's familiar presence waxes once more. The idol on the altar glows, and for a moment you think it's with magical light but it's heat, you can see drops of molten silver pattering onto the altar below, and in a single incomprehensible instant it's done - the duel you couldn't begin to understand is over and the presence of the terrible God is banished.

You enter the room on unsteady feet as Heideck gets to his own. As he turns to you, you open your mouth to say something, thanks or an apology or something, and he holds up a hand to interrupt. There's tears in his eyes but a smile on his face. "Many die in debt to Ranald, but very few die with Ranald in debt to them. His new home in the afterlife will be grand indeed."

Right. A priest to an unorthodox God, but a priest nonetheless. You murmur your thanks anyway, and he claps you on the shoulder and sets to work gathering up his implements and the remains of poor Wolf.

As he does so, you inspect the idol, its glow fading back into the sheen of silver. The shape of it has changed, and while you know that it's just from the nose of the shark having melted and run downwards into the open jaws and then cooled into strange, blocky shapes, it looks like the shark's open maw has been crammed with dice of all things.

Unnoticed, Heideck has come up behind you and you jump as he begins talking. "There's a blacksmith just inside the southern gate, next to the Cheesemonger's Guild. He can be trusted to remain silent. Have him reforge this into an idol worthy of Wolf's sacrifice."

He leaves, a basket of priestly implements in one arm and the remains of his former partner tucked under the other. Matters of blindfolds and secrecy didn't occur to you until long after he was gone.

---

The Bright College itself is set within an area of Altdorf that was burnt to the ground in some long-forgotten incident. Rumours of hauntings and inexplicable reignitions keep it from being rebuilt as much as the laws saying it should be left as is, as a reminder of... of something. Evidently, it failed.

Ignoring the glimpses of movement from the corners of your eyes and refusing to investigate the occasionally smouldering remnants that make it seem as the fire burned hours instead of centuries ago, you push through the empty streets until you reach your destination - a collection of towers collapsed atop each other in an otherwise empty plaza. You stare in thought at the illusion, seeing the familiar flow of Ulgu through it, and wonder at what long-past agreement or deal led to its creation. Then you step through it, and flinch back from a wave of heat as you penetrate the illusion and instead find yourself at the brass gates of the college, glowing red with heat. Far above you, twenty-one identical towers stretch into the sky, each of them burning brightly. No illusion, this; such is the place that Pyromancers call home.

As impressive as the gate is, even the Bright Order must surrender to practicalities, and to one side is the modest stone gatehouse and, visible through a window, the Gatekeeper, an old man in shabby robes who seems to be currently enjoying a cup of tea. He catches sight of you, rises, and ventures out from the small building, teacup still in hand. "Yes?" he asks, his burning eyes the only hint to his nature.

"Dame Weber, of the Grey College."

"Ah, yes." He totters back inside, consults a massive tome standing open on the table, then totters back out. "Magister Victor is expecting you. Would you like to come in, or are you happy to wait out here?"

The heat is already oppressive, you've no desire to find what sort of temperatures the Bright Wizards consider homey. "I'll wait here."

"Very well," he says with a smile, walks up to and opens the gate with no care for the sizzle or the smell of burnt flesh that filled the air, and into the depths of the College he goes, leaving you alone with your thoughts. You mull over your checking in at the Grey College (indirectly, because as a Journeywoman you're banned from the premises proper) and checking the reception to your Matrix. The Grey Order is impressed, and have been nudging the other orders to take notice of what was, you reluctantly admit, a rather dry paper. So far the Jade Order have started picking up on it, and have started experiments to form a Jade equivalent to the Matrix.

While thinking, your eyes were drawn up to the burning towers, far above. It is rather a staple of being a wizard, you think to yourself. Maybe you should build one of your own. Or perhaps it just wouldn't be practical...

"Dame Weber, I presume?" asks a cultured voice, and you lower your gaze to the man who has emerged. Heavy lines mark his face as that of an old man, but the fiery red of his hair disagrees.

You nod. "Magister Victor?"

"I have that honour." He holds out his hand expectantly, and you produce the iron ring from a pocket and place it there. He examines it closely, and a smile stretches across his features. "Wonderful," he says. "So many of these have been lost over the years, but some still find their way back. Where was it?"

You'd prepared a half-truth. "In the freshly-excavated ruins of a manor in Stirland, still worn by its former owner."

"You buried them appropriately?" You nod. "Good. Almost certainly it was not one of ours, but still." He inspects the ring again, this time in admiration. "The puissance of these artefacts is, perhaps, less than one might expect from something crafted by those under Teclis," he observes, the rubies shimmering in the firelight. "But they were never meant to turn the tide of wars single-handedly. What they represent is protection for our most vulnerable members as they venture out into the world, and handed down to another as each reaches Magisterial rank. If it means that just one more wizard reaches the prime of their career instead of dying to the trials of their journeying... well, what more potent effect could you ask of an enchantment?" You nod in agreement. "You've returned a prized relic to us, and the Bright Order repays its debts."

[Rolling...]

He reaches into his robes and produces an unadorned steel semi-circle - a torc, similar to that worn by the men of Sigmar's time. "I understand you have been knighted," he says. "A position of a leader and a warrior both. As such, I would grant to you this torc. It contains the essence of the spell known to us as Crown of Fire, which will make you inspiring to your allies and intimidating to your foes." He smiles. "More so than you are already, I mean." You take the torc from him, and find that the metal is comfortably warm instead of the coolness of metal you were expecting, and slip it around your neck. You feel the magic in it reaching out, surrounding your form, the Aqshy of the enchantment dancing above your skin a safe distance from the natural Ulgu in your body. "Once the spell has run its course over about five minutes, place it in a fire to recharge it. An hour in a typical campfire should do the trick, or half a day suspended above a candleflame, or a minute in a proper forge."

"A worthy gift," you say, and mean it. "Thank you."

"Thank you," he replies, "for the apprentices that now stand a greater chance of surviving their journeys."

You exchange bows, and then you turn and make your way back out of the devastated quarter.

---



PLAN FOR THIS TURN

As you are no longer employed, there is no longer a distinction between 'personal' and 'organizational' actions. Pick six of the below; you can take up to two extra actions as Overwork - if you do, mark them accordingly. All of your Organizations can be safely 'ignored' if you desire - they will continue operating as they have been.

The Weber Estate
Earmarked Funds: 1,066 gc
Estate Profits: 10 gc / turn
You can spend money instead of turns here to have someone else oversee the work; this will increase the cost by half again, and double any dwarf rep cost. For instance, an option costing 100 gc will cost 150 gc. It also means that your personal stats will not apply to whatever is being done.
[ ] Build a modest home for yourself, equal in size to the rooms you're using in the Sunken Palace (3 rooms, 50 gc).
[ ] Build a large home for yourself, with plenty of spare rooms to expand into (6 rooms, 150 gc).
[ ] Why muck about? Build a proper manor (10 rooms, 300 gc).
[ ] Build a tower, either into an above structure or on its own (1 room, 100 gc, bonus to room's purpose).
[ ] Build fortifications into your home, turning it into a hillfort, or motte (50 gc for wood, 200 gc for stone, optional dwarf help for -1 dwarf rep).
[ ] Erect a shrine to Ranald in honour of his victory over Stromfels, and of Wolf's sacrifice that made it possible. (NEW)
[ ] Use your newly-acquired blacksmithing gear to lure in a skilled but poor blacksmith to begin servicing the area. (no action required) (NEW)
[ ] Build a communal granary to store food for lean times (50 gc).
[ ] Build a well (50 gc).
[ ] Build a bailey for your subjects to shelter in and to encompass other structures (100 gc for wood, 400 gc for stone, optional dwarf help for -1 dwarf rep).
[ ] Have the dwarves build you a fortress. (1000 gc, -2 dwarf rep. Protects but does not build living area. No, there is no cheaper option. If you want cheap, get manlings to build it.)
[ ] Bring in dwarvern prospectors to search for minable metals (-1 Dwarf Rep)
[ ] Bring in dwarvern farmers to investigate the farming possibilities of the land. (-1 Dwarf Rep)
[ ] Improve the road between the Estate and Sonningwiese (50 gc)
[o] Establish upkeep of the roads between the estate and the individual households. (requires a local smith)
[ ] Purchase a loom, erect a building for it, and invite weavers to start calling your estate home. (100 gc)
[ ] Set up a dairy and recruit skilled cheesemakers from among the locals to work in it. (100 gc)


The Eastern Imperial Company
Outstanding Debt: 1,400 gc
Your share of EIC Profits: 50 gc / turn
Wilhelmina's Current Focus: Expanding into Southern Stirland.
[ ] Use your reputation to build trade ties with Zhufbar.
[ ] Use your reputation to build trade ties with Karak Kadrin.
[ ] Use your friendship with Anton to build trade ties along the Nuln Road.
[ ] Expand the EIC into Sonningwiese; this is unlikely to increase profits, but would indirectly improve the lot of your subjects.
[ ] Have the EIC print and sell a second edition of Asarnil's memoirs.
[ ] Investigate whether Ostermark is building a Talabec-Stir canal near Karak Kadrin.
[ ] Spend some time getting to know Wilhelmina's sons.


Gong Farmers
Currently Revenue Neutral due to supporting the Niter Factory
[ ] Fold them into the EIC; no need for you to have personal control of them. (no action needed)
[ ] Formalize and organize the payments people make for the Gong Farmers to perform their service.
[ ] Expand the Gong Farmers into the rest of Western Stirland.
[ ] Create market gardens outside the walls of Wurtbad, fertilized with the solid waste collected by the Gong Farmers.
[ ] No longer linked to the Watch, the Gong Farmers might be vulnerable. Arm and train them so they can defend themselves in the sewers.


Niter Factory
Goods currently unsold; costs covered by Gong Farmers.
[ ] Fold it into the EIC. (no action needed)
[ ] Sell the factory itself.
[ ] Sell the produced niter crystals to Nuln.
[ ] Sell the produced niter crystals to Zhufbar.
[ ] Sell the produced niter crystals as fertiliser in Stirland.
[ ] Sell the produced niter crystals as fertiliser to the Moot.
[ ] Investigate the rest of the process for making gunpowder.
[ ] Bring in dwarven experts to expand the factory to produce gunpowder (-5 Dwarf Favour).


Personal Actions
Personal Wealth: 357 gc
Living expenses: 10 gc / turn

Magister:
[ ] Go to Altdorf and submit yourself to the Magisterial examination. (takes three actions, will take place after other actions in the turn)

Self-Improvement:
[ ] Internalized Lessons: If you've been using a particular trait a fair bit in the last year, you can spend some time on it to internalize what you've learned and increase the trait (choose which trait; can be taken multiple times; will be more effective the more you've used the trait lately).
[ ] Practice, Practice, Practice: If you haven't been using a particular trait lately, you can try to practice it anyway.
[ ] Combat Training In The Free Market: The war cost you your combatant friends, but training is always for sale. Go out and buy some. (-20 gc)

Home Comforts: Your Palace-Shrine is bursting with potential, and no longer with mud.
[ ] Filled with Potential: You've got four rooms cleared out and ready to be put to use. Decide what you're going to put in one of them and get started on equipping it. (write in the purpose of the room)

Research:
[ ] Expand your library to cover a new subject or go deeper into an existing one (choose which; -50 gc).
[ ] Volatility: Examine how to move your various fragile and magically sensitive bits and pieces without endangering them.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] Your experience with the so-called Fog of War has given you a lot of ideas for new applications of Ulgu. Investigate them to see what might be possible.
[ ] Read the Liber Mortis.

Enchantment:
[ ] Imbue an item with a petty or lesser magic. (specify item and spell) (NEW)
[ ] Attempt to imbue an item with a Relatively Simple spell. (specify item and spell) (NEW)
[o] Advance your understanding of enchantment even further. (cannot be taken until you practice enchantment at your current level) (NEW)

Influence:
[ ] 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 - especially considering you no longer have official power.

Relations:
[ ] The New Boss: Keep an ear to the ground, learning what you can of Roswita's actions and plans.
[ ] The New Spymaster: Witch Hunter Lucas von Salkalten currently fills your position. As per the Articles of Imperial Magic, wizards owe assistance to the Templars of Sigmar if they can prove they need it. Drop by to offer it freely instead. (NEW)
[ ] Getting To Know You: Spend time with someone, offering your help in their tasks and generally getting a feel for them (choose one) (can be taken multiple times).
[ ] Getting To Know You Whether You Like It Or Not: Trust, but verify. Spend some of your time seeing what a certain person spends their time doing (choose one) (can be taken multiple times).
[ ] 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. (does not take an action)

Familiar: You've grown much in power; it might be time for you to seek a familiar. Animals that are suitable to be familiars are incredibly rare. You can hunt for them and spent a great deal of time doing so, or you can buy one for an agonizing price. Or you could make one.
[ ] You'll have a cat, damn it. Spend time with the alley cats of Wurtbad and see what you can find. (low chance)
[ ] Wander the streets of Wurtbad and see if any animal jumps out at you. (moderate chance, could be any tame or feral animal)
[ ] Spend some alone in the woods. What could go wrong? (high chance, but no telling what animal would be. chance of dangers in the woods)
[ ] Travel to Altdorf and see what suitable animals are for sale. (will cost 300-600 gc; can decide not to purchase if you don't like the type or look of the animal. Options for loans or dipping into EIC/earmarked funds will be available if you can't afford it)
[ ] Why trust in nature or the free market? You'll damn well make your own familiar. (50 gc, resulting familiar is unpredictable in appearance and will be visibly unnatural).


- Voting will be in Plan format.
- Don't forget Ranald's Blessing!
- Yes, you can spend spare time with Anton if you want. Such is the power of Shadowsteed.

 

[Boney]

Spoiler: Winning Vote

[*] Plan Unseen Sword
-[*][Personal] Internalized Lessons: If you've been using a particular trait a fair bit in the last year, you can spend some time on it to internalize what you've learned and increase the trait (choose which trait; can be taken multiple times; will be more effective the more you've used the trait lately).
--[*] Intrigue
-[*][Personal] Attempt to imbue an item with a Relatively Simple spell. Imbue an item with a petty or lesser magic. (specify item and spell) (NEW)
--[*] Robes with Aethyric Armour.
-[*][Personal] Erect a shrine to Ranald in honour of his victory over Stromfels, and of Wolf's sacrifice that made it possible. (NEW)
-[*][Personal] Go to Altdorf and submit yourself to the Magisterial examination. (takes three actions, will take place after other actions in the turn)
--[*] Ranald's Blessing
-[*][Free] Use your newly-acquired blacksmithing gear to lure in a skilled but poor blacksmith to begin servicing the area. (no action required) (NEW)
-[*][Free] Build a well (50 gc).
--[*] No action needed +25 gc
-[*][Free] Build a communal granary to store food for lean times (50 gc).
--[*] No action needed +25 gc
-[*][Social] 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. (does not take an action)
--[*] Anton

Normally, clothes would be a difficult choice for enchantment. Most Wizards would favour good solid metal for holding their enchantment, not just for the solidity of form but also because one piece of metal is one piece of metal but one item of clothing is technically numerous strands woven together and fixed in place by knot and stitch. But Ulgu, you theorize, is entirely at home with flexibility and ephemerality, so you set out to weave your oft-used spell of Aethyric Armour into your robes of office. You do have to make some preparations beforehand, so a few copper coins are exchanged for a set of needles and thread and you try your amateur best to sew sigils and runes into the lining, and you quickly develop a grudging admiration for those that practice the seamstress' art. It's a lot harder than it looks.

You're quickly proven wrong in your hypothesis, as a few days later you find that even with the sewn sigils to anchor the enchantment, the slightest wrinkle shatters the partially-formed enchantment and releases the magic to earth on the strips of iron that adorn your workbench for exactly that purpose. You frown as you examine the robes for any trace of magic left within them. Theoretically the enchantment fully-formed would be more stable, but that would require you to finish the long process of enchantment before the robes move even slightly. You consider various ways of trying to hold the robes immobile while still giving you access to the entire thing, before you shelve the idea and decide to try another approach.

An outlay of a few silver coins gets you a good leather skin, which you slice into a series of squares. Being originally part of an animal, it would theoretically retain magical energies better than most, and would retain the connection between the squares as they were once part of the same animal. Using reflected and concentrated sunlight, you slowly and carefully burn the appropriate sigils into each piece, doing your best to ignore the smell.

You need to put the pieces aside and work out on paper the correct way to divide the spell up so it can be split between different squares and still combine back together, which takes days of work as you convert the spell to thaumaturgic equations and then try to find the best way to split it, and then convert the divided fragments back into pieces of incomplete spellcraft which then have to be made into enchantment, but you're unable to find a way to make an enchantment both self-contained and fragmented, so you have to go back to the beginning and convert the process of enchantment into thaumaturgic equations so you can derive that into fragments. By the time it's complete you're wondering whether the holding-the-robes-immobile thing would have been easier, but you press on.

Each of the squares of leather, when enchanted, is magically useless; it's only in combination with the 15 other leather squares and the 15 other fragments of the enchantment that they combine to form a working piece of magic. Or so the theory goes, and you've no way to check whether it works until all sixteen pieces are enchanted, and each square is a full day's work in itself. A week passes, then another, and finally you've got the end result ready for testing. You impatiently sew each of the squares into place in the lining of your robes and then wear them, feeling the unfamiliar weight they add to your usually so familiar robes. Then you press down on the square of leather on your left hip, and the familiar grey sinks into inky black as shadow rises from the weave of the fabric and spreads over your exposed skin. An experimental knife-cut on a sleeve fails to penetrate it, and then another on your palm similarly fails to cut, and you smile.

---

The worn and well-maintained Old Dwarf Road between Averland and Talabecland turns into the much less so tributary that leads to Sonningwiese, which after a brief stop-off in the small village gives way to the rocky dirt road to your estate as you climb higher into the hills. The only constant sign of human habitation is that the grasses and shrubs you pass have been grazed low by herds instead of left to grow wild. Once or twice you see some of your subjects, always accompanied by a herd of goat or sheep, who watch placidly as you pass.

The site of your future manor is atop the highest rise in your lands, which is also the only relatively flat area to be found. Soon enough, two carts will arrive in Sonningwiese, one full of lumber and another full of tools and also an eager young journeyman blacksmith from Tarshof, and from there the itinerant workers you recruited will help both carts make their way up the treacherous road to here. They'll have to construct some makeshift shelter up here, but you'll be staying in a tavern down in Sonningwiese since your Shadowsteed doesn't care about distance or road conditions.

You visit the closest thing to a headsman the area has, the man who owns the largest herd and is well-respected for it, and ask him to spread word that any who wish to pay taxes in work rather than in a share of their produce should present themselves to the hilltop, as well as telling him that there'll be a well sunk and a granary built there for the common use, and a blacksmith will be setting up there to offer his services. He takes all this news in characteristic phlegmatic fashion, but you see interest in his eyes. Perhaps he's excited to have the only real gossip this area has seen in half a decade, but perhaps he's genuinely interested in the improvement you'll be making in the lot of the locals. Either way, word will spread.

The next morning, the carts are partway up the road and the most impatient of workers have gathered armloads of tools and walked the rest of the way, and the seemingly empty landscape has disgorged a band of fit young men willing to work to spare their family their tax burden for the year. Shovels are distributed and used for about two minutes before the thin topsoil is removed, then picks and sledgehammers are introduced to get through the white rock underneath. When the carts finally arrive, the lumber is unloaded and split into four shares: one for the blacksmith, one for the granary, one for the shrine, and one for the temporary shelter all these men will be living out of for the next few months. You listen to the carters moan about the condition of the roads, then you send them mercilessly back down. There's more lumber to be moved yet.

The blacksmith leads the men constructing his future shop, a carpenter from among the itinerant workers directs them in constructing the granary, democracy and arguments directs the construction of the shelter. Your focus is the Shrine, which you're a little concerned about and as such gather the men one evening to reveal to them the recast idol and gauge their reactions. The idol was supposed to be shaped like a sitting cat, but through what the blacksmith back in Wurtbad said was an accident (but you're quite sure was anything but) is halfway to looking like a very small wolf. You see greed in some eyes at the silver, but it fades quickly as you explain that the idol is sacred to Ranald and will be the centerpiece of a shrine to him. Both itinerant workers and herdsmen alike are vulnerable to capricious fortune, and neither fancy provoking the God that rules over it.

Over weeks, the Shrine goes up, built so that the wood of the arched roof forms the innocent-looking crosses sacred to Ranald. The altar is built with a hollow that the idol can be concealed within so that, if necessary, the shrine can be said to be a particularly modest shrine to just about any god; you don't think it will be necessary, but the possibility of subterfuge is pleasing to Ranald, nonetheless. And when the building is finished, rather than any formal ceremony to sanctify it, you gather the workers and herdsmen together and supervise a night of Liar's Dice, helped with a barrel of mediocre ale from the tavern you've been calling home. As the night drags on there's accusations of cheating and fists fly and blood is spilled, but by morning the events of the previous night are hazy and only the bloodstain on the altar remains.

---

It was a shame to bid farewell to the growing structures on the hilltop near Sonningwiese, but duty calls and the road to Altdorf is long. Traffic is bustling along the Old Dwarf Road and you smile to see how many of the carts you pass fly the pennant of the EIC, though that fades as you turn off onto the Nuln Road. You pass through the Barony of Purgg and recall events in the Stirhugel; the 'unknown creatures' picking off sheep and cows that turned out to be mere bandits who were hanged for their troubles. Next you ride through the Free Town of Flensburg which is now only the Free Town of Flensburg, and smile as you recall Anton's series of deals that cut through the snarled geopolitical mess it was. Then, suitably enough, you find yourself in the Barony of Blutdorf, and decide to pay him a visit and see how life outside the council is treating him.

The Barony of Blutdorf is dedicated to agriculture, drawing in crops from the rich lowlands between the Nattern Forest and the River Aver and propelling them east to Wurtbad and west to Nuln. This makes it at least equal in wealth to most of the larger Counties who possess mainly woodlands and hills with only small tributaries for rivers, with only Franzen and the rich lowlands of Southern Stirland rivalling it for agricultural output, and it puts that wealth to use by providing the crossbow regiment of the 2nd Division. A worthy fief for your former co-councillor to inherit, you think to yourself, and that's reinforced by the glimpse of the town of Blutdorf you get riding through its streets - mostly rows of small, neat houses, but a building surrounded by enormous barrels must be a winery and another has a number of alert-looking guards with the sigil of the Guild of Engineers over the doors, and you guess it to be a crossbow factory.

You arrive at the modest keep that is the home of the Baron of Blutdorf and introduce yourself to the guard, who takes one look at you and waves you in to join the rest of the crowd. The courtyard is much neater than the one in Eagle Castle, apparently used for occasions like this instead of for the troops to practice their combat drills. You wriggle your way through the crowd of townsfolk and peasants towards the center of attention, and finally break through to see Anton listening intently as some kind of land dispute is laboriously explained and argued over by two peasants.

"You signed it," Anton says, cutting into what was being said. "Yes, you were drunk, but you got yourself drunk and he was drunk too, and the price is fair and you both signed the agreement so it's binding. Have your herds off it by next Festag or they'll be considered stray." One of the peasants look mutinous, but the crossbow-armed guards lining the inner wall of the keep start taking an interest in him so he keeps his dissatisfaction to himself and leaves. "Okay, who's up next? Let's see..." he consults a slate. "Fifty-three! Who's number fifty-three?"

Grinning, you step forward. "I've a complaint about the conditions of the roads," you say.

Anton sighs. "For one, the roads are the responsibility of the Elector Count, you'll have to take it up in Wurtbad, for two there's a number system, unless you're number fifty-three-" he stops as he finally notices you. "Mathilde! Oh gosh, it's you!" He practically leaps from the throne to hug you and you return it with a laugh. He turns from you to yell up at the guards, "send someone to bring snacks from the kitchens, court is adjourning."

The people around you grumble a bit, but the promise of snacks keeps them happy as Anton leads you into the keep proper, which is vastly more modestly-scaled than the castle you're used to, and into a comfortable little sunroom where he stokes the fire to life and offers you a drink from the sideboard.

"Look at you!" you say, delighted. "Holding court and everything!"

He smiles bashfully. "My father's idea - he says the people should get to know me for when I take over. He's talking of stepping down to enjoy his twilight years while he's still fit enough to hunt."

"So you'll be Baron," you say wonderingly. You were always aware of him being the heir to the province, but didn't realize it could come so soon, and he seems similarly shocked.

"I've had my whole life to get used to it and it still seems strange. I suppose it can't be harder than being Chancellor for all of Stirland, though."

That sobers you somewhat. "Listen, Anton, I wanted to... well, apologize and thank you at the same time? You didn't have to give up your job for me-"

"I did," he says, simply. "You're my friend and you were ill-treated, so I had no choice."

You smile at him. Anton's view of the world was simple, but it definitely had its charms. "Thank you."

"Of course. So, what brings you?"

"Passing through on the way to Altdorf," you say. "Magister's exams."

"Not before time," he says. "It always came as a surprise that you were still a Journeywoman, with some of the things you managed. Gosh, the stories I've heard! Fang Island, the Sieges of the Drakenhofs, the whole business with Petr von Stolpe, and the Stirlandian League, and now the EIC!"

"Says the man that was sent to hire mercenaries and came back with a dragon."

"Says the woman who wrote his memoirs. It took me a month to find a second-hand copy, it was sold out before I'd even heard it was available."

The two of you laugh, and continue to discuss past events and the future until long after the sun has set.

---

The next morning finds you on the road once more as you follow the road around the Nattern forest running parallel to the Reik. In the distance, the spires of Altdorf rise to meet you as your enchanted steed effortlessly gallops past a mile marker every two minutes. When you finally reach the city, it is with a sense of anticipation.

You'd come to Altdorf quite often in the past eight years, on business of one sort or another, but you haven't returned to the Grey College. There is only a single circumstance that can bring a journeying wizard back to their Alma Mater: their journeying coming to an end. You dismiss your horse and stride with confidence through the streets until you come to one of the poorest and most violent districts Altdorf has, and without a moment's hesitation you continue, passing dingy taverns and faded advertisements dimly illuminated with tinted-red lights. In Altdorf, it is the rarest of muggers that would take their chances with a wizard, but in this district especially none would dare to interrupt the grey robes of a Shadowmancer. In the center of all of these shabby buildings filled with poverty and desperation lies a plain stone building, ancient and crumbling, with a single tower extending over it in such disrepair that all that would call it home is a family of pure-white owls. To most, it would be a ruin. To its neighbours, it is too terrible to acknowledge.

To you, it was home.

You push through the door and into the hallways revealed, lined with gargoyles and dust. You ignore doorways into empty rooms and duck under cobwebs as you walk with purpose but without direction, following the turns of the hallway as it appears to go on for far longer than the outside building would allow for, as unseen watchers train their gaze on you and decide whether to admit you to the inner sanctum, and finally you turn a corner and come face to face with a final set of doors that would not have been there if your admittance was not allowed. You push them open, and stand in the entrance hall of the Grey College, the center of a spiderweb of a hundred passages leading to a hundred hidden entrances throughout Altdorf.

You take a seat in a faded but well-maintained armchair and wait, and before long you hear footsteps coming from deeper within the building as your Master approaches. Any other time, he would mask his coming and simply appear in the seat opposite you, but this is a matter of ritual as old as the Colleges. You smile as he approaches, and he returns it as he lowers himself into the chair across from you.

"Have you journeyed?" he asks.

"I have journeyed across the length of Stirland and into the depths of Sylvania."

"Have you discovered?"

"I have discovered the spellcraft known as Mathilde's Mystical Matrix."

"Have you achieved?"

"I, in the command of the Army of Stirland and the Throngs of Zhufbar and Karak Kadrin, achieved the total destruction of Castle Drakenhof."

"Then I welcome you back to the Grey College, Mathilde Weber. May you call this campus home for the rest of your days." With the ritual complete, he leans forwards and claps you on the shoulder. "Well done, my girl."



---

There will be a period of study with your Master before you begin the Magisterial Exam. Choose which of the below you wish to focus on during your time here, as well as how many you wish to focus on before beginning your Magisterial examination. Each will take a month, during which you cannot leave the campus; the minimum amount is two, plus the Intrigue lesson already selected. It will be possible to study these at the College at a later date, but then you would have to earn your entrance either by deed or by coin, whereas now your Master is paying for your lessons. On the other hand, the less time you spend in study, the more impressive your graduation will be.

[ ] How many months? (write in; the minimum and default is 3)

Practical
[*] Intrigue and Tradecraft. (locked in)
[ ] The Use and Creation of Poison
[ ] Spells of Grey Magic
[ ] Swords and Swordplay
[ ] Ritual Magic
[ ] Psychology
[ ] Imperial Law
[ ] Practical Diplomacy

Theory
[ ] The Nature of Ulgu
[ ] The Nature of Magic
[ ] The Enemies of Man
[ ] The Allies of Man
[ ] Religion and the Empire
[ ] The Empire and its Provinces
[ ] Human Nations of the Old World
[ ] Chaos and Chaos Gods

Extracurricular
[ ] Enchantment
[ ] Potions and Alchemy
[ ] Power Stones and their Creation
[ ] Runes and Runecraft
[ ] Wyrdstone Containment
[ ] On the Education of Apprentices
[ ] Searching for and Identifying Animal Familiars
[ ] The Creation of Artificial Familiars


- I've folded the Intrigue learning into this for story reasons - it hasn't 'cost' you an option.
- Ranald's Blessing will apply to the examination itself.
- If there's another subject you think the Grey College should offer, let me know.
- Example of correct vote (replace the *s with x's).

[*] (number) months
[*] Topic 1
[*] Topic 2
[*] Topic 3

 

[Boney]

Spoiler: Winning Vote

[*] Four Months
[*] Intrigue and Tradecraft. (locked in)
[*] The Nature of Ulgu
[*] Spells of Grey Magic
[*] Enchantment

Once, you were a peasant girl who had known only the crude huts of her village; once, you were an apprentice that had a very small cell to herself with a hard bed and a tiny stove and a pet cat called Morr. But since then you have known both castles and tents, manors and barracks. You've experienced the best taverns of Wurtbad and the Moot and passed out in dingy roadside inns after a day of hard riding. The cell you're given as a graduating journeywoman fails to appear on either extreme of your jaded palate. The bed is small but comfortable, there's a well-ventilated hearth, and there's a rope that can be pulled to summon one of the College staff, though it is a privilege very easily revoked if abused.

Once more, you sink back into the hidden ecosystem of Collegiate life. A bustling staff of people whose job titles could be found nowhere but in a college exists everywhere you look; bedels and bursars and proctors and porters and provosts and dozens of other highly-specialized roles. The Wizards, too, shrug off the ranks of the outer world; nobody is introduced as Magister or Lord Magister here, but instead by the role they play in The Faculty. Professors and Readers and Lecturers and Docents and Tutors, and parallel to them, the librarians and curators. All of this exists primarily to impart knowledge to those such as you.

It would be humbling, if you had time to think about it. But you don't. Four months, you've decided on - two to both practical and theoretical Ulgu, one to adding to your grasp of enchantment, and one dedicated to one-on-one tutoring with your Master as you go over the sudden and almost universally fatal disassembly of the organisation that once pulled your strings.

---

The College operates on an apprentice system, but you never before realized how restricted that was to those below the rank of Magister. Once one reaches that rank, learning opportunities cease to come at the whim of your Master or the harried and hollow-eyed Substitutes that stand in when said Master is off doing gods only know what; they lie thick as autumn leaves and every time you stop to scoop one up three more have fluttered away. You cram your schedule; a lecture here, a dissertation there, an experiment on the nature of Ulgu when transmitted through various gases on the side and always plenty of library time as you try to use books to cement the gaps between the knowledge snatched from this dizzying array. It's not until several days in that you realize you can talk to those giving the presentations - not during them, of course, but you can ambush them in the hallway or track down their office and nine times in ten they're delighted to have someone to talk the ear off about their latest pet project.

What you quickly learn is though you don't quite have the proper vocabulary of jargon, you do have a grasp of the nature of Ulgu that matches many and exceeds some that are giving these lectures; the conversations you have are interesting but often not educational, as those giving the talks spend several hours to get to a point that you grasp on an instinctive level. Still, it does help to better understand the underpinnings of the conclusions you reach without thought, which leads you to be better able to apply your magical insight. And you turn this newly strengthened insight on possibly the most important lessons of all: learning new spells.

It's one-on-one, of course, and in a specially warded and reinforced room to hopefully minimize disaster, but you absorb knowledge at an impressive rate and shape the illusions as fast as they are taught to you. Mutable Visage is the instant makeover of a more materialistic girl's dreams, and Eye of the Beholder is focused around the mental manipulations you've used so well with Mindhole. With those absorbed in a few days apiece, your Master decides you might have earned something a bit more difficult, and the much more complicated structure of Mockery of Death is revealed to you. It takes twice as long, but as before, your intuitive grasp of Ulgu makes learning the spells straightforward, so your Master decides to push you further than ever before. Substance of Shadow, a spell with frankly astounding possibilities, is laid down before you, and your Master sits back to watch if you'll rise once more to the occasion.

It's an observation you've made before: either because of your country background or some personal quirk, to you, Ulgu is more fog than shadow. Mastering a spell explicitly based around the shadow aspects of Ulgu presents some difficulty because of this; it just doesn't instinctively mesh in the way that's so familiar to you. Days turn to weeks as you try to visualize the strange warping of reality that the spell causes, until you finally reach a breakthrough that changes everything: shadow is the gate through which fog travels and changes states. A person or object passes through the ensorcelled shadow, and becomes not just invisible but also intangible until the spell runs its course or the person or object is illuminated. They are converted to an energy pattern not unlike fog which travels through the medium of shadow until ejected.

From there, it's still most of a fortnight until you finally manage the spell, but it's with a glowing sense of accomplishment that you watch your Master confirm that the test crate has been converted to an ephemeral state.

[Theoretical Ulgu: Learning, 39+18=57]
[Windreader trait gains an additional +1 Learning]
[Practical Ulgu: Learning, 84+19=102]
[Rolling...]
[Eye of the Beholder learned!]
[Mutable Visage learned!]
[Mockery of Death learned!]
[Substance of Shadow learned!]
[Sufficient spells learned - magic level has increased!]

---

At first, you thought that there'd been some mistake and one of the College staff was cleaning the room, but before you can embarrass yourself you realize that the man in front of you is your teacher, and he has eschewed the robes of office as unnecessary forewarning to those he hunts. He introduces himself as Mr Grey, which is possibly the worst alias you've ever encountered, and he explains his purpose here today: to break you of your reliance on the trappings of enchantment paraphernalia. You think he's going to teach you new enchanting techniques, and you smile in anticipation.

Except what he actually teaches you is a suite of very specialized spells to do all the things your tools normally would. Ways of concentrating Ulgu to bend, reflect, or refract light, ways to craft very small and immobile illusions that act as lenses, a variant on the shadowknife he called a 'shadowchisel' to carve runes, a way of creating an illusory box that will allow sunlight in but not out, and a wide lens to concentrate a large area of sunlight into it, to build a tiny solar forge. All things that could be done significantly easier with your current workshop, and you do somewhat resent that he's presenting this to you after the time and effort you spent getting your hands on the items of your workshop.

That said, you do pick up a lot of general knowledge about the art of enchantment along the way, and feel you're that much closer to reaching new heights of possibilities.

[Enchantment Training: Learning, 96+19=115
[Rolling...]
[Trait Gained: Tool-Free Enchanting! (Possibility 4 of 6)]

---

The final quarter of your study is entirely between you and your Master: the postmortem of the organization that you helped your Master to take apart. You sit together by a fire, waiting for him to begin.

And waiting.

You clear your throat.

"My student," he says, apparently apropos of nothing, "tell me what you know of the highest level of secrecy ratings."

The sudden swerve in topic comes as a surprise, but you're used to thinking on your feet. "Not much," you say. "It's when something is considered so secret that you're not even allowed to reveal that-" you pause, realizing, and then continue the sentence "-that there is anything to be classified."

"Correct," he says. The fire crackles as your Master stares into it, perhaps weighing how much could be communicated versus the danger in doing so. Then, he sighs. "Your progress is satisfactory. Return to your studies."

There are no studies to return to; you earmarked this time for your lessons with your Master. But now there's nothing to discuss. Now, even filling that time gap could disturb the layer of secrecy that has apparently been put into place. It's immensely frustrating, but there's little you can do about it. When this level of secrecy is invoked, a month of learning is but the tiniest of sacrifices that can and will be made to it. You burn with curiosity as to what could have caused this, and it's likely you'll never know.

Unless, of course, it blows up in everyone's face.

[Internalizing Intrigue: 1]

---

It is the beginning of what promises to be a long and exhausting process, and it begins, apparently, with you sitting at a desk and table in the center of an otherwise unadorned room, watched intently by a Proctor. You stare down at the sheet of paper; you scan the questions on it, you double-check the name at the top to make sure that you've got the right page, and yes, you're being asked to report on your own loyalties. That strikes you as somehow deeply unfair, and it's just the start.

---

To the best of your knowledge, assess Journeywoman Mathilde Weber's level of dedication to a) the Grey College; b) the Empire; and c) humanity, factoring in her beliefs and motivations as well as any ties that bind her to the well-being of the above.

[ ] (write in; can either be Mathilde's words verbatim or an outline of what she says)


In the space below, describe your plans for the next five years (should you reach Magisterial rank).

[ ] Seeking employ as an advisor to an Elector of the Empire.
[ ] Seeking employ as an advisor in one of the Dwarfholds.
[ ] Seeking adventure in the Zhufbar expeditions into Karak Varn.
[ ] Seeking adventure in Belegar Ironhammer's reconquest of Karak Eight Peaks.
[ ] Seeking adventure as a mercenary, ideally with Asarnil the Dragonlord, and possibly build a Mercenary Company of your own.
[ ] Seeking adventure as the second coming of Nagash, searching for ways to overcome the final enemy of life. (you won't actually write this on the paper, but choose it if this is what you want Mathilde to do)
[ ] Seeking knowledge by building a branch campus of the Grey College in Stirland, possibly on your estate.
[ ] Seeking knowledge by investigating the phenomena and manifestations of Sylvania.


And, finally, Should you reach Magisterial rank, you are expected to contribute to the wellbeing of the Grey College in the manner/s of your choosing. Select all of the below Collegiate Responsibilities that you are willing and able to perform.

(omitting those you're unable to do or are ill-suited to any of your future plans)
[ ] Enchantment Commissions (payment in cash)
[ ] Enchantment Services (payment in College rep)
[ ] Lectures and Demonstrations
[ ] Tutoring
[ ] Taking on Apprentices
[ ] Interrogation
[ ] Research and Development (thaumaturgical) (ie. stuff derived from Shyish-Kebabs and Qhaysh juice)
[ ] Research and Cataloguing (biological)
[ ] Being available to investigate reports of unsanctioned magic-users.
[ ] Being available to intervene in matters of great import as needed


- This is your eviction notice from limbo. It's time to choose what the future will hold for this quest. If your plans take you out of Stirland, you'll have a turn to wrap everything up so that it can continue and survive in your absence.
- Keep in mind that while 'stay in one place and do nothing but research for the next half decade' might be a valid career option for Mathilde Weber, it would be really boring for both you, the reader and quester, and I, the writer and QM.
- There isn't a 'wrong' choice for your career from the perspective of the Grey College. Each serves the Empire's purposes.
- This was written as a whopper of a sleep debt started catching up with me so I apologize for any weirdly purple prose or grammar oddities.
- If you've got a different idea for a direction for Mathilde's adventure to go in, chime in.
- Nothing is in plans, just check whatever boxes you like. Sorry for the five or six times I changed my mind on how to do this; if there's anything left in the old formats when it comes time to tally I'll add them to the tallies manually.

 

[Boney]

Spoiler: Winning Vote

To the best of your knowledge, assess Journeywoman Mathilde Weber's level of dedication to a) the Grey College; b) the Empire; and c) humanity, factoring in her beliefs and motivations as well as any ties that bind her to the well-being of the above.
[*] Plan Collegiate Loyalties
-[*] Grey College - High
--[*] Debt of gratitude for retaining sanity and health through being born with magic.
--[*] Familial loyalty to Master
--[*] Academic interest in the preservation and perpetuation of discoveries
--[*] Self preservation in maintaining Wizard status within Empire for safety reasons.
--[*] Ambition in maintaining access to College resources and knowledge for the purpose of self improvement in the field of magic. It is very unlikely to obtain knowledge of similar depth in any one area, and impossible to do so for broader areas.
-[*] Empire - High
--[*] Belief in the ideal of Mankind United under the Empire for the betterment of all.
--[*] Obedience to the Laws of the Empire as the premier force for Order in the world.
--[*] Oath to the Articles of Magic, to act in the interests of the Empire.
--[*] Duty as a Wizard of the Grey College to obey the Grey College, transferred from duty of the Grey College to follow the lead of the collective Colleges, transferred from the collective Colleges loyalty to the Empire.
--[*] Duty as a Knight of Stirland to the Elector Count of Stirland, transferred from the duty of the duty of the Elector Count to the Empire
--[*] Self preservation from the Enemies of Man, Undead, Orc and Chaos would be free to wreak havoc without the intact Empire to protect its people from those.
--[*] Practical utility in acquiring assets, equipment and common services requires the continuance of civilization.
-[*] Humanity - Modest
--[*] Religious beliefs mandate the protection and furtherance of humanity.
--[*] Personal ethics seeks to minimize unnecessary harm to humanity in general.

In the space below, describe your plans for the next five years (should you reach Magisterial rank).
[*] Seeking adventure in Belegar Ironhammer's reconquest of Karak Eight Peaks.
[*] Seeking adventure in the Zhufbar expeditions into Karak Varn.
(due to how close these two were, there will be a vote to decide between these two)

Should you reach Magisterial rank, you are expected to contribute to the wellbeing of the Grey College in the manner/s of your choosing. Select all of the below Collegiate Responsibilities that you are willing and able to perform.
[*] Being available to intervene in matters of great import as needed
[*] Research and Development (thaumaturgical) (ie. stuff derived from Shyish-Kebabs and Qhaysh juice)
[*] Interrogation
[*] Being available to investigate reports of unsanctioned magic-users.

It's a product of a great deal of thought and you have to start over a few times after crossing out too much of the paper to remain legible, but eventually you're left with a finished report on your own loyalties:

Grey College - High
- Debt of gratitude for retaining sanity and health through being born with magic.
- Familial loyalty to Master
- Academic interest in the preservation and perpetuation of discoveries
- Self preservation in maintaining Wizard status within Empire for safety reasons.
- Ambition in maintaining access to College resources and knowledge for the purpose of self improvement in the field of magic. It is very unlikely to obtain knowledge of similar depth in any one area, and impossible to do so for broader areas.

Empire - High
- Belief in the ideal of Mankind United under the Empire for the betterment of all.
- Obedience to the Laws of the Empire as the premier force for Order in the world.
- Oath to the Articles of Magic, to act in the interests of the Empire.
- Duty as a Wizard of the Grey College to obey the Grey College, transferred from duty of the Grey College to follow the lead of the collective Colleges, transferred from the collective Colleges' loyalty to the Empire.
- Duty as a Knight of Stirland to the Elector Count of Stirland, transferred from the duty of the Elector Count to the Empire
- Self preservation from the Enemies of Man, Undead, Orc and Chaos would be free to wreak havoc without the intact Empire to protect its people from those.
- Practical utility in acquiring assets, equipment and common services requires the continuance of civilization.

Humanity - Modest
- Religious beliefs mandate the protection and furtherance of humanity.
- Personal ethics seeks to minimize unnecessary harm to humanity in general.

You'd almost listed your loyalty to the Grey College as higher than your loyalty to the Empire before you'd remembered the first line of the Articles of Imperial Magic that dictates it should be the other way around. The Proctor watches you serenely the entire time, supplying new pieces of paper when requested.

The other questions prove almost as tricky. You've got an urge to adventure with the dwarves, who've proven more pleasant company than most humans you've encountered, but you're split between the literal call to adventure that Belegar Ironhammer has given with the crusade to retake Karak Eight Peaks, and the more modest but also more nearby recurring raids into the mines of Karak Varn, so you keep it vague and say you'll be working with dwarves with a view to retaking lost holds or at least the treasures within them. Finally, for your Collegiate Duties: you put yourself down for thaumaturgical research and development (though part of you flinches at the thought of going through what you did with the Matrix paper again), investigating reports of unsanctioned magic use, and offer your services as needed for interrogation or for matters of great import.

When you finally finish your response to the questions, the Proctor takes them without comment and they're taken away into the depths of the College for, you're sure, careful examination. Meanwhile, you're taken to the carefully warded and reinforced room usually reserved for apprentices to fumble with magic and told to demonstrate every spell at your disposal, with the help of a volunteer from the menial staff.

[Magical demonstration: Magic, 72+15=87]
[Endurance: Magic, 37+15=52]

You run through them without difficulty, even those you learned only within the last few months, and you only start to flag as you feel the depletion of the local Winds right at the end. The door opens and you're thanked for your cooperation by one of the observers who were watching through the grille on the door, while the rest remain occupied with the notes they were jotting down. The utterly befuddled volunteer who was the target of your spells is taken off to have a lie-down.

It's not nearly the end of your spellcasting testing, as you're called upon to use the spells under every conceivable circumstance, and then given various scenarios and told to use whatever magic you wish to get through them. 'Guards' are snuck past, incapacitated, and otherwise tormented in a hundred different ways as you demonstrate your grasp of the spells you're capable of. You're given a letter and told to deliver it to a man waiting just inside the gates of Nuln; you're back before lunch and given a great many suspicious looks until a raven familiar delivers word that your letter has reached the recipient. You demonstrate your ability to channel Ulgu through weapons without any visible spellcraft, and more notes are taken. You're placed in an empty room with nothing but a candle, a torch and a fireplace, and the flickering of each is carefully observed and even more notes are made. You're told to watch as the Proctors cast spells, and then determine what is cast. They start off with the familiar rote spells, then move on to more esoteric ones, and finally wizards from other Colleges are brought in and you're left doing your best to calculate results based on the movement and reaction of the Winds around the caster.

The tests move away from magical ability and senses and into more esoteric parts of being a Grey Wizard. You're made to debate a number of different topics, some of them topical and some of them nonsensical; some days you're talking about geopolitical relations with Bretonnia and the situation with Marienburg, and others you're championing the argument that Hochland doesn't actually exist. Your lack of finesse with wordplay is made up for by your ability to grasp the salient details of whatever the situation at hand is, and you feel you manage to conceal the fact that diplomacy is among the least of your strengths. You're also called upon to recite the Articles of Imperial Magic, as well as to explain your understanding of them at length.

Then they give you assignments based on more underhanded approaches, and you can't conceal a grin. A volunteer among the nobility is told to conceal three tokens somewhere in his house and instruct his guards to yell 'seen' instead of drawing steel if they spot an intruder, and you turn the place over without disturbing even the dog napping in front of the smouldering fire and find all three tokens as well as evidence that said noble is being a little bit cheeky regarding his tax obligations. You're given a five minute head start and told to hide before three of the Proctors start hunting you; four days later the town criers start broadcasting a request that you report to the College, and you say goodbye to the grocer you had been working for as Alys Schmidt and report smugly back. In what is apparently a tradition dating back to the founding of the Colleges, you sneak into the University of Altdorf and steal a full-size anatomical skeleton model while an exam is being taken in that very room. Judging by the guards they placed, you're not the first, and judging by how easily you bypassed them, you won't be the last.

The annual drill for the Imperial Palace is underway, and you're told to try your best to get into position to threaten the life of the man representing the Emperor and given three attempts. The first ends in the Great Hall with you fighting off three of the Reiksguard (all of you armed with wooden swords, of course, and laying down upon receiving 'fatal' wounds) before five more turn up and force your surrender. The second ends in a rooftop chase where your flight from guards is interrupted by a wax bullet that gives you a nasty bruise along your ribs, but you had managed to reach a window that overlooked where the ersatz Emperor was taking his lunch, though you only caught a glimpse as he was hurried out a door by alarmed guards. On the third, you enter via one of the towers and find your way to one of the Palace's many kitchens and spread little green tokens to represent poison through much of the food, and then almost manage to charge your way past the guard on the door to the Emperor's bedroom, and there's a great deal of discussion and business with measuring tapes as those overseeing the exercise try to decide whether you had made it into a theoretical bomb's blast radius range of where the target had been lying. The Reiksguard are picking green tokens out of their meals for weeks to come, and the Palace sends a grudging thankyou to the Grey Order that is passed on to you as a souvenir.

[Spell flexibility: Learning, 80+19=99]
[Magical senses: Magic, 58+15=73]
[Debates - diplomatic skill: Diplomacy, 21+10=31]
[Debates - grasp of material: Learning, 99+19=118]
[Intrigue test: 93+19=112]

Finally, the day comes when you are to meet one of the examiners in a duel. The arena is a sunken pit thirty yards across, dimly lit by two low-burning lamps. Your opponent is a man in his forties, who is rather put out when the duel begins with a wax bullet to the chest knocking him sprawling. There's some discussion amongst the Proctors, and it's determined that while your quickdraw was very impressive and your victory has been noted, it didn't give them a very good idea of the breadth of your abilities, so another duel shall be performed. The second begins, predictably enough, with your opponent vanishing from sight; you check your senses, determine there's no foreign influence on your mind, and watch the Winds carefully, for the movements of him disturbing them or the drawing in of him casting a spell.

The moment Ulgu begins concentrating, you unleash bullet and spell and a cry signals that one of them has connected, but that he doesn't declare the duel over indicates it must have been non-vital. You use the distraction to mask yourself in Ulgu, covering yourself in spells to make you hard to see and hard to notice, and the two of you circle the arena warily, moving close to keep from emitting sound or disturbing the Winds. The room is so quiet you can hear the scratch of quill on paper from the observers above, and you breathe as shallowly as you can.

What finally gives you away, you determine after, is the lamp on the wall flickering as you approach; a fan of black knives emerges from Ulgu and is sent to you, and one of them - blunted, of course, in a minor modification of the normal spell - bounces off your ribs, and though the enchantment of your robes prevents any damage it does give away your position and you duck as an invisible wooden sword is jabbed through the space where your chest was. You scramble away, each time the sword passing so close to you you can hear it, and he remains hot on your heels as he pursues you through the room. You're moving too quickly to be silent and you can't slow down or his sword will catch you, and you can't even see it to parry.

It has to end eventually, and it does painfully as you duck into the sword and catch it across the throat. You collapse on the floor, gasping for breath as the spells you were holding shatter, and you wave off your suddenly-visible opponent as he tries to assist you. You're fine, but if that sword was live steel you'd be dead. It's a sobering reminder that as good as you've become, there are still people better than you.

You held out well, you force yourself to admit. Even without the first duel, you did inflict a minor wound, remained unseen through the mutual stalking, and when he found you it took him a while to make it stick.

[Initial moments: 97 vs 27+10=37]
[Take two: 34 vs 7+10=17]
[Cat and mouse: 64 vs 51+10=61]
[Someone has to blink: 73 vs 79+10=89]
[Scramble: 88 vs 82+10]
[Try to recover: 1 vs 60]

And the Proctors evidently agree.

When next you're led into one of the countless small rooms you've been tested in, you find yourself before a man you've laid eyes only a few times previously: the legendary Algard, Magister Patriarch of the Grey Order and one of the foremost magical researchers in the history of the Colleges. His surprisingly young-looking face peers out at you between his grey hood and his pale blue scarf, and he leans on his skull-topped staff to support himself. "Ah, Weber. Dame Weber, no less."

"A pleasure to meet you, Lord Algard," you greet him, trying to ignore your nerves.

He smiles, swirling grey eyes twinkling from under stormcloud-grey hair. "Likewise. This is not the first time you've come to my attention; first the matter with the Knighthood, then there's that wonderful Matrix of yours. The Jade Order are close to adapting it for themselves, and the Amber are working on it. Where did you get the idea for it?"

You consider lying for half a second, then spend several more considering how terrible an idea it would be. "The magical framework was created by trial and error, but the idea itself was based on a Dhar construct inside the minions of the necromancer claiming to be the heir of the von Carsteins."

"Interesting," he says, showing no sign of judgement. "Any differences between the two?"

"The Dhar construct would corrode and unleash the spell it held if not maintained every few days, but the Ulgu Matrix appears to last indefinitely - I had a test subject hold the Matrix within it for over a year with no sign of weakening. I theorise that it leeches a tiny amount of ambient magic to sustain itself."

"More proof, if more is needed, of the inherent flaws of Dhar," he says, half to himself. "I look forward to what further discoveries you may make. Third, you came to my attention during the Sieges of the Drakenhofs. Did you ever discover what it was that the late Hexensohn was looking for?"

You shake your head. "I had other priorities."

He nods. "Of course. Needs must. I'll bring it up with his successor at some point." He gazes into the distance, his eyebrows furrowed. "What were we... oh, yes. It is my pleasant duty to inform you that the Grey College has seen fit to bestow upon you the rank of Magister, along with all responsibilities and privileges thereof." He nods to his staff. "We used to give a staff to commemorate, but the previous Turner passed away and none have shown the ability and inclination to take it up. So I'm afraid all I can offer you to commemorate the occasion is my congratulations."

You stand there silent for a moment, taken aback by the abruptness. "I was expecting something more," you admit.

He nods. "The other Orders, no doubt, fill this moment with pomp and ceremony. But we are the Grey Order. Our work is rarely seen and even rarer appreciated. Temper your expectations accordingly. A job performed well needs to be its own reward, for we so rarely see any other."

"I see," you say.

He smiles. "Look on the bright side. We get to slit open reality's underside and meddle with the steaming guts that spill forth, and we're no longer burned at the stake for it. There's been precious few throughout the history of humanity that can claim the same." He pats your shoulder and hobbles out of the room, leaning on his staff for support. You stand there and digest the words, before turning and following and being met by your exuberant Master.

Well. Former Master. It will take some time to get used to calling him Regimand.

---

A night of celebratory excess later, you're making your fragile and hungover way back to Stirland, slumped over the neck of your shadowhorse. There's much to be done before you venture off, as well as the final decision to be made of which dwarven adventure you'll set off on.

+1 College Favour - Mathilde's Mystical Matrix
+1 College Favour - Matrix adopted by Jade Order!
+1 College Favour - Matrix adopted by Amber Order!
+1 College Favour - Graduated to Magisterial Rank
+2 College Favours - Proctors Impressed
+2 College Favours - Won Duel

[ ] Zhufbar regularly sends salvaging parties into Karak Varn and mining parties into the tunnels below. It will be close enough to Stirland to keep in touch, and you have a good reputation in Zhufbar especially.
[ ] Belegar Ironhammer has sent word that any that wish to seek their fortune are welcome to join him in retaking Karak Eight Peaks. While it is far from the civilized lands of the Empire, the treasure, the glory, and the adventure will be all the greater.


What will you be doing with these items?

Shyish swords:
[ ] Donate them to the Amethyst Order (+2 College Favours)
[ ] Return them to the barrow you originally got them from.
[ ] Leave them stored in your spare room.

Mirrorcatch Box:
[ ] Leave it behind; have Heideck come in and replace the containers as they fill.
[ ] Bring it with you, doing what you can with padding and cushions to protect it.

Liber Mortis:
[ ] Leave it safely in your Sunken Palace.
[ ] Bring it with you, safely locked within the enchanted box Abelhelm kept it in.


Pick FIVE of the below; you can take up to two extra actions as Overwork - if you do, mark them accordingly. All of your Organizations can be safely 'ignored' if you desire - they will continue operating as they have been.

Spoiler: Organizational Actions

The Weber Estate
Earmarked Funds: 916 gc
Estate Profits: 20 gc / turn
You can spend money instead of turns here to have someone else oversee the work; this will increase the cost by half again, and double any dwarf rep cost. For instance, an option costing 100 gc will cost 150 gc. It also means that your personal stats will not apply to whatever is being done.
[ ] Seek and hire a steward to manage and improve the fief in your absence. (100 gold to pay them for the projected duration of your absence)
[ ] Build a relation with the local community leader so that either he or someone else from the community can perform the duties of a steward. (cannot be outsourced)
[ ] Build a modest home for yourself, equal in size to the rooms you're using in the Sunken Palace (3 rooms, 50 gc).
[ ] Build a large home for yourself, with plenty of spare rooms to expand into (6 rooms, 150 gc).
[ ] Why muck about? Build a proper manor (10 rooms, 300 gc).
[ ] Build a tower, either into an above structure or on its own (1 room, 100 gc, bonus to room's purpose).
[ ] Build fortifications into your home, turning it into a hillfort, or motte (50 gc for wood, 200 gc for stone, optional dwarf help for -1 dwarf rep).
[ ] Build a bailey for your subjects to shelter in and to encompass other structures (100 gc for wood, 400 gc for stone, optional dwarf help for -1 dwarf favours).
[ ] Have the dwarves build you a fortress. (1000 gc, -2 dwarf rep. Protects but does not build living area. No, there is no cheaper option. If you want cheap, get manlings to build it.)
[ ] Bring in dwarvern prospectors to search for minable metals (-1 dwarf favours)
[ ] Bring in dwarvern farmers to investigate the farming possibilities of the land. (-1 dwarf favours)
[ ] Improve the road between the Estate and Sonningwiese (50 gc)
[ ] Establish upkeep of the roads between the estate and the individual households. (cannot be outsourced)
[ ] Purchase a loom, erect a building for it, and invite weavers to start calling your estate home. (100 gc)
[ ] Set up a dairy and recruit skilled cheesemakers from among the locals to work in it. (100 gc)


The Eastern Imperial Company
Outstanding Debt: 1,340 gc
Your share of EIC Profits: 60 gc / turn
Wilhelmina's Current Focus: Expanding into Southern Stirland.
[ ] Use your reputation to build trade ties with Zhufbar.
[ ] Use your reputation to build trade ties with Karak Kadrin.
[ ] Use your friendship with Anton to build trade ties along the Nuln Road.
[ ] Expand the EIC into Sonningwiese; this is unlikely to increase profits, but would indirectly improve the lot of your subjects.
[ ] Have the EIC print and sell a second edition of Asarnil's memoirs.
[ ] Investigate whether Ostermark is building a Talabec-Stir canal near Karak Kadrin.
[ ] Have dwarves do a surface survey of the Haunted Hills in anticipation of a land sale (-4 dwarf favours; will be mostly pointless if the land is given over to a Count or Baron instead of sold individually) (does not take an action)
[ ] Survey the Haunted Hills for sites rich in Ulgu for the EIC to buy on your behalf if the land goes on the market.
[ ] Spend some time getting to know Wilhelmina's sons.


Gong Farmers
Currently Revenue Neutral due to supporting the Niter Factory. They can and will continue their operations in your absence.
[ ] Fold them into the EIC; no need for you to have personal control of them. (no action needed)
[ ] Formalize and organize the payments people make for the Gong Farmers to perform their service.
[ ] Expand the Gong Farmers into the rest of Western Stirland.
[ ] Create market gardens outside the walls of Wurtbad, fertilized with the solid waste collected by the Gong Farmers.
[ ] No longer linked to the Watch, the Gong Farmers might be vulnerable. Arm and train them so they can defend themselves in the sewers.


Niter Factory
Goods currently unsold; costs covered by Gong Farmers. It would be a very good idea to organize a buyer for the produced crystals before you leave, or to unburden yourself of control of the factory.
[ ] Fold it into the EIC. (no action needed)
[ ] Sell the factory itself.
[ ] Sell the produced niter crystals to Nuln.
[ ] Sell the produced niter crystals to Zhufbar.
[ ] Sell the produced niter crystals as fertiliser in Stirland.
[ ] Sell the produced niter crystals as fertiliser to the Moot.
[o] Investigate the rest of the process for making gunpowder. (not enough time to follow through before you leave)
[o] Bring in dwarven experts to expand the factory to produce gunpowder. (-5 Dwarf Favour) (not enough time to follow through before you leave)

Spoiler: Personal Actions

Personal Actions
Personal Wealth: 356 gc
Living expenses: 10 gc / turn

Self-Improvement:
[ ] Internalized Lessons: If you've been using a particular trait a fair bit in the last year, you can spend some time on it to internalize what you've learned and increase the trait (choose which trait; can be taken multiple times; will be more effective the more you've used the trait lately).
[ ] Practice, Practice, Practice: If you haven't been using a particular trait lately, you can try to practice it anyway.
[ ] Combat Training In The Free Market: The war cost you your combatant friends, but training is always for sale. Go out and buy some. (-20 gc)

Home Comforts: Your Palace-Shrine is bursting with potential, and no longer with mud.
[ ] Filled with Potential: You've got four rooms cleared out and ready to be put to use. Decide what you're going to put in one of them and get started on equipping it. (write in the purpose of the room)

Research:
[ ] Expand your library to cover a new subject or go deeper into an existing one (choose which; -50 gc).
[ ] Condense the information collected during the Purge of the Haunted Hills into a single tome to be added to the collected knowledge of the College.
[ ] Volatility: Examine how to move your various fragile and magically sensitive bits and pieces without endangering them.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] 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.
[ ] Your experience with the so-called Fog of War has given you a lot of ideas for new applications of Ulgu. Investigate them to see what might be possible.
[ ] Read the Liber Mortis.

Enchantment:
[ ] Imbue an item with a petty or lesser magic. (specify item and spell)
[ ] Attempt to imbue an item with a Relatively Simple spell. (specify item and spell)
[ ] Advance your understanding of enchantment even further. (unlocked by College study)

Influence:
[ ] 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 - especially considering you no longer have official power.

Relations:
[ ] The New Boss: Keep an ear to the ground, learning what you can of Roswita's actions and plans.
[ ] The New Spymaster: Witch Hunter Lucas von Salkalten currently fills your position. As per the Articles of Imperial Magic, wizards owe assistance to the Templars of Sigmar if they can prove they need it. Drop by to offer it freely instead.
[ ] Getting To Know You: Spend time with someone, offering your help in their tasks and generally getting a feel for them (choose one) (can be taken multiple times).
[ ] Getting To Know You Whether You Like It Or Not: Trust, but verify. Spend some of your time seeing what a certain person spends their time doing (choose one) (can be taken multiple times).
[ ] 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. (does not take an action)
[ ] Farewell: Visit everyone you've gotten to know during your time in Stirland, let them know where you're off to, and say auf wiedersehen. (does not take an action, incompatible with Free Time)

Familiar: You've grown much in power; it might be time for you to seek a familiar. Animals that are suitable to be familiars are incredibly rare. You can hunt for them and spent a great deal of time doing so, or you can buy one for an agonizing price. Or you could make one.
[ ] You'll have a cat, damn it. Spend time with the alley cats of Wurtbad and see what you can find. (low chance)
[ ] Wander the streets of Wurtbad and see if any animal jumps out at you. (moderate chance, could be any tame or feral animal)
[ ] Spend some alone in the woods. What could go wrong? (high chance, but no telling what animal would be. chance of dangers in the woods)
[ ] Travel to Altdorf and see what suitable animals are for sale. (will cost 300-600 gc; can decide not to purchase if you don't like the type or look of the animal. Options for loans or dipping into EIC/earmarked funds will be available if you can't afford it)
[ ] Why trust in nature or the free market? You'll damn well make your own familiar. (50 gc, resulting familiar is unpredictable in appearance and will be visibly unnatural).

Spoiler: College Actions

Study: As a Magister, you're no longer barred from returning to the Grey College. If you've been pulling your weight for the Order, you can return to it to further your studies. Each costs 1 College Favour.

Practical
[ ] Intrigue and Tradecraft.
[ ] The Use and Creation of Poison
[ ] Spells of Grey Magic (teachers' choice; multiple spells)
[ ] Spells of Grey Magic (your choice; one spell)
[ ] Swords and Swordplay
[ ] Ritual Magic
[ ] Psychology
[ ] Imperial Law
[ ] Practical Diplomacy

Theory
[ ] The Nature of Ulgu
[ ] The Nature of Magic
[ ] The Enemies of Man
[ ] The Allies of Man
[ ] Religion and the Empire
[ ] The Empire and its Provinces
[ ] Human Nations of the Old World
[ ] Chaos and Chaos Gods

Extracurricular
[ ] Enchantment
[ ] Potions and Alchemy
[ ] Power Stones and their Creation
[ ] Runes and Runecraft
[ ] Wyrdstone Containment
[ ] On the Education of Apprentices
[ ] Searching for and Identifying Animal Familiars
[ ] The Creation of Artificial Familiars


Commissioning an Enchantment (does not take actions)
[ ] Relatively Simple enchantment (two favours)
[ ] Moderately Complicated enchantment (three favours)
[ ] Fiendishly Complex enchantment (five favours)

Apologies, but there's no easy way to do this: The difficulty of a spell is based on the casting number in Realm of Sorcery; if the casting number is a single digit, it's Relatively Simple. If it's between 10 and 19, it's Moderately Complicated. If it's 20+, it's Fiendishly Complex. I ask those with access to the book to highlight interesting possibilities for those that do not.

If you want something more complex than spell in item, outline what you're looking for and I'll give it a pricetag.

- Due to taking an extra month of study before your exams, you have five instead of six actions this turn.
- College favours is also the currency for making requests from other Orders; if there's any you have in mind, let me know. For reference, it would cost 2 favours for a simple enchanted item.
- I'll make a new thread or change the title or something to something more suited once the adventure begins.
- The Steward is not a clever way to bypass the 50% surcharge on tasks you don't oversee personally. They'll be hiring the same Managers you would be to perform the task. The point of them is to invest any leftover funds when you leave and the income in the meantime.

 

[Boney]

Spoiler: Winning Vote

Mirrorcatch Box:
[*] Leave it behind; have Heideck come in and replace the containers as they fill.

Liber Mortis:
[*] Bring it with you, safely locked within the enchanted box Abelhelm kept it in.

Shyish swords:
[*] Donate them to the Amethyst Order (+2 College Favours)

Campaign:
[*] Belegar Ironhammer has sent word that any that wish to seek their fortune are welcome to join him in retaking Karak Eight Peaks. While it is far from the civilized lands of the Empire, the treasure, the glory, and the adventure will be all the greater.

[*] Plan Ready For Battle
-[*] Seek and hire a steward to manage and improve the fief in your absence. (100+50 gold to pay them for the projected duration of your absence, free action)
-[*] Build a bailey for your subjects to shelter in and to encompass other structures. (100+50 gc for wood, free action)
-[*] Improve the road between the Estate and Sonningwiese. (50+25 gc, free action)
-[*] Purchase a loom, erect a building for it, and invite weavers to start calling your estate home. (100+50 gc, free action)
-[*] Set up a dairy and recruit skilled cheesemakers from among the locals to work in it. (100+50 gc, free action)
-[*] Internalized Lessons: If you've been using a particular trait a fair bit in the last year, you can spend some time on it to internalize what you've learned and increase the trait (choose which trait; can be taken multiple times; will be more effective the more you've used the trait lately).
--[*] Learning
--[*] Piety (Overwork)
-[*] Your experience with the so-called Fog of War has given you a lot of ideas for new applications of Ulgu. Investigate them to see what might be possible.
--[*] Ranald's Blessing
-[*] Spells of Grey Magic (teachers' choice; multiple spells)
-[*] Sell the produced niter crystals to Zhufbar.
-[*] 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.
-[*] Commission a magical healing item from the Colleges (-favours, specific spell deferred to a later vote, free action)
-[*] Farewell: Visit everyone you've gotten to know during your time in Stirland, let them know where you're off to, and say auf wiedersehen. (does not take an action, incompatible with Free Time)

The decision was tricky, and you went back and forth many times between the nearby and convenient guerrilla mining expeditions of Zhufbar and the ambitious and remote expedition to reclaim Karak Eight Peaks, but in the end you chose the latter. Perhaps you want some distance from the Empire right now; perhaps you feel it's the best cause for you to serve, perhaps you're just feeling ambitious. Whatever your reasons, soon enough you'll join the gathering glory-seekers in Averland to set off through the Black Fire Pass.

The first preparations you make is one of unleashing the funds at hand for the estate; you hire a bevy of managers through the EIC to spend the bulk of the earmarked funds for your estate, including the hiring of a steward to take care of it in your absence. A dairy, a loom, a wooden bailey, a better road - all minor improvements to the lot of your subjects, and also to the taxes you can expect to take in.

The second is to finally begin unloading the niter crystals that the Gong Farmers' factory has been producing for quite some time now. You pack a sample and visit the hold of Zhufbar once more, your good name there getting you inside the massive gates and an introduction to a dwarf high up enough in the Guild of Engineers to authorize purchases. He takes your sample and disappears into the depths of the Hold to perform a series of tests on it, and emerges days later to reluctantly admit that the sample is remarkably pure; not just for manling craft, but by dwarven standards. He's greatly relieved when you tell him you had dwarven help when setting up the factory.

Negotiations are straightforward. The Dwarven Empire has access to as much sulfur as they could ever use, being part of pyrite and gypsum as well as common in volcanically active areas. Charcoal is similarly abundant - the dwarves trade with humans for wood and mine bogs for peat to turn into peat-coal. The limiting factor on the amount of gunpowder they can make is niter. It can very rarely be mined in the form of cubic niter, but the most common source is biological, chiefly guano from bat caves. But this close to Sylvania, hunting for bat caves is a terrifying and often deadly proposition, and elsewhere in the World's Edge Mountains there are equal or even greater terrors that call caves homes. So to have a source of niter that costs them gold instead of blood is a fantastic boon. And the price they offer you makes you think you misheard.

It makes sense when you think about it. Gunpowder, you know from experience, is about two crowns for a two-pound keg, and you'd get twenty shots per pound of gunpowder. Dwarven gunpowder, if you could get it at all, was as much as ten times the price. If niter was the limiting factor of gunpowder, and your niter was pure enough to make Dwarven gunpowder from, then two crowns per pound of niter isn't, you suppose, entirely ridiculous. But it is fantastically profitable, especially multiplied by the growing stockpile back in Wurtbad.

The EIC, of course, is contracted to transport the niter to Zhufbar, and once the backlog is cleared you've got quite a pile of crowns, even after one in twenty is tithed to the College. You also arrange for the profits of the sales to be stored with the EIC's vaults in your absence.

[Striking a deal: Stewardship, 81+16=97]

---

The swords are your next priority. You can't drag a metal crate of swords to the Badlands with you, and you've never been able to find the time to focus on them, and since you stumbled on them you've found other, more promising leads to research. You'll take a look at them now, and then turn them over to the Amethyst Order and have a favour to call in later. A bird in the hand, and all that.

You've inspected these swords before, and it ended with a quite possibly fatal discharge of deathly energies that you were saved from by an attack from one of the ever-present cats that haunt your Sunken Palace. But much has changed since then: you've a now-superfluous enchanter's workshop, a much greater grasp of the fundamentals of magic, a better understanding of the art of enchantment, and not least of all you're no longer a Journeywoman but a Magister. Some primitive tribal shaman that predated the Empire will not defeat you.

First, safety measures. Raw iron bands are placed near but not quite touching the swords, mounted on wooden poles touching the wooden floor below. You might have to replace a few floorboards if this goes wrong, but you shouldn't be in any danger yourself. Then you begin your study. The same problem as last time quickly reveals itself - the stored Shyish drowns out any possibility of seeing the structure of the enchantment - and it's easily defeated by the application of a few coloured lenses.

(Why that works is a lesson in itself. As Teclis went to great lengths to teach, the 'colours' of the Winds of Magic are metaphors instead of actual pigments, they're just how the human brain most commonly interprets it - but there are some sensitive to the winds that perceive them as sounds or even smells. So why would coloured lenses have an effect on something that's not actually a colour? The answer is it doesn't. You expect it to, and so your mind filters accordingly. You could learn how to consciously do that, but you could just use a simple piece of coloured glass and spend your time learning other, more important things.)

Despite the lenses, it's still long and tedious work catching glimpses of the enchantment and mapping out its structure. Modern enchantment is like modern construction, the use of mostly interchangeable building blocks to uniformly achieve the desired result. This enchantment is like construction of the barbarian shamans' time - natural materials heaped together haphazardly. It's mostly Shyish, but here and there it seems that another wind crept into the shamans' casting, tainting patches of it with Dhar, but it's actually what makes the enchantment work at all - the Dhar binds all too readily with any kind of magic, but without other Winds to draw upon it can't corrupt the Shyish so it merely acts as a sort of glue to hold the entire thing together. But it would mean that if they were taken out of a Shyish-rich environment or the safety of the crates for too long, not only would the magic inside become Dhar, but the enchantment itself would become unstable.

The overall structure is something like a net. An empty net lies flat, but a full net is round. And like a net, it has more joins than you can count, each needing to be woven together with great concentration, and if even one was missing the contents could be lost. The mind boggles at the amount of care and attention it would take to make just one of these, let alone the dozens that you found in the burial mound. As an thaumato-archaeological artifact it's likely of interest, but as a piece of enchantment it really is much more effort than it's worth. Sure, it is a clever design for the storage of magical energy that any apprentice could manage if given enough time but you could think of better ways to achieve the same result with only slightly more advanced techniques - and you could work in a filter so that it would only absorb the desired Wind.

A curiosity, but far too primitive to be useful. The Amethyst Order could still make use of the stored energy, but the structure of the enchantment itself? Useless to you. You feel a lot better about giving them away now.

You organize a cart to Altdorf containing them, and ride ahead to the Amethyst Order to let them know they'll be coming. And while you're there, you leverage your good name to put in an order for something that could come in very handy on your upcoming adventures.

[Sword Study: Learning, 76+19=95]
[Possible applications: Learning, 7+19=26]

Altdorf, you learn, is in mourning; the Empress is dead and her unborn son with her, leaving the Emperor without issue and his brother remaining next in line for the throne. There is suspicion in the air, even though the finest physicians in Altdorf (most of which could also give you a good haircut) declared the death natural. This on top of the civil war brewing between Middenland and Nordland; these are dark times.

You do your best to ignore the atmosphere in the city and grab what training you can from whichever teachers are available in the Grey College, soaking up instruction like a sponge. You fill out your knowledge of the lower tiers of Grey Magic with the ability to give yourself the appearance of another with Doppelganger, the ability to cloud someone's mind to cause them to act unpredictably with Bewilder, and to create areas of impenetrable blackness with Pall of Darkness. But the real jewel of your learning comes when Magister Patriarch Algard passes you in a corridor, turns back, and asks you if you've learned Shadow of Death. "No," you say. Good, he replies, because you won't need it.

And in five minutes of rapid-fire instruction that takes you an hour after he's tottered off to absorb, he explains how to mask yourself in raw terror in such a way that you endanger the sanity of all who look upon you. It takes you a solid week in the training rooms until you manage it, but you grin to yourself at the possibilities inherent in such a potent spell.

[Studying Spells: Learning, 95+19=114]

---

As the day approaches for you to go off and join the call to adventure, you spend time quietly reading and doing your best to digest everything you learned during your months at the College. So much knowledge, free for the taking... but also bound up in an unspoken but very real system of duty and favours. It's somewhat tempting to imagine spending the rest of your life in the College gorging yourself on the knowledge there, but you know that before too long hints and nudges will become orders and shoves for you to go out into the world and earn your place. You could become a teacher or a researcher there, paying for your presence by giving some lectures of your own or taking on apprentices or researching phenomena passed on by those out in the world, and it might be a nice fate to retire to someday... but for now, you doubt you could be truly happy in the long term with such a life. Maybe if you'd had a more normal Journeywomanship, but you've experienced greatness. You've felt the presence of Gods, cast spells that shaped entire battlefields, led armies into battle. You've snatched the tools of the enemy from their hands and reshaped them into weapons for the righteous.

Perhaps you learn a little about yourself in your contemplations, but you didn't learn much more from thinking on your time at the Colleges.

But your quiet times are marked with another activity, during the dark of night as mist rises from the earth and the cats of Wurtbad go about their midnight business, when you should by all rights be asleep. You sit cross-legged in your private alley as the rising mist swirls around you and cats make themselves comfortable draped across your lap and perched upon your shoulders, and you commune with your God.

Ranald. A god of many faces. Gambler, trickster, protector, thief. As a Shadowmancer, Ranald the Deceiver is your natural parallel. Secondly, as a Magister you swore to the Articles of Imperial Magic, one of which is thus: 'to seek out and counter destructive and anti-Imperial machinations, practices, peoples, and creatures'. 'This shall be the prime concern and purpose of the Colleges, their Orders and the Magisters belonging to them.' So you align with Ranald the Protector there. Ranald the Night Prowler... well, you haven't stolen, but you've prowled a night or two. And last of all, Ranald the Gambler... you may not dabble in dice or cards, but you're about to join an expedition to reclaim a lost dwarfhold halfway across the continent, and if anything's a gamble, it's that.

So are you a devotee of only Ranald the Deceiver? Or do you cleave to all of the faces of Ranald?

Beneath you, in a long-buried shrine to a forbidden God, a devotee of Ranald the Night Prowler gave his life to weaken the God of Pirates. That makes little sense to you. But a devotee of Ranald, period, weakening the God of Shipwrecks and Drowning... what better way to serve the Protector?

The memory unfolds before your eyes over and over, the two priests battling an unseen foe, the terrible God lashing out at Wolf, and that moment of distraction let Ranald gain the upper hand and banish Stromfels from the room, from the altar, from the idol. Heideck's face, smiling and running with tears. The idol that the blacksmith swore up and down was put in a cat-shaped mold, but came out looking like a wolf.

Night after night passes in meditation with the purring of cats and the rising mist for company. You're not sure if you're paying tribute to your God or apologizing to Wolf's departed spirit or demanding answers or just keeping the cats company, but each night you're up there until you stagger back down into your bedroom to sleep into the early afternoon, eating into the time you had put aside for trying to build upon the lessons you learned in the Purge and the Sieges. Finally, as the date of your departure rapidly approaches, one night you hear a scratching on the door to the alley and you exhale a breath and search around for the key and open it, and you're only slightly surprised to see a scruffy wolf pup looking up at you.

"Fine," you say to it. "But you better be house-trained."

[Learning: 25]
[Piety: 98]
[Attempting to utilize Warrior of Fog: Learning, Req 60, 11+19+20 (Ranald's Blessing)=50]

---

It's nearly time, and the final unpleasant duty is to say your goodbyes. Or, rather, auf wiedersehen - goodbye has such an unpleasant note of finality to it.

Wilhelmina has known for some time, being a significant part of your planning, but she gruffly embraces you and tells you that she can't afford to lose another partner in the EIC, so you had better come back alive.

Anton spends some time trying to talk himself into going with you, but no matter how he tries to twist things he can't get around the responsibility he has to Blutdorf. He apologizes to you for his inability to come with, and makes you promise to not die. Then he makes you follow him around for half a day as he tries to find a suitable going away present, and finally presents you with a cartload of the finest crossbows Blutdorf has to offer. You point it towards the forces gathering in Averland, thank Anton, and give him the biggest hug you can muster. Which is fairly significant, thanks to your combat-trained muscles - he's gasping for air when you put him down again.

Kasmir is nowhere to be found, apparently having disappeared back into Sylvania.

Heideck accepts your instructions for swapping out the gallon containers collecting run-off from the Mirrorcatch Box every six months, and spends some time staring at the wolf cub that's tailing you everywhere, which stares back with what seems like a deliberate mockery of the seriousness on Heideck's face. Then he shrugs, grins, says a benediction over you, and wishes you all the luck that Ranald has to offer on your adventures.

You and Gustav spend a great deal of time chatting about pistols as you show him the revolver you picked up in Zhufbar, and he claps you on the shoulder, wishes you luck in the Badlands, and says he hopes what he taught you is of some help.

Julia's slightly disgruntled that she didn't get the job she hoped for, but she reluctantly admits that her new boss isn't too bad. She mentions that he seems focused entirely on Sylvania and the borders thereof, to the exclusion of nearly all else, which is letting her use the parts of the network in Western Stirland entirely for the benefit of herself and her family.

You were never that close to Schultz, despite working with him for years, but you pay him a visit anyway. He smiles to see you and chatters for some time about dwarven architecture, and wishes you luck.

Finally, you visit the catacombs of Eagle Castle in a visit you've been putting off for some time now; you're not sure if the current Elector Countess would have allowed it so you didn't bother to ask. Abelhelm's tomb is plain and unadorned except for a plaque with his name and the date of his fall, though fresh flowers have been placed atop it. You place a hand atop the cool stone of the casket Abelhelm lies within. Time stretches out as you stand there.

You remember him falling, you remember the failure of all that could have helped. You remember your helpless rage as he slipped away.

But you also remember the extermination of all those responsible. The death of she who was plotting evil in the heart of Sylvania. And the total destruction of Castle Drakenhof, the home of seven centuries of nightmares.

"We did it," you say. "We changed the world we live in."



---



You pack carefully, restricted by how much you can personally carry since your Shadowsteed cannot carry cargo. Your robes, your torc, your sword, and your revolver are all worn on your person. The enchanted box carrying the Liber Mortis goes into your pack along with the accumulated cash from near a decade of service and a flask of the liquid given off by your Mirrorcatch Box in case you get time to study it. A set of blank notebooks to record anything worth recording. Some light reading. Spare underthings. Spare powder and shot. And lastly but certainly not least the wolf pup, who balances himself atop it all and places his chin on your shoulder.

And after some thought, you put your usual grey hat you've been wearing since you were an apprentice on your desk, and put Abelhelm's leather hat atop your head.

[Niter sales: +200 gc, +50 gc / turn]
[Learning +1]
[Piety +3]
[Spell Learned: Doppelganger]
[Spell Learned: Bewilder]
[Spell Learned: Pall of Darkness]
[Spell Learned: Dread Aspect!]
[Magic increased!]

---

You commissioned a magical healing item: what spell is this based upon?
[ ] Earth Blood - Ghyran, slowly heals wounds when standing upon soil or unworked stone. -2 College Favours.
[ ] Regrowth - Ghyran, instantly restores someone to full health from any state up to and including 'recently dead'. -9 College Favours
[ ] Steal Life - Shyish, drains the life essence from another to cure yourself. -3 College Favours.
[ ] Cauterize - Aqshy, closes wounds and stops bleeding, preventing death without healing wounds. -1 College Favour
[ ] Healing of Hysh - Hysh, instantly heals a small amount of wounds. -2 College Favours.
[ ] Ill-bane - Hysh, cures poison and weakens disease. -3 College Favours.
[ ] Boon of Hysh - Hysh, instantly heals all wounds (but doesn't regrow anything missing), and cures any poisons and disease. -5 College Favours.


It may be that you also commissioned another magical item or spent favours in other ways; what was it?
[ ] Dispel scrolls (2 for -1 College Favours; can be taken multiple times)
[ ] Taking a scroll for a single spell with you on the trip (-1 College Favour, cannot be Battle Magic, can be taken multiple times)
[ ] Nothing further was commissioned.
[ ] Other (write in)
Apologies, but there's no easy way to do this without curtailing the possibilities: The difficulty of a spell is based on the casting number in Realm of Sorcery; if the casting number is a single digit, it's Relatively Simple and 2 favours. If it's between 10 and 19, it's Moderately Complicated and 3. If it's 20+, it's Fiendishly Complex and 5. I ask those with access to the book to highlight interesting possibilities for those that do not. If you want something more complex than a spell in an item, outline what you're looking for and I'll give it a pricetag.


How will you present yourself to Belegar Ironhammer? The two with the most votes will be the approach you go with:
[ ] As an adventurer, seeking fame and glory.
[ ] As a mercenary, seeking fortune and payment.
[ ] As a warrior, here to hone your skills.
[ ] As a wanderer, not entirely sure what you seek.
[ ] As a representative of the Empire, honouring the ancient alliance between Man and Dwarf.
[ ] As a representative of the Grey Order, here to lend a hand where it can be of most use.
[ ] As a representative of the Colleges of Magic, here to provide magical aid.
[ ] As a chronicler, here to record events.
[ ] As a researcher, here to investigate any strange and interesting phenomena that can be found.
[ ] As an advisor, hoping to be a part of the council of the King when he takes his throne.

 

[Jedij4]

Naming a Friend:

A messenger dwarfs leaves a workshop office post report. An ancient dwarf collapses bonelessly into a well-worn chair. He takes a few seconds to mull over the new the up and coming manling Dame Weber. Exploding onto the scene with a heady mixture of ferocity and desperation unique to short lived races. Many dwarf now knew of her, but only as one who helped them cross out grudges from the book. To be fair perhaps in time she would become more, but as of now it was a purely business relationship. She made sense, working out of self interest and fulfilling duties that manlings SHOULD have already filled long ago. No mad corrupt dwarf hold would be left alone for centuries to wreak havoc in the empire's back yard. This news however is entirely different, this news hit home to the old dwarf in a much larger way.

Old hands crack open a dwarven bullet resting on his desk. Calloused experienced fingers pinch gunpowder and brings it closer for examination. Most dwarves know offhand what niter is and what it is used for, the making of gunpowder, yet all instinctively know what it represents. Hope. Hope that by the works of their brow they can reclaim the glory of ages past. Hope that one day they will wipe out every major grudge from the book. A faint hope that their future might eclipse their past. Yet few know of tragedy that niter represents to the engineering clans. Before the great strife collecting niter was mere busy work given to younglings. Collecting niter from the guano must be done on the spot to make transportation economically viable, and it is important for the niter be pure, so those with proper knowledge are required to be on hand. It became tradition to send fresh apprentices to do it, eventually turning to a hazing right of passage ritual all engineers had to go through. After all, dwarven engineers no matter how smart, no matter how wise, no matter how old was once waist deep in bat shit.

After the fall of Sylvania what was once mindless work became a bottle neck in the ladder of engineering guilds. Family legend from all true engineering clans tell that the mountain trails from Zhufbar to the caves of Silvainya are drenched with the blood of the young and foolhardy. In recent times, by dwarf standards at least, as the holds continue to struggle, the tradition of collecting niter has become something more. It is a pilgrimage for zealous young dwarves to make a difference and do their part to uphold dwarfdom. A pilgrimage that small celebrations have even formed around grim worker dwarves eager to show their appreciation and to grasp any excuse for merriment. As the years and the situation continues to deteriorate apprentices began to go to ever deeper and more remote caves, desperate to get as much niter as possible. Each crystal of niter a packet of gunpowder. Each packet of gunpowder a bullet. Each bullet another day that their world turns. The toll this tradition has reaped upon the dwarves in the grand scheme of things is of course trivial, as there is always dwarves willing to fill the shoes of the fallen. However it is by no means trivial to the engineering clans of old. The cheerful hearts of too many families ventured to Silvaniya and never returned.

A loud crash and an old argument stirring him from his well tred musings he pulls out and opens a locket of better times. Grit smirches a trail as he caresses the brilliant smile of the better brother, taken before his time. Many times had he attempted argued to break from tradition, one of the most epic and futile tasks a dwarf can take. Many grudges had he created as he screamed himself horse to an endless procession of uncaring kings. The morale of the masses always outweighing the anguish of a privileged few. Shaking hands opens the parchment drawer only to pause as he searches for the proper words.

Dame Mathilde Weber, I find that great deeds done in ignorance are no less noble. I thank you from the bottom of my heart, nay the bottom of my mug. Yet thanks are oft fleeting and I wish to grant something more substantial.
Till my dying breath. Till the last hold crumbles. Till chaos swallows the sun. I bind my clan to you. I name you Dwarf-friend.

Till we meet, REDACTED​

AN: First order of business this is the first installment of my brand of omakes Moremakes! I hereby call dibs on the obvious Karak Eight Peaks and puppy John Wick expy. Secondly this is the first narrative thing I have written in ever actually. Pretty please PM me critiques or opinions on my writing style. Thirdly Boney Mate I left It redacted on the off chance this drivel becomes cannon you can chose what Engineering clan we get involved with. A BIG DEAL or piddly bunch of Podunk hasbeens.

 

[Boney]

Spoiler: Winning Vote

You commissioned a magical healing item: what spell is this based upon?
[X] Regrowth - Ghyran, instantly restores someone to full health from any state up to and including 'recently dead'. -9 College Favours

How will you present yourself to Belegar Ironhammer?
[X] As a representative of the Grey Order, here to lend a hand where it can be of most use.
[X] As a wanderer, not entirely sure what you seek.

You had expected some sort of enchanted jewellery; failing that, you supposed some sort of staff or rod. But when you visited the spiralling brick fortress of the Jade College, the Enchanter who had laboured over your commission had presented you with a single stylized seed carved from jade and inlaid with golden filigree.

"Hold out your non-casting hand," she said, and with trepidation you did, and she placed the seed upon your palm. Roots of unworked jade sprouted from the seed and plunged into the skin of your palm, and you flinched violently before you realize you felt no pain from the roots burying themselves in your flesh. "This power cannot be allowed to fall into any other hands," she said gravely as the seed was drawn below the skin, your flesh instantly scabbing over with bark and then the bark falling away to reveal unmarked flesh. She passed you a sheet of paper with a list of trigger mnemonics and their purpose. "It will trigger automatically should you be slain, or can be triggered with a mnemonic. A second mnemonic will use it to heal anyone you hold your palm to. It can hold four activations of power; to recharge, allow it to sprout in soil for three to eight hours per activation, depending on the richness of the soil - I recommend sleeping outdoors for this purpose. Alternately, when time is of the essence, hold your palm to an incapacitated or bound enemy and allow the roots to feed upon them. This will recharge a single activation. In a pinch, corpses can be used, albeit at a tenth of the effectiveness."

"Morbid," you commented distractedly as you committed the mnemonics to memory.

She nodded. "Death gives forth life."

She spent some time going over the technical details of how it worked, and you're glad to hear that it lies dormant and magically inactive when not triggered, and thus would not interfere with your own spellcasting. You thanked her sincerely; you had mustered every favour you had earned during your Journeywomanship and your graduation and expended them for this one artefact, but it still represented a great deal of invested time and effort on her part. She simply nodded once more, and wished you luck on your travels.

---

Those that would join the Throng of Belegar Ironhammer gather in the Dwarf Quarter of Grenzstadt, the fortress-town which protects the Empire side of the Black Fire Pass through the Black Mountains. Your rank gains you entrance to the town and a salute from the guards, and your name gets you a gruff nod of recognition from the guard on the entrance to the Dwarf Quarter. You're given directions to the tavern that has the honour of being the headquarters for the final preparations for the march on Karak Eight Peaks - Skratitrogg, which is translated for you as the Feasting Prospector.

Unlike the small scattered tables most human taverns favour, dwarf taverns favour long rectangular tables with benches. Belegar Ironhammer stands at the head of one of them, brooding over a collection of maps and papers and flanked by other dwarves. Unlike two of the others, his hair has not yet faded to white, and though his beard reaches to his knees its pale brown colour betrays his relative youth. The hammer he took his name from rests on the floor, its handle leaned against the table. According to legend, he swore an oath the day he came of age that he will reclaim Karak Eight Peaks or die in the attempt, and for the past sixty years has been gathering every scrap of support there was to be had. Now at ninety years of age, he is in the prime of his life and ready to finally fulfil his oath, one way or the other.

The dwarf to Belegar's left - the only other in the room with a beard not yet white with age - nudges him, and he turns to you. Though in this refuge he wears only the chain and scale of a dwarf's casual dress instead of the full plate and helmet he'd wear on the warpath, all that is visible of him beneath beard and hair and leather is a thin strip of face between moustache and eyebrows. The gaze that peers out at you beneath this is pale grey and calculating, taking the measure of you in an instant and weighing your potential as an asset or an obstacle to his life's mission of reconquest. "What brings you to this gathered throng?"

"I'm here to offer my services," you reply, and his eyebrows furrow.

"And on whose behalf?" he asks, his eyes boring into you.

"My own," you reply shortly, "as Dame Mathilde Weber, Magister of the Grey Order."

He stares at you a moment longer, then turns to the black-haired dwarf. "Ulthar, what's a Magister?"

The dwarf you presume to be Ulthar gives you a piercing look of his own. "She's a Master Mhornokri."

"Aye?" He looks at you again, respect in his eyes. "Then Clan Angrund welcomes you." He nods to the Longbeard on his right, aptly labelled, with a beard so long it trails the floor. "This is Halken Stonebeard, Eldest of Clan Angrund." And to his left, to the black-haired dwarf. "Ulthar Alriksson, Head Ranger and leader of the Karak Hirn forces." And across the table. "Skaroki Grimbrow, Thane of Karak Izor and leader of their forces."

"Well met," you greet them, receiving nods in return.

"So what brings you to this gathered throng?" he repeats.

You hesitate before answering. "I seek... well, I seek something to seek."

Ulthar grins at that, Halken frowns, and Belegar simply nods. "Strollendreki. Better a reason than most. Come, join the discussion." You approach the table, your scalp brushing against the roof, glad for once to be under-endowed with height. "You're not the first umgi zhufokri to join, there's a pair of Gorzhufokri, those animal wizards, and one of those damn strange Azulzhufokri metal wizards, but they're all Journeymanlings."

---

As you listen, he outlines the forces that have rallied to the Angrund banner. Karak Hirn in the Black Mountains and Karak Izor in the Vaults have both contributed Throngs, and Karak Kadrin has sent a small horde of slayers. On top of that there's a vast band of various dwarven glory-seekers, vagabonds, clanless dwarves and adventurers. In total, some forty thousand dwarves are gathered. That this is spoken of with great pride when it would barely match the meagre armed forces of Stirland speaks volumes of the state of the Dwarven Empire. At the core of it all is Clan Angrund itself: barely a thousand strong, but each armed with runic weapons and clad in rune-struck armour thanks to the contributions of the vaults of Karaz-a-Karak and the Master Runelord of Karak Azul.

On top of that, there are those that have answered the call just as you have. The most prominent of all, and a great surprise to you, is that two knightly orders have wordlessly rebuked the Empire as a whole and the Sigmarites especially by joining the campaign wholesale: the Knights of the Vengeful Sun, dedicated to Myrmidia, and the Knights of Taal's Fury, dedicated, of course, to Taal. Both are among the smallest of knightly orders, numbering just a cohort apiece, but both are extremely notable in that they are entirely mounted on demigryphs rather than horses.

Second of all and almost as surprising is the turnout from your home province: apparently the Elector Countess has started to phase out crossbows in favour of handguns and things have not been going well, as thousands of former troops have rallied to Clan Angrund to seek their fortunes rather than trying their luck with newfangled gunpowder contraptions. Of roughly equal size are the detachment of various hunters, poachers, and woodsmen from western and northern Stirland. A lifetime living next to Sylvania, you're sure, will make the Badlands seem homey by comparison.

The third major category of volunteers are, in a twist of irony, caused by the very breakdown in civil order that prevented the Empire proper from assisting. First, there are Nordlanders who have abandoned their home province in the face of entire villages disappearing overnight to seek their fortunes where the danger is something that can be met with an axe to the face. Many mistrust the Norscan blood running through Nordlander veins, but none can gainsay their ability in combat, and what they lack in armour or tactics they make up for in strength and courage. Second, bizarrely, an equal number of Middenlanders - religious exiles, apparently, who speak darkly of conflict within the Ulrican church. The core of this group are the Winter Wolves of Middenheim, who have struck the 'of Middenheim' from their name, turning their back on their home province as, they say, their home province has turned their back on them. Unusually for a knightly order, most of them fight dismounted, but a core of them are mounted on the giant wolves of the Drakwald. After a rocky start, the Nordlanders and Middenlanders have found common ground - both are disgusted with their respective provincial leadership, so they feel no need to continue the conflict.

Fourth, finally, and as unexpected as any, is the response from the Moot: they've sent the entire force that was present in the Sieges of the Drakenhofs as well as an equal amount of civilians, who boast the ability to produce a feast from damn near anything. If anything, it seems more like a migration than a military contribution.

Belegar gruffly concedes that though the Empire as an institution failed him, the turnout from the lands of man has made the trip worthwhile. All in all, it's a force of near a hundred thousand that gathers. Though only time will tell how many remain when you finally reach Karak Eight Peaks, or how many will survive the assault on it.

He extends to you an offer to sit on his War Council, such as it is. The other members thus far are the three other dwarves that were introduced to you: the Grand Master of one of the demigryph orders to speak for both, the Grand Master of the Winter Wolves to speak on behalf of the combined Nordlander and Middenlander forces, and the Marshal leading the Halflings. The exact position you'll be filling is left unclear - you could be joining merely as a Magister in your own right, or as the most senior Wizard of all those present. It would even be possible to slip into command of the Stirlander forces - you commanded them once, you're sure you could do so again, if you desire.


Do you wish to sit on the War Council, and if so, as what?
[ ] Accept as leader of the Stirlander forces (commanding 5,000 crossbowmen and 5,000 huntsmen).
[ ] Accept as the most senior Wizard present (commanding two Amber Journeymen and one Gold Journeyman).
[ ] Accept simply as yourself.
[ ] Decline.


There is time before the assembled horde sets off; how do you wish to spend this time? The three with the most votes from the below two categories will be chosen.

Spending time with and getting to know:
[ ] Ulthar Alriksson, Head Ranger
[ ] Skaroki Grimbrow, Thane
[ ] The Amber Wizard journeymen.
[ ] The Gold Wizard journeyman.
[ ] The Stirlander forces
[ ] The Halfling forces
[ ] The Demigryph Knights
[ ] The Winter Wolves

Other Pursuits:
[ ] Spend time with your wolf pup, trying to develop a famliar bond.
[ ] Deliver last-minute messages for Belegar, trying to scrape together any remaining support to be had before leaving.
- [ ] To Elector Counts.
- [ ] To mercenaries.
- [ ] To the Colleges of Magic.
- [ ] To Knightly Orders.
- [ ] To Dwarfholds of the Grey and Black Mountains.


---

Clan Angrund
King Belegar Ironhammer
Halken Stonebeard, Eldest of Clan Angrund
200 Longbeards
800 Runed Warriors

Karak Kadrin
2,000 Slayers
1,000 Warriors
1,000 Quarrelers

Karak Hirn
Ulthar Alriksson, Head Ranger
3,000 Warriors
1,000 Quarrelers
1,000 Rangers
10 Bolt Throwers

Karak Izor
Skaroki Grimbrow, Thane of Karak Izor
6,000 Warriors
2,000 Miners
2,000 Thunderers
10 Cannon

Glory-Seekers and Combined Contributions from Other Holds
10,000 Warriors
6,000 Miners
2,000 Quarrelers
2,000 Rangers

Human and Halfling Adventurers
Magister of the Grey Order
2 Journeymen of the Amber Order
1 Journeyman of the Gold Order
Knights of Taal's Fury - 250 Demigryph-mounted Knights, 500 footmen.
Knights of the Vengeful Sun - 250 Demigryph-mounted Knights, 500 footmen.
Winter Wolves - 250 Wolf Riders, 2000 dismounted knights.
10,000 Nordlanders
8,000 Ulricans
5,000 Stirland Crossbowmen
5,000 Stirland Huntsmen
5,000 Halfling Fieldwardens
5,000 Halfling camp followers
10,000 miscellaneous mercenaries, adventurers, and vagabonds.


- The Dwarfhold rolls for contributing to the campaign were terrible, but then the Empire rolls more than made up for it.

 

[vsh]

Postal Service

It is a very bad day for Middenland and for Duke of Middenland in particular. The thing is, there are only so many dozens of beastmen you can slay before your hand falters or your foot slips or you blink in the wrong moment. Your greatswords lie proof of that statement and you're barely standing with a Runefang in the last working arm, death looming. Your only thought left is "Sword up - hew down" as you've been trained. You've lost a lot of blood and you're so tired that nothing can distract you: not even potent sense of dread filling your bones, nor the thunder hammering twice, nor the beastmen falling and running away in terror... Wait, what? You glance back and see a frame of a small woman in Witch Hunter hat with a strange-looking dwarven gun in one hand and metal sheet engraved with many lines of Reikspiel script.

-A letter from King Belegar Ironhammer. Please sign delivery notice, Your Highness - she says, offering you a stone tablet and a chisel.

You nod at the stump where your right hand used to be, stupefied. You probably won't die of beastmen today but blood loss can just kill as easily. At least, your last moments are entertaining. Witch Huntress runs to you:

-Just a moment, Your Highness. Breath deep, - she takes your arm in her left hand and you hear spring streams prattling, sense the tickling of fresh grass against your arm, vigor returns to your body and your mind feel refreshed. You chisel your signature on the stone tablet, still wordless, and the woman hops on vaguely horse-looking creature of shadow:

-Your knights will get here shortly, I've seen to that. Have a good day, Your Highness! Ta-ta!

 

[Boney]

Spoiler: Winning Vote

[*] Accept as the most senior Wizard present (commanding two Amber Journeymen and one Gold Journeyman).

[*] Deliver last-minute messages for Belegar, trying to scrape together any remaining support to be had before leaving.
- [*] To the Colleges of Magic.
- [*] To Dwarfholds of the Grey and Black Mountains.
[*] Spend time with your wolf pup, trying to develop a famliar bond.

You accept, after much thought, as the most senior wizard present. It was tempting to place yourself in command over the ten thousand Stirlandians that had joined the muster, but in the end there were a great many people who could lead the Stirlandians effectively and very few that could connect the wizards to the highest echelons of command so they can be of most use - and with so little artillery and no Dwarven Runepriests to counter enemy magics, the force will need to get as much mileage as possible out of the four wizards it has.

As a de facto general, you're given a room in the Skratitrogg tavern instead of being left to find lodgings elsewhere in the town or outside it, but you spend very little time in it after you volunteer your services as the fastest rider in the Empire. Hurried missives are penned and off you go.

Your first stop is Altdorf; you deliver eight near-identical letters to eight gatekeepers and await replies.

[Rolling...]

In the end, the sole response at such short notice is two more journeymen are enticed into joining, one from the Gold Order and one from the Jade; disappointing, but better than nothing. You don't even have time to greet said journeymen before you're on your way to your next destination. The army leaves in days, and every hour could count.

You ride through Wissenland to Karak Norn, the largest hold in the Grey Mountains, built atop a plateau of a wooded mountain overlooking the forbidding Loren Forest. Word from King Ironhammer gets you through the gates and into an antechamber to the throne room, where you wait for several anxious hours. When you're finally asked in to see the Queen, to your surprise it's not to pass on apologies but to ask the best roads for a heavy artillery train through the Empire. Whatever was in the missive you delivered, it worked, and you watch as an unexpected artillery force assembles. Unlike any dwarven artillery you've ever seen, Karak Norn makes wide use of wood for their grudge and bolt throwers. You give your thanks to the Queen who brushes it off in favour of bustling off to see to some detail or another, and then you're on the road again to your next stop.

[Karak Norn Contribution: 84]

Next is Karak Izor in the Vaults, the towering peaks where the Black Mountains meet the Grey, to deliver a much more polite missive thanking them for what they've contributed and asking in as polite a way as possible if they could spare anything further. Once more you're left stewing in an antechamber, and then a dwarf courtier quizzes you at length about the forces that have gathered. It seems that Karak Izor is reassessing the Karak Eight Peaks as more than a possibility of grudges avenged; they're starting to see it as a recolonization. For the second time in your life you clap eyes on a Dwarf woman, and it's still slightly disappointing to you that the rumours you've heard are false: they lack beards. A guarding force of Longbeards, Hammerers, and still more Warriors swirls around them in a protective swarm, and within hours they're on the march.

[Contribution: 75]

The Hornhold of Karak Hirn is next, named for enormous natural passages enhanced by dwarven artifice that sound deep notes when the wind blows just right. Another prolonged wait in an antechamber, another careful questioning of the gathered forces, an array of raised eyebrows and then more forces are shaken loose to add to those gathered, this time in the force of the Rangers, the dwarves as at home aboveground as they are below who have mastered the arts of ambush and asymmetric warfare.

[Contribution: 70]

Your final visits, just as the Expedition is due to leave, is to Karak Gantuk and Karak Angazhar, the dwarfholds built into the Black Mountains adjoining Averland who contribute to the eternal watch over Black Fire Pass. Just as the other holds you visited are pale shadows of the great holds of the World's Edge Mountains, these holds are pale shadows of the others in the Black and Grey Mountains. Again, you're closely questioned regarding the gathered forces, and again reassessments are made. None, it seems, want to be left out of the ever-growing Expedition, and what the small holds lack in raw dwarfpower they make up for in their ironworking prowess. Cannon are rolled out of vaults and unbolted from their positions on the hold walls and crate after crate of well-made axes and hammers and shields are sent off to arm the expatriates who have answered Belegar's call to arms despite lacking the ancestral weapons that hold-dwelling warriors are armed with.

[Contribution: 65]
[Contribution: 73]

As you return to the Expedition as it prepares to march, you're shocked by just how much those last-minute letters grew it. Success breeds success, you suppose; none want to be the first to contribute but none want to be the last, either.

Through every spare moment - most of them while waiting impatiently in antechambers - you spent time playing with and examining the wolf pup. You knew as soon as you clapped eyes on him that he had the potential to be a familiar within him, both from your magical senses and your familiarity with how Ranald likes to play with the world.

You don't think that the wolf is a reincarnated Wolf. You showed it some dice and after a brief sniff to check whether they were edible he ignored them, and he has the manic energy and bright-eyed innocence of a genuine youth instead of the cynical humour of a retired bandit. So it's either a dog born as a genetic throwback to its wolf ancestors - the chances of it happening are slim, but, well, Ranald - or it's an orphaned wolf puppy that Ranald guided out of the woods and through the town to your door. Either way, in tribute to the lost Wolf and as, you suppose, a thank you to you for his victory over Stromfels, you give him the fallen Priest's name.

Reassured that the wolf pup isn't actually a man twice your age, you relax and play with him. Though easily distracted, he watches you as you try to give him instructions and certainly tries his best to follow them, and by the end of the week he's learned to follow and stay when ordered, and to sit still and secure in your backpack with his head peeking out over your shoulder as you ride. And, with shocking abruptness, one morning he answers your command before you actually give it, and you peer at him through tired eyes and see the thick strands of magical energy that flow from you into him, and then flow with redoubled potency back into you.

[The All-Important Roll To Play With Your Puppy: 99]
[Rolling for Familiar Ability: 49 - Magic Power]

---

Additional Contributions:

Colleges of Magic
1 Journeyman Gold Wizard
1 Journeyman Jade Wizard

Karak Norn
Durin Wutokri, Engineer
30 Bolt Throwers (Siege)
100 Bolt Throwers (Personal)
20 Grudge Throwers

Karak Izor
2,000 Warriors
2,000 Longbeards
1,000 Hammerers
10,000 Camp Followers

Karak Hirn
2,000 Rangers

Karak Gantuk and Angazhar
30 Cannon
Quality weaponry for the adventurers and vagabonds

Dwarf Rep +1 - joined the campaign
Dwarf Rep +2 - Delivered the Call to Arms (with fantastic results)

---

You return to an army on the march, and though only the forces from Karak Gantuk and Karak Azgaraz have reached you, the others will catch up and have sent messengers ahead. Belegar thanks you in that gruff and understated way that dwarves have: quietly, but with steel in his voice.

The Expedition marches less in a day than you ride in an hour; this gives you copious free time. The next week should see it pass through Black Fire Pass and emerge into the area of the Border Princes flanking the Forest of Gloom; the goal is to be making camp in one week's time on the fork between the South Road to Barak Varr and the Old Dwarf Road to Karaz-a-Karak.


You will have time to perform THREE of the below; those with the most votes will be chosen.

Campaign Contributions:
[ ] Open a correspondence between Belegar and Karaz-a-Karak to see if the Dwarven capital can contribute any further to the campaign.
[ ] Work with Head Ranger Ulthar Alriksson to scout the road ahead as you pass by the Forest of Gloom.
[ ] Work with Grand Master Sigwald Kriegersen and the demigryph knights to ensure the road ahead remains clear.
[ ] Work with Marksman Codrin Petrescu, who has emerged as leader of the Stirlandian forces, to supplement provisions by hunting the Forest of Gloom.

Spend time with the Council of War:
[ ] Thane Skaroki Grimbrow
[ ] Head Ranger Ulthar Alriksson
[ ] Master Engineer Durin Wutokri
[ ] Grand Master Sigwald Kriegersen
[ ] Grand Master Ruprecht Wulfhart
[ ] Marksman Codrin Petrescu
[ ] Marshal Titus Muggins

Spend time with your Journeymanlings:
[ ] The Amber Wizard journeymanlings.
[ ] The Gold Wizard journeymanlings.
[ ] The Jade Wizard journeymanling.

Spoiler: Map of the Border Princes region

- What is with your dice?
- I've added an informational threadmark containing the full forces of the Expedition and who is responsible for what.
- You're not the only one who can open communications with Karaz-a-Karak - the Expedition has cavalry that can make the return trip, and Karaz-a-Karak has gyrocopters. But you would be the best at it.