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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Cython has lived for hundreds and hundreds of human lifetimes. This means they have *checks notes* less than 10% of the accumulated life experience of any individual College of Magic, without even taking into account precursor organizations.

Don't get me wrong, immortal supergeniuses are great and all, but don't automatically assume they'll trump any sufficiently organized group of mortals. Libraries are a superpower.
 
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There are many organisations that I would attempt to pursue before I even think of inviting Cython tbh. Jade College and Light College of course, but we have to do a lot of investigating to find out which Laurelorn house/ward to bring in to the experiment, so as to avoid stepping into any political landmines and make sure we pick the right choice. Then we can start recruiting Hedgefolk and other magical traditions like Ice Witches and Damsels, and the Cults of Rhya/Taal/Ulric if we can. We already have a lot of choices without bringing Cython into it, and many of them would be far more invested in our goals than Cython would.
 
Boney said:
Cython has lived for hundreds and hundreds of human lifetimes. This means they have *checks notes* less than 10% of the accumulated life experience of any individual College of Magic, without even taking into account precursor organizations.
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I have to note most relevant life experiences of members of these organizations are not unique and are to a large extent shared between multitude of members, but yeah, I won't argue that Cython has more relevant knowledge than e.g. Light or Jade order; I actually want to recruit these Colleges first. I argue that Cython might has enough relevant knowledge that, given other benefits of its recruitment, makes attempting that recruitment worthwhile.
 
The other thing to consider is who else Cython knows or has previously learned from. At least one living dragon apparently collaborated with the Old Ones to build their great works (the warp gates and Geomantic web, probably), although the one we know of thinks sharing the knowledge with lesser races is beneath him.

Cython may also have lived in the era before the Waystone network was built, and so have seen the impact it had on Mallus, which may or may not be interesting.

There's also a question of thresholds of experience. A thousand years of experience from a thousand students who've finished first year university mathematics would be worth a lot less than the seven years of experience of a fresh Pure Mathematics PhD in a relevant field if you wanted to, say, rederive the Sensitivity Conjecture. And the former having a large library that was restricted to subjects studied up to the end of the first year of university mathematics wouldn't help. They simply wouldn't have been taught either the intellectual framework to look for or construct proofs or most of the basic analytical and mathematical tools they'd use to do so.
 
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Boney said:
Cython has lived for hundreds and hundreds of human lifetimes. This means they have *checks notes* less than 10% of the accumulated life experience of any individual College of Magic, without even taking into account precursor organizations.

Don't get me wrong, immortal supergeniuses are great and all, but don't automatically assume they'll trump any sufficiently organized group of mortals. Libraries are a superpower.
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Hmmm... On the flip side Cython (and other thousand years old mages like Nagash, Malekith or Vlad) has thousands of years of continuity whilst the Colleges... don't?

Unless the precursor organisations kept very good records (which going by Mathilde's envy of Karaz-a-Karak archives they didn't) we get into the nine women can't make a baby in a month situation - and the Colleges despite being rather awesome in their own right are also the youngest magical tradition in the Old World by quite some margin (once again discounting precursor organisations).

That doesn't necessarily mean that Cython has the info - indeed I'm still a lot more hyped about seeing the elf library and also about finally going to Ulthuan and either getting some info from the Asur or wresting some out of the Druchi... but overall looking into the old stuff - be it individuals or traditions (Runesmiths, Cult of Verana, etc) seems exceedingly promising - particularly if the College libraries don't go that far back.


Is Mathilde aware of the Grey College having lots of pre-Teclisean records from various precursors? That seems like something she would know.
 
Is recruiting Teclis possible between killing Dark Elves with the Protector, the Waystone Project having enough mass, and the Phoenix King's possible interest in building foreign relations?
 
Sir_Travelsalot said:
Second youngest now, actually. Baron Henryk's College of Navigation & Sea Magicks became a separate entity from the Colleges when Marienburg bought its independence from Dieter IV.
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If we're talking about DL, then Dieter legalised the construction of the Elementalist College of Nuln after the Night of a Thousand Arcane Duels in 2420 IC:
Boney said:
After the dust settled, the Church of Sigmar pressured Dieter IV to close the Colleges and ban magic. As Dieter IV never heard a bad idea he didn't love, he went along with it. Ironically, this healed most of the leftover rifts because all eight College basically closed ranks and said "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough", and though many Witch Hunters believed they were hard enough, all of them turned out to be incorrect. Most of the esoteric and paranoid defences of the Colleges date back to this period. In 2420, Dieter IV managed to completely tank any goodwill he got from banning the Colleges when he accepted a bribe to sanction a College of Elementalists in Nuln.
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So there are at least two magical institutions younger than the Colleges.
 
Boney said:
The only Grey College precursors she's aware of are the Hedgewise, and if there's a transcription of their varied oral traditions somewhere she hasn't been told about it.
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Probably because the Hedgefolk operate on a Master/Apprentice system, and even if they joined the Grey College many of them would have probably kept their traditions alive and chosen not to reveal their secrets except to apprentices that they deemed worthy. Doesn't seem like the type of stuff they would write down in books.
 
Codex said:
Laurelorn house/ward to bring in to the experiment, so as to avoid stepping into any political landmines and make sure we pick the right choice.
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On that note, i think we should try recruiting the Black Magic house. The Waystones are capable of breaking Dhar and absorbing it, so it would make sense to ask for the help of people who know how to use it.
 
K von Carstein said:
On that note, i think we should try recruiting the Black Magic house. The Waystones are capable of breaking Dhar and absorbing it, so it would make sense to ask for the help of people who know how to use it.
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That might be pushing it, legally speaking. Also might bring up some extremely uncomfortable diplomatic questions the empire has likely been strategically ignoring up till now.
 
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A reminder of the following article from the Articles of Imperial Magic:
Boney said:
7. No Magister may ever study the Forbidden Lores of the Daemonic Powers, nor the unholy ways of Necromancy, nor any other sorcery or witchcraft that utilises the wicked powers of Dark Magic. Any Magister found disregarding this Article is guilty of an Abominable Act and is both Heretic and Traitor and will be put to sword and fire immediately.
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I'm not opposed to getting the Hekarti house on our side if they're capable of magical stuff that don't utiilise Dhar, but a very important thing here is that any magic that uses Dhar is "Dark Magic" and if there is reasonable cause to say that we are "studying it" then there is a justification that we are performing an abonimable act and be put to sword and fire immediately.

This is one article that we have to skirt around very carefully. Yes we can use loopholes with other articles, but this one in particular is one of the articles that is most strictly enforced, and for good reason.

We can say that the House of Dark Magicians technically aren't Magisters, so as long as they do their own thing we have no obligation to burn them. But if we use that excuse someone can point at another article that says that any caster in the Empire who's not part of the Colleges must be assessed for suitability for recruitment or exterminated. Clearly the Empire aren't stupid enough to pursuse the Elves of Laurelorn with that article, but if we start employing actual Dark Magic in our research it could embolden disruptive elements to actually start getting in our way, citing a particular article that the Colleges are very careful about.
 
I speculated on this before, but given the history of repression of arcane magical traditions, and the history of real life folk magic, I have to wonder how often the traditions passed down from master to apprentice just died out, and were then reinvented decades or centuries later by someone appropriating their name and legends of their trappings without any actual continuity of practice or institutional memory.
 
NeonLights said:
Is recruiting Teclis possible between killing Dark Elves with the Protector, the Waystone Project having enough mass, and the Phoenix King's possible interest in building foreign relations?
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Maybe. Although honestly I'd be interested to see this happen mostly because I think Mathilde's reaction to Teclis turning up would be fucking hilarious.

Codex said:
Clearly the Empire aren't stupid enough to pursuse the Elves of Laurelorn with that article
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Probably because Laurelorn isn't legally inside the Empire. It's a separate nation.
 
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deathofrats0808 said:
Maybe. Although honestly I'd be interested to see this happen mostly because I think Mathilde's reaction to Teclis turning up would be fucking hilarious.


Probably because Laurelorn isn't legally inside the Empire. It's a separate nation.
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Laurelorn use that argument and they are correct, but the Empire has always claimed Laurelorn as their territory. Nordland considers Laurelorn part of their borders. They can't enforce it, but they can definitely make that argument and get decent support for it, especially if it can be pointed to that the Laurelorn Elves practice Dark Magic.
 
Codex said:
We can say that the House of Dark Magicians technically aren't Magisters, so as long as they do their own thing we have no obligation to burn them. But if we use that excuse someone can point at another article that says that any caster in the Empire who's not part of the Colleges must be assessed for suitability for recruitment or exterminated. Clearly the Empire aren't stupid enough to pursuse the Elves of Laurelorn with that article, but if we start employing actual Dark Magic in our research it could embolden disruptive elements to actually start getting in our way, citing a particular article that the Colleges are very careful about.
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If the Treaty of Amity and Commerce* applies to the wider Empire, then the Empire may have granted extra-territoriality to all elves within its borders and instead placed them under Ulthuan's exclusive jurisdiction. I can't remember, Boney may have said that doesn't apply here though.

If so though, elves would be exempt from the articles of imperial magic, just as they are from all other imperial law.

* which is very explicitly based on the Unequal Treaties signed between European powers and China, which had similar clauses.
 
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Alratan said:
If the Treaty of Amity and Commerce applies to the wider Empire, then the Empire may have granted extra-territoriality to all elves within its borders and instead placed them under Ulthuan's exclusive jurisdiction. I can't remember, Boney may have said that doesn't apply here though.

If so though, elves would be exempt from the articles of imperial magic, just as they are from all other imperial law.
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The treaty was with Westerland, so it wouldn't have any authority over lands nominally within the borders of Nordland and Middenland. Though it would mean that if any Laurelorn or Athel Loren Elves committed crimes within Marienburg it would fall under Ulthuan's authority.
 
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Alratan said:
If the Treaty of Amity and Commerce applies to the wider Empire, then the Empire may have granted extra-territoriality to all elves within its borders and instead placed them under Ulthuan's exclusive jurisdiction. I can't remember, Boney may have said that doesn't apply here though.

If so though, elves would be exempt from the articles of imperial magic, just as they are from all other imperial law.
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Teclis is the only Elf who has an exception for not being hunted down:
Boney said:
Yes, an exception does exist. For Teclis. You could hire Teclis.
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Boney said:
No. Teclis is an exception because he's considered the first Supreme Patriarch, and thus is technically a member of the Colleges. Finreir isn't. It's not known if anyone did their legal duty by reporting him to the then-nascent Templars, but if so they must have had something important to do to neglect their responsibility to try to arrest the guy that killed entire armies of daemons.
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