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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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You know what this quest has been missing? Secret societies. Sure we had the Conspiracy, but they all died and we don't know anything about them, so they don't count. It is Mathilde's solemn duty to rectify this.

I say we go back to Stirland and get the gang back together. We grab Anton and Wilhelma and convince them that since the current Elector Countess is clearly incompetent, we need to take the protection of Stirland into our own hands (and get rich doing it). We build up a good reputation, go sword things, etc, Wilhelma makes us money, and Anton makes people like us. All we need is a priest, a warrior, and a smart guy to have a council of our own. I say we call ourselves the Ashen Shield.
 
BoneyM said:
Mathilde gets her vengeance on Roswita by marrying off the next generation of Stirlandian nobles to Wizards...
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ah, the favorite game of nobles, siblings (adoptive or otherwise) and nosy old bats everywhere: matchmaking! and we fit all 3 of those categories!
 
Suberverting Stirland's elector count is dumb.

We're better than getting up in arms about a child dismissing us from a position we already outgrew. Vengeance is a valid motivation, but wanting to stick one to Roswita is hilariously petty.
 
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Chronobreak said:
Suberverting Stirlan's elector count is dumb.

We're better than getting up in arms about a child dismissing us from a position we already outgrew. Vengeance is a valid motivation, but wanting to stick one to Roswita is hilariously petty.
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The key word's hilariously; as long as it's actually funny and we're not hurting anybody I don't see why we couldn't. Getting Panoramia involved with our friend meets both of those criteria.
 
Karugus said:
Frankly I'm actually amazed at people's restraint. Between Night Prowler, our Dhar eating Belt, Great Sword focus, and general infiltration capabilities I expected the thread to be plotting how to steal the Fell Blade already.

Now that, would be a fun thing to lie about possessing about.
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... I didn't know that was a thing. And it's in K8P?!
Mr Apollo said:
That may be true, but I think Mathilde sees him as more of a younger brother. What we should try to do is set up him and Panoramia. I think there is potential in that pairing.
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Actually, it was he who adopted us as his little sister.

Setting him up with Panoramia sounds great still.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
While I would enjoy that, as a baron he would be obliged to marry in the peerage, with a political union to a Allied family being the socially responsible choice.
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I suspect we only have three to five years before Anton is spoken for and married off to some Allied Family. Basically, Anton as a romance option for us or anyone else is something that has to be initiated within the next few turns, or it would be locked out forever, and I can see the thread spending those years either doing more research, murderizing skaven, making use of Protector to become an Imperial Hero or going back to Karak Eight Peaks for the conquest of the next peak. That being said, even if we come back from Karak Eight Peaks to find that Anton has a wife (probably someone obsessed with Wizard Chic, since I suspect any anti-Wizard bigot is out for Anton), I suspect Mathilde would wish them the best, and continue dropping in to catch up with Anton in between Mathilde's journeys and missions. I really think that Anton is, besides Reginald going to be one of the few human relations that Mathilde truly treasure and partly (not completely since we have Dwarven Oaths to keep and possess artifacts best kept secret, our oaths to the Grey Order, and our commitments to Ragnald) confide in.

That being said, I wonder how a hypothetical Anton-Mathilde marriage would have worked. Imagine if the Kissingers became a noble family of Grey Wizards..... master spymasters, black ops operatives and diplomats all in one. On the other hand, I suspect Mathilde would be a rather absent mother, between her tendency to go off on distant campaigns, her tendency to bury herself in her research projects, her worship of Ragnald, job opportunities her Wizard Order strongly hint she should take up, having to raise possible apprentices and so on. And any relationship between Anton and Mathilde is going to be a long-distance one unless both of them are lucky enough to secure another ten to fifteen years of employment as an advisor in the same electoral court, not necessarily that of Stirland.

On the topic of Post Karak Eight Peaks, I have a niggling suspicion we would soon get an offer from Middenhiem for a court position or a strong suggestion from the Grey Order to use our contact with the Ulricans to get a better read on the current turmoil up North and the seeming schism among the Ulricans. I actually wonder what happens if Mathilde ends up walking through the Flame of Ulric... and end up emerging unscathed. I do think there is an Ulrican plot hook on the way... and if Ragnald owes debts to Ulric, it makes me wonder whether Mathilde would get an opportunity to repay some of these debts.
 
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TotallyNotEvil said:
... I didn't know that was a thing. And it's in K8P?!
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Oh god no. I don't where it would be canonically at this point, but almost certainly in someplace inconvenient like Skavenblight or someplace similar.

But yeah, at a rough glance Mathilde looks almost tailor made to wield a Ghal Moraz tier artifact weapon made of pure badness. Like I'm pretty sure the only weapon the Fellblade loses out to is Widowmaker. If we're ever remotely in a position to use the Fellblade we're passing the Godzilla Threshold at a terrifying rate.
 
Andmeuths said:
On the topic of Post Karak Eight Peaks, I have a niggling suspicion we would soon get an offer from Middenhiem for a court position or a strong suggestion from the Grey Order to use our contact with the Ulricans to get a better read on the current turmoil up North and the seeming schism among the Ulricans. I actually wonder what happens if Mathilde ends up walking through the Flame of Ulric... and end up emerging unscathed.
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I admit, I am VERY curious what's happening up there.

I highly doubt Mathilde would be spared by the flame though. Despite a procession of idiots and zealots there have been no miracles for over a generation.
 
racnor said:
I highly doubt Mathilde would be spared by the flame. Despite a procession of idiots and zealots there have been no miracles for over a generation.
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Isn't the No Miracles for over a generation in reference to Sigmar's generation? We are currently active one generation before Sigmar. Perhaps we are that last miracle? =S

#Hubrisisacowardsword

Seriously speaking though, if we (Mathilde) have such a beef with Sigmar, I can think of no better way to stick it to the Sigmarites while remaining loyal to the Empire, then helping out the Ulricans.
 
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BoneyM said:
It paid off the first time, but I wouldn't recommend making a habit of getting Ranald into fights with evil gods.
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Would Ranny get a boost to fleecing Gork/Mork in the future, or is this a case of "lessons learned on each side, net zero gain"?

Because I'm digging the narrative of The Human God Of Cunning out Bugs Bunnying The Gods of Cunning/Brutal Brutalness/Cunning until he's dragged them down and pulled himself onto the same level.

Karugus said:
possibily mediocre one is not some threat that Mathilde needs to avert.
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I don't mean to speak ill of the dead, but.

Al wasn't exactly a balanced Elector Count when it comes down to it. Even with optimistic estimates, he had three stats above 10 and they were Being Killy, Holding Faith In Sigmar, and Knowing Random Undead Facts.

The first failed him, the second was soiled by politics, and the last- admittedly got him a cute date scene over the corpse of a dead guy.

The point is, while Al was shaping up to be a Great Elector Count of Stirland, he wasn't really set up to be a good Elector Count of Stirland. If his personal efforts had fallen through, he'd have likely been a fairly mediocre, if attentive, administrator.

His daughter seems to have been raised with some vague idea of becoming an administrator, or at least received lessons for the duration of the new Van Hal reign, so she'll likely have at least breached 10 in Stewardship and hopefully Diplomacy.

If she messes up as badly as she did with us on a diplomatic level...well, the baying hounds of the thread would likely get their blood, especially if she somehow loses Sylvania.
 
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Walliseatscheese said:
His daughter seems to have been raised with some vague idea of becoming an administrator, or at least received lessons for the duration of the new Van Hal reign, so she'll likely have at least breached 10 in Stewardship and hopefully Diplomacy.

If she messes up as badly as she did with us on a diplomatic level...well, the baying hounds of the thread would likely get their blood, especially of she somehow loses Sylvania.
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The issue is that she already lost half of her Council within her first two turns, as well as ten thousand soldiers, without a shot being fired. These are not good signs.
 
DocMatoi said:
I want to be hilariously petty though.
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I'm a fan of being hilariously petty over minor grudges as the next guy, but I find it hard to enjoy the idea of messing with a young women who made a mistake out of ignorance. Honestly, I just feel sorry for her and regret she wouldn't let us help her.

That said, if we had bought the crown I would have totally voted for setting up a 'royal' visit to Stirland, conveniently leaving out the name of the princess in the diplomatic correspondence. I reckon we could have gotten one feast out of it.

racnor said:
I admit, I am VERY curious what's happening up there.
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Looking at the problem location on a map I'm 99% sure that the whole mess was started by wood elves being dicks and killing the settlers in 'their forest' without actually telling anyone it was their forest. Then the two cults just used it as an excuse to butt heads
 
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Andmeuths said:
On the topic of Post Karak Eight Peaks, I have a niggling suspicion we would soon get an offer from Middenhiem for a court position or a strong suggestion from the Grey Order to use our contact with the Ulricans to get a better read on the current turmoil up North and the seeming schism among the Ulricans. I actually wonder what happens if Mathilde ends up walking through the Flame of Ulric... and end up emerging unscathed. I do think there is an Ulrican plot hook on the way... and if Ragnald owes debts to Ulric, it makes me wonder whether Mathilde would get an opportunity to repay some of these debts.
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That would require our voting base to have an interest in human affairs, and judging by the direction the thread has been heading I don't really see it.

It took us how long to actually interact with the knight orders? I think the two human reps were actually dead last on the list of notable persons we can spend a social action on, and we still haven't met the demigryphs.
BoneyM said:
And then a plucky young Journeyman rolls up your entire illicit trade network in a single night?
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no not our sheeps
 
DocMatoi said:
....what?
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It's an indication that my suggestion about the Flames of Ulric's is done tongue in cheek. It's an incredibly Hubristic action.

That being said, it won't surprise me if Mathilde is going to get an opportunity to get involved with the Cult of Ulric down the line given the Ulrican plot hooks dropped during this expedition, and I think given how little regard Mathilde have for the Sigmarites, helping out the Ulricans at the expense of the Sigmarites is something I can see Mathilde doing down the line.


notanautomaton said:
The issue is that she already lost half of her Council within her first two turns, as well as ten thousand soldiers, without a shot being fired. These are not good signs.
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But they are just signs for now. I do agree that it might be worth dropping into Stirland for abit to see how Stirland is fairing, but I suspect there would be another three or four fires the Grey Order would hint that we could look into.


Guile said:
That would require our voting base to have an interest in human affairs, and judging by the direction the thread has been heading I don't really see it.
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Isn't part of the reason for this, the thread's obsession with accumulating Dwarven Favors? Because I think the reasoning of the thread is that Dwarven Favors are scarce, that our time with the Dwarves is limited, and therefore the opportunities we get to build up relationships with and learn from the Dwarves are scarce. Basically, the logic seems to be that building up Social Links with the Dwarves is scarce in the long run, while "favors" with human organizations are more easily accessible in the long run.

Want to farm College Favors? Hit up Regimald and see what kind of missions and crisis the Grey College might be grateful for a Magister to come down to either observe or quietly assist in resolving - I believe we also have an in, with helping out the Bright and Jade colleges. Want to further our connections with Ranald and his followers? Heideck's our point of contact in, and it won't surprise me if many sufficiently devout Ranald priest realized what we just did. Want to follow up on the situation on Stirland? Anton, Julia and Wilhemina likely would have a very firm grasp on how much our concerns of whether the Elector Countess is botching up everything Abel tried to build are valid.

I'm not advocating that we should think in terms of favor, merely that the sheer number of unusual interactions we can conduct in our participation in reconquering Karak Eight Peaks means that we naturally gravitate to choosing interactions with Dwarves, then our Journeymanlings as the secondary choice, and finally the Knightly Orders as a third choice when it comes to distributing our scarce interaction shinies.
 
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ooh, in addition to our matchmaking scheme, anyone want to start a knightly order of Ranald? I'm pretty sure we're the only one who could do it.
 
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