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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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I think the people talking about the hypothetical importance of rituals to the project are jumping the gun.

To use one of the good programming metaphors: we're still in the analysis phase.
The ritualist would be more useful in the design phase and potentially essential in the implementation phase.

There are things the choirmaster can do that Lm Elrisse can't do... But she quite likely knows are possible.
But there are things that only Elrisse knows about, which the choirmaster has no inkling to.

I'd rather have more deep knowledge than technical expertise at this stage.
 
Deathbybunnies said:
Stephen is a skilled ritualist, but his skill at casting a ritual is somewhat perpendicular to a reverse-engineering effort. Elrisse knows everything about the Light Order's rituals he does, even if he has better intuition and is more skilled at using them.

And again, the whole point of this project is that we aren't trying to be better at this than anyone who's tried before, we're trying to gather all of the obscure secrets we can to simplify the problem to a point where it's solvable.
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But there is a major difference between simply knowing something and having the depth of knowledge and skill that comes from actively using said knowledge regularly. I have access to essentially all the programming secrets in the world through various websites and free courses but I'm also a rank amateur and would fail hard at any attempt to understand advanced code despite this.

And this assumes Elrisse has access to all the same knowledge as Stephen which is far from guaranteed, being cleared for access to the most knowledge total is not the same as knowing everything every other light wizard knows.
 
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Jyn Ryvia said:
@Boney random question.

What was the hardest arc to write and come up with ideas for. And if you can put words to it, why?
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Difficulty writing has generally been down to external factors, rather than whatever it is that needs writing. I'm careful to keep from writing myself into a corner, and I almost never allow for a possibility in a roll or a vote unless I have at least a general idea of how to execute it.
 
Jreengus said:
And this assumes Elrisse has access to all the same knowledge as Stephen which is far from guaranteed, being cleared for access to the most knowledge total is not the same as knowing everything every other light wizard knows.
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Being the porter, in my book, guarantees that she knows OF the knowledge, even if she's doesn't have the expertise to use it herself.
The reverse is not the case. Choirmaster might not be aware the order even has the knowledge.
Considering the exploratory stage we are at, rituals might not even factor into it (or they might be very useful, idk).

When we are at the implementation phase, we can see about hiring (or training) the right experts.
We're not there yet.
 
IronFist said:
Being the porter, in my book, guarantees that she knows OF the knowledge, even if she's doesn't have the expertise to use it herself.
The reverse is not the case. Choirmaster might not be aware the order even has the knowledge.
Considering the exploratory stage we are at, rituals might not even factor into it (or they might be very useful, idk).

When we are at the implementation phase, we can see about hiring (or training) the right experts.
We're not there yet.
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Being porter really doesn't mean she knows of everything every light order member knows. I absolutely 100% believe that Stephen has knowledge Elrisse doesn't know of, she doesn't have time to sit down with every single journeyman and above and learn of all of the unique insights and tricks they've picked up in their particular specialties. I also don't see why you think an expert is useless in the exploratory stages. (I assume by that you mean the part where we try to figure out how waystones work.) An expert will absolutely see and understand things an amateur with a big book of technical knowledge never would. This is true in pretty much every human endeavor I don't see why magic would be any different.

E: To use an analogy I see this argument as being equivalent to finding an Alien power source and saying "We don't need an electrician to figure out how it works, we have a book on electrical engineering, we'll just hire an electrician when we start trying to build a copy."
 
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Jreengus said:
E: To use an analogy I see this argument as being equivalent to finding an Alien power source and saying "We don't need an electrician to figure out how it works, we have a book on electrical engineering, we'll just hire an electrician when we start trying to build a copy."
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The problem with that is that maybe the alien power source does not generate electricity... Maybe it makes be-lectricity, that works on completely different principles.
In that case, the electrician is completely useless: they don't even know be-lectricity exists. but the person with the book on be-lectricity remains equally useful.
 
Jreengus said:
Being porter really doesn't mean she knows of everything every light order member knows. I absolutely 100% believe that Stephen has knowledge Elrisse doesn't know of, she doesn't have time to sit down with every single journeyman and above and learn of all of the unique insights and tricks they've picked up in their particular specialties. I also don't see why you think an expert is useless in the exploratory stages. (I assume by that you mean the part where we try to figure out how waystones work.) An expert will absolutely see and understand things an amateur with a big book of technical knowledge never would. This is true in pretty much every human endeavor I don't see why magic would be any different.
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The thing is I think the elves make much better electricians than any human could ever have. That is not to say that a lord magister could not be better at doing certain sorts of magic than an elf, they absolutely could... in a chisel hands sort of way, which is to say unique to them and not that useful to a project that is supposed to deliver repeatable results. Any solution we come up with has to be done the hard theory elf way, because you can teach that to a human, you cannot teach the soul mutation way to an elf, or even to another human
 
DragonParadox said:
The thing is I think the elves make much better electricians than any human could ever have. That is not to say that a lord magister could not be better at doing certain sorts of magic than an elf, they absolutely could... in a chisel hands sort of way, which is to say unique to them and not that useful to a project that is supposed to deliver repeatable results. Any solution we come up with has to be done the hard theory elf way, because you can teach that to a human, you cannot teach the soul mutation way to an elf, or even to another human
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OK then why are we here, let the elfs do it. Oh wait... They can't...
Saying "oh the elfs will fix it/do it/know it ignores that they Apperantly don't know it. Otherwise why allow us in at all...
 
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Tobtorp said:
OK then why are we here, let the elfs do it. Oh wait... They can't...
Saying "oh the elfs with fix it/do it/know it ignores that they Apperantly don't know it. Otherwise why allow us in at all...
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Well actually the elves can do it, they just can't do it very well, it involves trees with gold roots. The idea is to give the elves and dwarfs information that they can use to make a work around with their superior skills at at uniform repeatable magic use. Humans make good Sparks in terms of magic, but Sparkiness is not what we are looking for, rather what we should be looking for is bits of knowledge that can be put together into a common framework, some of that knowledge happens to be in the hands of the Sparks.
 
IronFist said:
The problem with that is that maybe the alien power source does not generate electricity... Maybe it makes be-lectricity, that works on completely different principles.
In that case, the electrician is completely useless: they don't even know be-lectricity exists. but the person with the book on be-lectricity remains equally useful.
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Not at all, after all you still have to figure out whether it works on electricty or some other kind of -lectricity, at a glance it certainly looks a lot like electricity, so it makes sense to go in assuming it runs on that and the electrician will be able to tell you a lot faster that in fact it doesn't than the amateur with the book. At that point you can start looking at other books on alectricity to zlectricity.

You are posing this as a mutually exclusive thing, either we get the book on be-lectricity or the electrician but we can easily do both. Most of the plans include promoting Egrimm explicitly so he can be given LM level access to the light orders knowledge of Waystones and Stephen would be given Choirmaster level access. Picking Elrisse is essentially gambling that there is a higher level of waystone secrets not available to an LM promoted specifically for that purpose that would be key to understanding them or that somewhere in all the unrelated stuff Elrisse has access to she will be able to pull out something more useful than the enchanting/ritual knowledge and I don't think either is that likely.
 
Vote as it stands.
Adhoc vote count started by Aranfan on Nov 22, 2021 at 8:11 AM, finished with 434 posts and 77 votes.
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Jreengus said:
E: To use an analogy I see this argument as being equivalent to finding an Alien power source and saying "We don't need an electrician to figure out how it works, we have a book on electrical engineering, we'll just hire an electrician when we start trying to build a copy."
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That's wrong. It's more like we have a alien power source, and everyone will contribute their notes on the lost user manuals. Elrisse is the option who's got the best tap on bits of user manual. Stephen will be better at understanding certain parts of the user manual.

And yes, hiring a electrical engineer (though I'd say really both are electricians with different specialties) only when you need them makes sense. I'm not sure people realise how far we have to got to go. Building new waystones is a stretch goal, and we're years away from it. By the point we can even start on it, we'll have a much stronger basis to negotiate from.
 
Jreengus said:
Not at all, after all you still have to figure out whether it works on electricty or some other kind of -lectricity, at a glance it certainly looks a lot like electricity, so it makes sense to go in assuming it runs on that and the electrician will be able to tell you a lot faster that in fact it doesn't than the amateur with the book. At that point you can start looking at other books on alectricity to zlectricity.

You are posing this as a mutually exclusive thing, either we get the book on be-lectricity or the electrician but we can easily do both. Most of the plans include promoting Egrimm explicitly so he can be given LM level access to the light orders knowledge of Waystones and Stephen would be given Choirmaster level access. Picking Elrisse is essentially gambling that there is a higher level of waystone secrets not available to an LM promoted specifically for that purpose that would be key to understanding them or that somewhere in all the unrelated stuff Elrisse has access to she will be able to pull out something more useful than the enchanting/ritual knowledge and I don't think either is that likely.
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I agree with you except for one thing. I don't think taking Stephen is the correct choice. I honestly think we are going to get someone who knows the relevant rituals better at the jade college, because they still do regular rituals involving the way stones.
 
Tobtorp said:
I agree with you except for one thing. I don't think taking Stephen is the correct choice. I honestly think we are going to get someone who knows the relevant rituals better at the jade college, because they still do regular rituals involving the way stones.
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Also, it slipped my mind until just now, but isn't Horstmann a pretty good Choir-leader?

Like, not Stephen good, but it's not like we don't have someone on board that can do the light style rituals.
 
Jreengus said:
Being porter really doesn't mean she knows of everything every light order member knows. I absolutely 100% believe that Stephen has knowledge Elrisse doesn't know of, she doesn't have time to sit down with every single journeyman and above and learn of all of the unique insights and tricks they've picked up in their particular specialties.
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Apparently she knows more things than any living Light Wizard, I think it's good enough. Also, I don't think any journeyman would be of use trying to understand the waystones. Unlike the Jades, the Lights aren't known to routinely interact with waystones outside of their College.
Boney said:
[ ] Lady Magister Elrisse (2 Favours)
The Porter equivalent of the Light Order, Lady Magister Elrisse's loyalty to the Order and to the Empire is unimpeachable, and she is cleared for more access to information than any other living Light Wizard.
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