The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
And then, quite suddenly upon that revelation, the future of Mallus' entire field of sociology and invention alike became dominated by those who were best at freestyle rap.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Xilentxium
Existential Crisis Management
- Location
- Temperate Regions
Thus the Bright College opened their subsidized academy, where the students were taught to spit fire.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
We specifically get their salaries (from the murky depths of the Empire's many pockets). That's what the whole official charter was for. We just have to make sure they seem to have important enough jobs.
Though I don't know what the minimum job requirements are to legitimately hire one. I was under the impression that they frequently are little more than clerks in the Colleges, but I might be wrong. Still, not everyone is as talented as the Hochlander. Some Perpetuals are bound to be just individuals of below average mundane competence that know one or two cantrips and have an arcane mark. And if such an individual is a Gold or Celestial then menial office work seems more or less what they'd be most useful for, no?
This seems like a solution in search of a problem. What purpose would a Perpetual coterie serve?
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
For now I still have no clue what the day to day of WEBMAT will look like. But if there's classified paperwork, deep storage of magical knick knacks, enchanted equipment that needs to be brought back and forth, four hands needed during basic experiments or anything else that can't be done with someone who isn't legally allowed to handle magic then that would be a job for a Perpetual, right?
In theory, perhaps. But I will look very askance at attempts to invent justifications for adding Perpetuals to Mathilde's Wizard collection. These are people with lives and ambitions, and characters it takes effort on my part to create and then simulate the lives and interactions of, not pokemon to tick off the list and stick in digital storage for the rest of eternity.
Sure, but while you're positing arbitrary skillsets, why not go whole hog and have a Perpetual with the Waystone Understander skillset? Render the entire WEBMAT redundant in one fell swoop.
Max is not merely a scribe. He's someone with proven trustworthiness, a good understanding of magic, extremely high patience and willingness to wade through reference materials, several spells applicable to paper-writing, an understanding of how Mathilde thinks, and experience at converting Mathilde's squirrely thought processes into something comprehensible to everyone else. You can't just go down to the temp office and order that by the dozen.
Last edited:
*glances at annoyed GM post*
Guys, we cannot just grab Perpetuals for every little thing because these are characters, they have personalities and they need screen time. It is like AP, I am sure if we decided to poke every single individual action and did flow charts for where Mathilde is supposed to be and what she is supposed to be doing we would find that we 'should' be able to do more. But that 'should' does not matter because that is not what AP is about, rather it is about the capacity of the GM to write stuff out. The same is true for a parcel of perpetuals. Who are these people, why did they want to work here and what are their goals in life? All these are questions that would need to be answered and not just once but evolving with the passage of time.
Guys, we cannot just grab Perpetuals for every little thing because these are characters, they have personalities and they need screen time. It is like AP, I am sure if we decided to poke every single individual action and did flow charts for where Mathilde is supposed to be and what she is supposed to be doing we would find that we 'should' be able to do more. But that 'should' does not matter because that is not what AP is about, rather it is about the capacity of the GM to write stuff out. The same is true for a parcel of perpetuals. Who are these people, why did they want to work here and what are their goals in life? All these are questions that would need to be answered and not just once but evolving with the passage of time.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
I mean the admission requirements to get a College education is just having magical talent of any kind and not being Dhar tainted or wanted by the Empire for crimes that can't be brushed under the rug, right? There is no admission test that the individual Colleges use to reject people?
Not everyone is suited for academia, but that isn't always apparent at the time of admission. And choosing a College isn't always based on a well informed decision, so they might well end up in one of the more bookish Colleges.
If those guys then don't ever qualify for Journeying, yet have an Arcane Mark and also can't be sent away to live normal lives with magic dampening jewelry (because they can't maintain a life style that you need to not be mugged) you end up with Perpetuals that can't be trusted with any job requiring independent decision making of any importance, but also are pretty much bound to their College for the rest of their lives.
None of the above means that their lives can't be productive though. They might be very fine janitors, or archivists, or cooks, or librarians, or childcare providers, or construction workers. But they'll have to do these things in the framework of their College and their College might not need someone doing that job in the Altdorf campus at that time.
So in my headcanon/imagination I thought that there might just be Perpetuals like that to spare. It's a far less deadly lifestyle that Journeying after all.
As for the Doylist problem of screen time, I wasn't even expecting that every staff member of WEBMAT would get some, just like the Greatswords and servants of Eagle Castle, the Stirland Watchmen, Julia Massif's staff and intelligence network and the various Rangers we interacted with didn't all get that.
Maybe my idea of how large WEBMAT will be once it is well established is very different from yours. Maybe six to ten Magisters don't need a larger staff to take care of stuff on a daily basis. But what I was imagining was essentially a mini-College structure with at least a few people needed who are willing to have day jobs maintaining the facilities and the clearance to be allowed to do so in the presence of Wizard work.
Not everyone is suited for academia, but that isn't always apparent at the time of admission. And choosing a College isn't always based on a well informed decision, so they might well end up in one of the more bookish Colleges.
If those guys then don't ever qualify for Journeying, yet have an Arcane Mark and also can't be sent away to live normal lives with magic dampening jewelry (because they can't maintain a life style that you need to not be mugged) you end up with Perpetuals that can't be trusted with any job requiring independent decision making of any importance, but also are pretty much bound to their College for the rest of their lives.
None of the above means that their lives can't be productive though. They might be very fine janitors, or archivists, or cooks, or librarians, or childcare providers, or construction workers. But they'll have to do these things in the framework of their College and their College might not need someone doing that job in the Altdorf campus at that time.
So in my headcanon/imagination I thought that there might just be Perpetuals like that to spare. It's a far less deadly lifestyle that Journeying after all.
As for the Doylist problem of screen time, I wasn't even expecting that every staff member of WEBMAT would get some, just like the Greatswords and servants of Eagle Castle, the Stirland Watchmen, Julia Massif's staff and intelligence network and the various Rangers we interacted with didn't all get that.
Maybe my idea of how large WEBMAT will be once it is well established is very different from yours. Maybe six to ten Magisters don't need a larger staff to take care of stuff on a daily basis. But what I was imagining was essentially a mini-College structure with at least a few people needed who are willing to have day jobs maintaining the facilities and the clearance to be allowed to do so in the presence of Wizard work.
Last edited:
You are still talking about a tinny number of perpetuals compared to the general population, there aren't hundreds of loose perpetuals who are ready to move away from all human civilization and go live in the woods with the elves. In fact it would take a rather exceptional one to want to do so and when you get to 'exceptional' you now need to explain why. See the post above for why that is a problem.
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
Minor quibble: WEBMAT's long term base is in Karag Nar, not Laurelorn. Karag Nar has a thriving Human population and is generally a pretty comfortable place to live (as long as you're okay with having to go out of town for sunlight).
Also, I thought that there were quite a few more Perpetuals that Journeymen, but I might be misremembering my numbers.
Edit: Also the reason for moving would be getting paid to do so by the Empire. I mean we are talking about quasi-mundane Humans here. They aren't always needed the way Wizards are just because they can cast Glowing Light, Sound and Move.
Last edited:
- Location
- Finland
It does not matter if there are more perpetuals than journeymen, they could have ten times as many perpetuals there still would not be spare wizards.
If a need for a perpetual arises, we can go search for one, but there are none hanging around just waiting for a Magister Lady to swoop in and give them a job, they are busy.
Per Mathilde there are 5000 people in the colleges in total including those with any scrap of magical talent. So that is 625 people total in the Grey college and that includes the Sealed who want nothing to do with magic, single talent practitioners who are not even proper spell-casters, perperuals who cannot even survive outside of the Ulgu environs of the College. I would be amazed if there are more than 100-150 perpetuals who could even in theory work for us and most of them have jobs and lives and do not want to move halfway around the world.
Last edited:
Any Perpetual that does not has a skillset useful to their Order and is unwilling or unable to return to their home are given support to make a new life for themselves in Altdorf, where mugging Wizards is not a thing that happens.
Well right now it's three people and zero facilities, so pump the brakes on drawing out an org chart.
Last edited:
Hah, with that phrasing I'm reminded of the Undead Research Division idea that happened back Abelheim was alive. And his objections (explicitly not Boney's) was that Wizards are too precious to use without a clear goal. I guess in this case, it's "named characters are too precious to use without clear goal, and you can't just make someone up".
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
Those are the ones I was thinking of I guess. The ones whose single talent isn't enough to provide them with a guaranteed job all on its own, but for whom the freedom of Sealing was not an option.
But why are you looking at Grey College numbers alone for this? WEBMAT is a multi-College branch and as such could draw staff from all eight if needed. If your numbers are right, then that is a pool of 800-1200.
Anyway, I'm not just asking my questions because I want to staff WEBMAT with a bunch of Perpetuals. Right now I am still hazy as to what the Branch will eventually look like. I'm more curious if the stuff I theorized about in my previous comments even applies. Like, maybe the fate for Perpetuals unsuited for academia, management or independent missions is very different from what I thought. It could be anything from the grimdark "we get rid of those" to the much more liberal "they have to live within a day's walk from a College or Branch but otherwise live normal professional lives supplemented by occasional magical cantrips".
Edit: Ninja'd by BoneyM. Becoming Altdorf citizen who enjoy the support and education of a friendly College means that they shouldn't be too interested in joining WEBMAT except for prime salaries and also neatly answers all my world-building questions.
Last edited:
Single talent 'practitioners' are things like minor telekinesis or foretelling the weather, they are not actually more useful than most random people you just picked up off the street and as the GM said those who do not want to work for the college are simply allowed to live their lives in Aldorf where they can be watched form a distance. Since they already have lives of their own they are unlikely to want to move and why would they?
- Location
- Finland
The idea that there is one person in the colleges that do not have a guaranteed job, is not one i can wrap my mind around.
If i trust colleges in one thing, it is finding something for people to do.
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
Yes, we'll pull a Thorek and get ourselves a horde of apprentices. It'll take a while but if we want to call forth an unstoppable swarm of good bureaucrats, the only way will be to raise them up ourselves.
*completely missing the point*
- Location
- Utrecht
The unemployment rate at the colleges is -100%.
There's always too much work.
if anything, colleges Irl are too happy to give you jobs if you look like your not doing anything.
I, and half the other Phds, had no right teaching /tutoring those Undergrad classes.
the poor kids.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
If any cult has relevant info, it'd be the Cult of Taal and Rhya.
Waystones and Leylines are under the purview of shamans, mystery cults, and those that know wild places, not academics.
13th Bee
Worker
- Location
- Tennessee, USA.
So he's kinda like the Plato to Mathilde's Socrates?