- Location
- Utrecht
ALL THAT WASTED BEER!
That's going in the book.
That's going in the book.
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.
- Location
- Germany
A bit off-topic, but looking back at the things that happened in Sylvania: It kind of feels to me that the 'viability' of Vampire Counts and their Masquerade-equivalent was utterly shattered the moment the Colleges of Magic were founded.
Oh, arguably it got shattered a few centuries before, but some kind of comeback and relevance were still possible in my opinion.
Infiltrating Imperial society, especially academia and high society, seems nigh impossible with the prevalence of sanctioned wizards capable of detecting Dhar with witchsight. Infiltrating Altdorf's society would be less Dark Ages: Vampire and more modern Vampire the Masquerade with a part of the population having the magic equivalent of infrared cameras built into their heads. Squatting next door to the Skaven might be an option, but it's not quite Vampire-Count-chique, you know?
I am kind-of uncertain as to how the Lahmians managed what they did early in the quest (lots of proxies I assume), but it seems to me that in the end they were removed without too much trouble. Sylvania might not be fully tamed, but with battle-mages setting it on 8 different shades of fire Vampires feel more like a difficult to exterminate kind of pest than the Midnight Aristocracy they once were. The old blood has run dry, I fear.
Halloween and the current MtG sets (just look at the art for Sorin the Mirthless, holy shit) put me into a Vampire mood that refuses to die, and I have been contemplating writing/running something Vampire-centric set in Altdorf or another imperial metropolis. It feels like anything after the Great War against Chaos would become extreme paranoia-central mired in futility.
Of course that still means that the time around 1800 to almost 2300 is viable, but it would mostly invalidate sources like Altdorf: Crown of the Empire, which would make things more difficult and the setting more alien. Indeed the two centuries before Vlad kicked off the Vampire Wars might be the best for a slower pace, but would leave the Empire(s) very ill defined compared to 'current time'.
Am I mistaken in my assumptions? (I know this is not quite the thread for this, but we did start in Sylvania, so...)
Oh, arguably it got shattered a few centuries before, but some kind of comeback and relevance were still possible in my opinion.
Infiltrating Imperial society, especially academia and high society, seems nigh impossible with the prevalence of sanctioned wizards capable of detecting Dhar with witchsight. Infiltrating Altdorf's society would be less Dark Ages: Vampire and more modern Vampire the Masquerade with a part of the population having the magic equivalent of infrared cameras built into their heads. Squatting next door to the Skaven might be an option, but it's not quite Vampire-Count-chique, you know?
I am kind-of uncertain as to how the Lahmians managed what they did early in the quest (lots of proxies I assume), but it seems to me that in the end they were removed without too much trouble. Sylvania might not be fully tamed, but with battle-mages setting it on 8 different shades of fire Vampires feel more like a difficult to exterminate kind of pest than the Midnight Aristocracy they once were. The old blood has run dry, I fear.
Halloween and the current MtG sets (just look at the art for Sorin the Mirthless, holy shit) put me into a Vampire mood that refuses to die, and I have been contemplating writing/running something Vampire-centric set in Altdorf or another imperial metropolis. It feels like anything after the Great War against Chaos would become extreme paranoia-central mired in futility.
Of course that still means that the time around 1800 to almost 2300 is viable, but it would mostly invalidate sources like Altdorf: Crown of the Empire, which would make things more difficult and the setting more alien. Indeed the two centuries before Vlad kicked off the Vampire Wars might be the best for a slower pace, but would leave the Empire(s) very ill defined compared to 'current time'.
Am I mistaken in my assumptions? (I know this is not quite the thread for this, but we did start in Sylvania, so...)
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Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Honestly, I'm not sure Dwarfs would want anything to do with Ogre beer. There's such a thing as standards.
The tyrant should be far fatter tbh
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
In general, I don't think it's as impossible as you think for a Vampire to hide from magesight.
Night's Dark Masters actually had a Blood Gift entirely about that, making it much harder for anyone to notice anything off with magesight.
- Location
- California
There's a special power Lahmian vampires can develop called "Aethyric Cipher" which allows them to hide their true nature to people who have witchsight. Life was certainly easier before the colleges were founded, since knowing you won't face magical resistance is great, but witchsight isn't unbeatable.
The other bloodlines have a harder time of it, but Von Carsteins typically don't really hide that much, Strigoi can't hide, and Blood Dragons don't tend to be near mages in social contexts.
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
Also, you don't need to be a trained wizard to have witchsight. It may be more common since the legalisation of magic, but it's probably easier to work out who has it as well.
Omegahugger
Inattentive Idiot
While not wrong, it is worth noting that, unbenownst to literally everybody but Mathilde, a former member of said Lahmian conspiracy is currently sitting as the consort of the Emperor.
So, uh, I would not be surprised if it is a teeny bit too early to call them all removed. Gabriella had help, yes, but so might other members of the conspiracy.
The obvious setting for it would be the mid 2100s as Manfred is slain, the Third Vampire War draws to a close, and a power vacuum is left in Sylvania, but a possibly more interesting way to do it would be to set it in the late 2200s, so they start with a divided and vulnerable Empire but know that soon it's going to be time to unite or die. So they have to get their hooks into the Empire without damaging it too much, and then try to make sure that the new infrastructure of state is infiltrated enough that they aren't endangered by the new order.
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- Location
- Utrecht
It's the principle of the thing.
chocolote12
A Penguin Flailing Against The Keyboard Of Life.
More like the Cypher isn't unbeatable; rules as written, it's an opposed willpower test every time, with a skill every Magister worth their salt has three or four career's worth of training and stat advances in. "You can hide easily; all you have to do is overcome the mental power of three or four trained professionals every time they look at something." Isn't actually that great a deal.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
The character creator for Vampires has everyone but Strigoi rolling Willpower as 2d10 + 60.
Vampires aren't exactly lacking in it, and it's an opposed test.
- Location
- Finland
1. Yes, people who are blessed by the local Goddess get appointed nobility.
2. We have had plenty of discussions about the, inconsistencies, in the lore.
3. Lady is often noted for doing things in ways other gods do not.
I do not see how any of this leads to a conclusion of "lady does not care about peasants".
No idea what is going on in Carcasone, could be any number of things, up to and including Lady making a bet with Ranald while drunk.
- Location
- California
I honestly never thought birth swords were magical. I had assumed it was a mostly psychological feature of a "male" noble in that province's culture being raised to care about and use a specific sword for their entire life, making them slightly more focused and energetic when using it compared to any other weapon.
Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
That would make the most sense, considering that the bonus conferred by a Birth Sword only applies to the owner, and nobody else.
- Location
- Greece
Even if it only failed on an 1 (Double ones? not sure how WH dice works) , roll enough times and it'll come up several times.
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
You roll d100s for WFRP. Opposed tests decide who wins by "degrees of success", how many tens you are under your score. Whoever has the most wins. I don't remember what happens if you both fail though. I think it defaults to defense winning?
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In 40k Rpgs with similar mechanics I think you need to calculate degrees of success, or in this case degrees of failure, so whoever failed by less wins. But has been awhile since i checked the rules so not 100% sure
chocolote12
A Penguin Flailing Against The Keyboard Of Life.
That's at best a 1/5 chance of no successes at all. Compare it to a 3 x Magic Sight trained Magister with average Willpower and all his advances, and they're just about equal; except the wizard can initiate that check as many times as he feels like, because he's mathematically beyond the point where it's capable of hurting him.
The point isn't 'can the vampire win in the average test', because the system is mostly fair and they've got a good shake at it. It's 'can they win every test until they've accomplished their goals', because they only need to get tagged once and then they're made. A smart vampire avoids master wizards like the plague (which is good for explaining why the super fast, super smart murder machines who can throw horses at people haven't trivially subverted the totality of human enterprise).
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It's worth remembering that spellcasting priests have their own Witchsight, so there were already institutions out there with multiple members who could potentially see vampires.
Also, a vampire that eats the energy of human souls rather than Dhar to refresh their own soul may not be distinguishable from other humans under spirit sight. Consider what Night's Dark Masters says where it goes into detail:
Yet another method of detecting the presence of a Vampire is through viewing them with Magical Sense. A magister who makes a successful Magical Sense Test sees dark tendrils of both Shyish and Dhar surrounding a Vampire. Of course, such an aura might also surround one under the Vampire's thrall, or a necromancer, or indeed an Amethyst magister, or a priest of Morr who often deals with the Undead. The Winds are rarely clear or easily interpreted. Those who work with Shyish are better able to detect its subtleties, and those individuals gain a +10% bonus to this test. However, many in the Amethyst Order have theorised that even just examining such dark magic is enough to draw a magister under its spell—and they have lost enough magisters to necromancy to believe it.
So, basically, the best cover for a vampire is that they're a priest of Morr...
It also means that any turned Amethyst Magisters would probably pass the test as well, as long as they stay away from their College.
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Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There are Nobles who started out as peasants. According to Knights of the Grail, there were only ever three of them. This is what Page 11 says:
"In the whole of Bretonnian history, only three peasants have been raised to the nobility. The children of an ennobled peasant are not themselves nobles, as their grandparents, on at least one side, are peasants. Thus, unless they were also ennobled, by the agreement of the King and Fay Enchantress, the noble line would die out immediately. Such additional ennobling has never happened, and all of Bretonnia's noble lines can trace pedigrees back to the foundation of the kingdom. No records are kept from before the time of Gilles the Uniter."
It shoult be noted that those three peasants recieved knighthood because of great deeds, and both the King and Fey Enchantress need to declare it, but I believe at least one of them, if not more than one, died very soon afterwards because he was flung into battle like he was expected to fight despite never recieving any training. He got a Knighthood for saving an influential figure, and died soon after.
It's also mentioned there, but in Bretonnia you need you need both your grandparents to be Bretonnian Nobles to be considered a Noble. So while these peasants became nobles, at least for however long their short lives would be, their children wouldn't be.
Now, Boney can feel free to completely waive all this away. Bretonnia is ridiculously grimdark in its treatment of peasants in almost every way, and he might feel that it goes too far, but this is what canon says for those who are curious.
"In the whole of Bretonnian history, only three peasants have been raised to the nobility. The children of an ennobled peasant are not themselves nobles, as their grandparents, on at least one side, are peasants. Thus, unless they were also ennobled, by the agreement of the King and Fay Enchantress, the noble line would die out immediately. Such additional ennobling has never happened, and all of Bretonnia's noble lines can trace pedigrees back to the foundation of the kingdom. No records are kept from before the time of Gilles the Uniter."
It shoult be noted that those three peasants recieved knighthood because of great deeds, and both the King and Fey Enchantress need to declare it, but I believe at least one of them, if not more than one, died very soon afterwards because he was flung into battle like he was expected to fight despite never recieving any training. He got a Knighthood for saving an influential figure, and died soon after.
It's also mentioned there, but in Bretonnia you need you need both your grandparents to be Bretonnian Nobles to be considered a Noble. So while these peasants became nobles, at least for however long their short lives would be, their children wouldn't be.
Now, Boney can feel free to completely waive all this away. Bretonnia is ridiculously grimdark in its treatment of peasants in almost every way, and he might feel that it goes too far, but this is what canon says for those who are curious.
Ganurath
Literal Enthusiast
- Location
- A Valid Location
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ah, but the current Empress is a mortal that successfully infiltrated the conspiracy, extracted herself, then secured her current status without the conspiracy's support. Thanks to its absence, in fact.
It's a shame the Lady doesn't accept disguised women, seeing as some IRL medieval societies held that one's dress did partially dictate what you were, up to and including gender. Of course, that meant that dressing in the wrong way was taken as attempting to force your way into another social sphere and you were treated as a threat to society, but hey, there's a strange sort of acknowledgement of power to being a threat.
Oh, and yeah, having your kid taken away from you due to being magical sucks, but given how the Empire peasantry often burns said kids at the stake, Brettonians arguably have a better system there.
Oh, and yeah, having your kid taken away from you due to being magical sucks, but given how the Empire peasantry often burns said kids at the stake, Brettonians arguably have a better system there.
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Sir_Travelsalot
Never wakes up tired.
- Location
- At Home
Since this came up, it is illegal in Bretonnia for a woman to wear a man's clothing, but a man can wear women's clothing.