Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[mathymancer]

That said, your argument is compelling. Of course I already wanted to recruit the Halethans. The turn after the next one. Because this one I want to investigate Alric, preferably with a Coin face conductive to it. Which could be well coupled with investigating others as well. Which might just as well be the Hedgewise and a couple of Elven Houses. So that we actually know just what we are recruiting the following turn.

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Again, spending entire turns investigating potential recruits isn't the way to go. It literally doubles the amount of actions required to recruit new partners, and it can't actually tell us if they will be useful partners or not - we cannot know if a group has useful secrets without knowning those secrets, and the only way to know is to recruit them. And the best way to learn about the Eonir factions is to make allies of one of them and get the insights of those who have centuries of experience with Eonir politics.
We have to take the plunge and just recruit someone. I originally thought that the Ward of Frost was a good first choice but upon further reflection we really need to start with a friendly great house. All but two of the votes on the council belong to cityborn, and all three magically incllined Eonir factions are great houses, and so the advice of cityborn allies will be much more useful in navigating Eonir politics.
There are three friendly great houses in Mathilde's notes: Fanpatar, Ellemakil, and Tindomiel:

• House Fanpatar: Galenstra seems like a nice guy and all but there is no indication that his house is likely to have any useful contribution to the project. The only obvious benefit to recruiting Fanpatar is the political one, and even there I'm not sure how useful he is, as our social action with him shows that his house is sometimes looked down upon for having their powerbase away from the city (though house Fanpatar mantains that this is not actually the case). They have two votes on the council, a feat matched only by House Malforric, and Malforric are hardcore isolastionists.
• House Ellemakil: Those are the Ulric worshipping ones. I really have no idea what the political implications of recruiting them are. How do other houses think of the house that's worshipping a human God? What political circumstances cause a house to dedicate themselves to a human God in the first place? We also have no reason to believe they have project relevant knowledge, especially when Ulric is not exactly a scholarly God. Thorek also indicated that he would be talking with them, so we might be able to glean some additional information on them if we just wait and talk with Thorek.
• House Tindomiel: A magically inclined house, voted in favour in contact and was there to greet Thorek. What's not to love? To top it all off they are from Saphery, like the other two magically inclined houses, and so are likely to have additional insights on our other potential recruitment targets. The main drawback with them is that their Goddess isn't well regarded in the Empire, and if it turns out they actually practice dark magic in some form then cooperating with them would be a pretty clear violation of the articles.

House Tindomiel just seems like the best choice out of those. And if we're recruiting Hekarti worshippers then we should turn the coin to the Father and try for the Hedgewise on the same turn for maximum possible benefit.

 

[Codex]

House Fanpatar: Galenstra seems like a nice guy and all but there is no indication that his house is likely to have any useful contribution to the project. The only obvious benefit to recruiting Fanpatar is the political one, and even there I'm not sure how useful he is, as our social action with him shows that his house is sometimes looked down upon for having their powerbase away from the city. Not a great choice, in my opinion.

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House Fanpatar's powerbase is in the city, the reason being that they want to make sure people don't use it as a weapon against them. I made a list before, but Fanpatar is one of two houses with two votes on the council, or a vote and a tie breaker. The other is House Malforric, which holds greater influence because they determine the trails of the Festival of Games that determines who the Champion is, another Triumvirate position. Fanpatar and Malforric are the most powerful houses in terms of pure vote count.

House Ellemakil: Those are the Ulric worshipping ones. I really have no idea what the political implications of recruiting them are. How do other houses think of the house that's worshipping a human God? What political circumstances cause a house to dedicate themselves to a human God in the first place? We also have no reason to believe they have project relevant knowledge, especially when Ulric is not exactly a scholarly God. Thorek also indicated that he would be talking with them, so we might be able to glean some additional information on them if we just wait and talk with Thorek.

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This is what we know about House Ellemakil:

Major House Ellemakil: A formerly Avelornian House, and one that has recently come to dominate the fledgling Temple of Ulric. Presumably they are the House most enthusiastic about cooperating with humans.

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Ellemakil are the ones most focused on building ties with Middenland, so they're probably supporting this as an extension of that.

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House Ellemakil were convinced to support Middenland by Marrisith, who I should remind you is related by blood to the Everqueens of Avelorn and Aenarion the Defender.

I'm not sure what their angle would be. They're Avelornian and Isha... Ishaists? Ishaites? So they might just be loyalists to the Queen as a descendant of the Everqueen, I suppose."

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We don't know what Ellemakil worshipped before Ulric, but they had to have a particular god/goddess they were dedicated to before Ulric came along. Ellemakil currently dominate Ulrican worship in Laurelorn, but nothing is said about him being the only god they dominate/have influence on. Them being former Avelornians and being influenced by Marrisith indicates a possibility that they might have been Isha worshippers. We don't know.

Either way, you seem to be under the impression that Ellemakil is the "Ulric House", but that has little backing. They dominate his worship, but Ulrican worship in Laurelorn is barely a decade old. They almost certainly have other stuff going on, and the reason Mathilde is focusing on the Ulric stuff is because that is what makes an alliance with them advantageous. They're already all in on cooperation.

 

[mathymancer]

How do we want to approach Alric?

Night Prowler, Deceiver, and Protector all have valid arguments for use, I think - Night Prowler to be literally divinely unnoticeable, which should do well even against Alric's grasp of Hysh, Deceiver to sell Alric a crock of shit if we want to, or Protector to kill-steal and get all the credit.

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Protector: that's just jumping the gun. The Protector will only be useful if our investigation reveals that Alric is dealing with something that is a direct threat to others that will proc the Protector, and we are capable of dealing with that threat on that same turn. This is incredibly unlikely: even if the thing Alric is investigating is something we can handle on our own, I can't imagine handling it will require 0 AP. And besides, we did not agree to sabotage Alric, only investigate him, and this sounds like sabotage.
Night Prowler: as Codex already pointed out, the Night Prowler only works when we are not on private property. We previously used it to infiltrate enemy cities: a Greenskin 'town' and a town ruled by a vampire. But Alric is going to be working in friendly Empire towns, where that isn't applicable. The places Alric is doing his business are very likely to be private property, the guy is working with the nobles after all, so the only real use of the Night Prowler is for making our approach to a surveillance target and for escaping from it. This won't protect us from Alric's Hysh: if we're close enough to Alric for a spell we are almost certainly in private property. It might protect us from Alric chasing us out into the streets, but if we're at the point that Alric is chasing us something has already gone very wrong, and if we can't outrun a 120 year old man that can't teleport like we do we should probably just quit. All in all I would say the Night Prowler is not useless, but not that useful either.
The Deceiver: I can't really evaluate this without a concrete plan, but in any case I don't see why we should ever talk to Alric. Ideally he wouldn't ever know we investigated him.

House Fanpatar's powerbase is in the city, the reason being that they want to make sure people don't use it as a weapon against them. I made a list before, but Fanpatar is one of two houses with two votes on the council, or a vote and a tie breaker. The other is House Malforric, which holds greater influence because they determine the trails of the Festival of Games that determines who the Champion is, another Triumvirate position. Fanpatar and Malforric are the most powerful houses in terms of pure vote count.

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Galenstra said in response to Mathilde that the observation has been made by those jealous of the house. He denied that it's true, yes, but something doesn't have to be true to have political ramifications. You are absolutely correct on them having two votes, I forgot that and will add it to my post.

We don't know what Ellemakil worshipped before Ulric, but they had to have a particular god/goddess they were dedicated to before Ulric came along. Ellemakil currently dominate Ulrican worship in Laurelorn, but nothing is said about him being the only god they dominate/have influence on. Them being former Avelornians and being influenced by Marrisith indicates a possibility that they might have been Isha worshippers. We don't know.

Either way, you seem to be under the impression that Ellemakil is the "Ulric House", but that has little backing. They dominate his worship, but Ulrican worship in Laurelorn is barely a decade old. They almost certainly have other stuff going on, and the reason Mathilde is focusing on the Ulric stuff is because that is what makes an alliance with them advantageous. They're already all in on cooperation.

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Yes, they might have any number of other things going on, but we really don't know. Whoever they worshipped before Ulric, the decided to give up the political benefits or dominating the worship of an elven god for the sake of dominating the worship of a human God. We have no idea why, or what it could mean. They are probably going to be really easy to work with, but I maintain that we have no idea what the effects of having them on board could be. Again, Thorek indicated that he would be talking with them, and if we wait a little we might be able to get some information on them from him.

 

[Ninbefor]

So who are people actually excited to recruit? Me, I keep coming back to:

- Tindomiel: the dark elven magic experts (and their goddess could be Ranald's daughter! But really, they had me at "experts in dark elven magic").
- Nordlander Hedgewise: even better chance of Ranald's daughter effects, plus weird pre-Imperial magic. I want to see their approach to the Winds freak Mathilde out. Remember Kragg dumbfounded by Bok?
- Damsels: just gloriously weird. I doubt we can get them to show up regularly, but if we do, we'll never have a better chance to try to comprehend the officially incomprehensible.

The Jade Order is the one officially tagged as knowing Waystones, and we're going for them. I figure the rest will be mostly powering us up through fun mayhem chao healthy cultural diversity.

So who do other people look forward to? What other magicians would be neat to read about recruiting or working with?

 

[Codex]

Yes, they might have any number of other things going on, but we really don't know. Whoever they worshipped before Ulric, the decided to give up the political benefits or dominating the worship of an elven god for the sake of dominating the worship of a human God. We have no idea why, or what it could mean. They are probably going to be really easy to work with, but I maintain that we have no idea what the effects of having them on board could be. Again, Thorek indicated that he would be talking with them, and if we wait a little we might be able to get some information on them from him.

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You do realise that dominating an Elven god's worship and a human god's worship is not mutually exclusive right?

 

[Rafin]

It has also been half a year out of character. Thread impatience is more likely to track with that.

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I don't get that. Don't people find the recruitment parts of the chapters fun and cool and interesting? Because I do. And it definitely hasn't been that long since we found out that Ranald is a father, so the impatience there makes even less sense.

. It's a six month action, making preparations beforehand seems expected. If you are thinking we should find out if they are useful to us first, I don't think that is information that they are willing to share. We aren't showing our hand yet, so I'm very much of the option that more are better.

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I also want to know if they are "good people" as one says. And if we use the ingratiate action on Tindomiel that might simultaneously lower recruitment costs, if only a bit.

Prince Galenstra and his House Fanpatar worship Ladrielle if you're curious over whether she's an option.

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We could social Galenstra with the Father on. Though... We just socialed him last turn.

and if it turns out they actually practice dark magic in some form then cooperating with them would be a pretty clear violation of the articles.

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That for instance would be good to know beforehand and would not necessarily be something we can only find out by recruiting them. As would be whether they play well with others and aren't some form of crazy that we'd rather not have weighing us down.

We literally know nothing about this entity other than their voting patern on a single specific subject. Why can't we just take it slow and have the equivalent of an interview before hiring someone? Because it will take a couple of AP?

 

[DragonParadox]

I don't get that. Don't people find the recruitment parts of the chapters fun and cool and interesting? Because I do. And it definitely hasn't been that long since we found out that Ranald is a father, so the impatience there makes even less sense.

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The recruitment actions themselves are well written and well paced as always, but we did vote for magic research into waystyones about six months ago and have yet to do any of that. The point of the action narratively is to do stuff with Waystones not to poke around random magical traditions, hence people getting a bit antsy.

 

[mathymancer]

You do realise that dominating an Elven god's worship and a human god's worship is not mutually exclusive right?

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We can ask Boney to clarify, but I would think that if they dominated the worship of an Elven God on top of Ulric that would have been mentioned.

We literally know nothing about this entity other than their voting patern on a single specific subject. Why can't we just take it slow and have the equivalent of an interview before hiring someone? Because it will take a couple of AP?

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We do know more about them than their voting pattern on a single subject, though admittedly not much. We know they showed up to greet Thorek, which is another point in favour of them caring about the project, and we know that they are magically inclined. That's not a lot, but it's not nothing.
And the cost isn't just a couple of AP, it's also probably a couple of IRL months. My original turn plan did have an action to speak to Tindomiel before we recruit, but rereading Boney's comment from the first turn convinced me that we just kinda need to recruit someone.

 

[Ninbefor]

We literally know nothing about this entity other than their voting patern on a single specific subject. Why can't we just take it slow and have the equivalent of an interview before hiring someone? Because it will take a couple of AP?

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As I understand it, "Bring X into the Project" includes both Mathilde's interviewing the group and her gaining the option to make an agreement.

For example, right now the thread could just decide Lady Magister Mira was untrustworthy. We could give her 0 Favour, and write the Light Order off for now from the Project.

The turn didn't recap the basics on the Light Order because we already knew them. But if Mira had been new to us we would've gotten an orienting view, just as when Mathilde was meeting leaders in Kislev or Albion as possible Project locales.

And if we somehow spent a future AP on "Bring The Oddly Sadistic Overseas Elves into the Project", only to be told they were Druchii slavers, we wouldn't be obligated to accept their offered help in the Project.

By default the interviewing AP is the same as the recruitment AP. You get both for one action. But recruiting isn't obligatory, if the interview results make us nervous.

@Boney, can you confirm or clarify?

 

[Jreengus]

maybe poke at a Waystone personally would be really nice.

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So I keep seeing this brought up but I'm not really sure it's valuable enough to spend an AP on. When I asked Boney about taking other WEBMAT members with us he said that would be covered under the "Lay the foundations action" so it feels like the value in Mathilde examining it solo is entirely in hoping the info she gets will let her bluff having a lot of knowledge better and/or let her spot if someone else is bluffing. I'm not sure that is worth an entire AP especially since we seem to be sticking to safe recruitment options we are sure know something.

 

[Boney]

As I understand it, "Bring X into the Project" includes both Mathilde's interviewing the group and her gaining the option to make an agreement.

For example, right now the thread could just decide Lady Magister Mira was untrustworthy. We could give her 0 Favour, and write the Light Order off for now from the Project.

The turn didn't recap the basics on the Light Order because we already knew them. But if Mira had been new to us we would've gotten an orienting view, just as when Mathilde was meeting leaders in Kislev or Albion as possible Project locales.

And if we somehow spent a future AP on "Bring The Oddly Sadistic Overseas Elves into the Project", only to be told they were Druchii slavers, we wouldn't be obligated to accept their offered help in the Project.

By default the interviewing AP is the same as the recruitment AP. You get both for one action. But recruiting isn't obligatory, if the interview results make us nervous.

@Boney, can you confirm or clarify?

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Yes, if you don't like the impression you get of someone you can vote to cut off negotiations entirely.

 

[Deathbybunnies]

So I keep seeing this brought up but I'm not really sure it's valuable enough to spend an AP on. When I asked Boney about taking other WEBMAT members with us he said that would be covered under the "Lay the foundations action" so it feels like the value in Mathilde examining it solo is entirely in hoping the info she gets will let her bluff having a lot of knowledge better and/or let her spot if someone else is bluffing. I'm not sure that is worth an entire AP especially since we seem to be sticking to safe recruitment options we are sure know something.

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I think I disagree. Bluffing having lots of knowledge is one thing, but if we don't take a look we risk saying the wrong thing about something far more obvious and fundamental, which would be extremely damaging. Beyond that, project managers don't necessarily need to be as skilled as their employees in every aspect of their jobs, but they do need a reasonable grounding to understand what's going on and properly direct them.

I've not been overly pushing for it because we can put it off until the turn we start the Project proper, but this is probably the most important preparatory action to take of all.

 

[Jreengus]

If it's obvious and fundamental then Mathilde should already know it. She's taken the college course on Waystones and seen them in action. The stuff we'd get from examining one would be be more unique insights from Mathilde's insane windsight and/or avatar senses. It seems even more ridiculous to take the action the same turn we start the project so we'd be examining the waystone on our own as one action and with other members of the project as another action on the same turn? What's the benefit there?

 

[Deathbybunnies]

If it's obvious and fundamental then Mathilde should already know it. She's taken the college course on Waystones and seen them in action. The stuff we'd get from examining one would be be more unique insights from Mathilde's insane windsight and/or avatar senses. It seems even more ridiculous to take the action the same turn we start the project so we'd be examining the waystone on our own as one action and with other members of the project as another action on the same turn? What's the benefit there?

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The baseline of obvious and fundamental is a bit different between your average Wizard and someone who's supposed to be running a research project on the subject.

EDIT: Also, I suspect that looking at the Waystone personally is how Mathilde leverages her Windsight and personal intuitions, and that the Framework action is bringing together a bunch of theory and conflicting magical traditions, not so much examining the Waystones directly - and that Mathilde will be busy organising everyone else for that action.

 

[Rafin]

The recruitment actions themselves are well written and well paced as always, but we did vote for magic research into waystyones about six months ago and have yet to do any of that. The point of the action narratively is to do stuff with Waystones not to poke around random magical traditions, hence people getting a bit antsy.

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The Waystones definitively won't run away or fall by the wayside like other projects and optional actions that people fret about potentially might. And while I didn't vote for the Waystone Project, I thought the appeal is interacting with Bobey's take on deep lore and magic weirdness. Random magical traditions are part of that.

And the cost isn't just a couple of AP, it's also probably a couple of IRL months.

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One turn does not yet take two months, does it?
Even if it does, this Quest survived and managed to keep people's attention for far longer than that.

Yes, if you don't like the impression you get of someone you can vote to cut off negotiations entirely.

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Even though it has been an option for ages, I don't think we ever did the "ingratiate" action. At least not since we left Stirland and not on anyone but a fellow Councillor. Could you give an example of what one could expect from it, narratively and mechanically? Not necessarily an example using our most likely target, but something concrete enough to demonstrate why it might potentially be worth an AP? Because I'm pretty sure that it is more than a basic and redundant information gathering action, but that is just an opinion right now.

If it's obvious and fundamental then Mathilde should already know it. She's taken the college course on Waystones and seen them in action. The stuff we'd get from examining one would be be more unique insights from Mathilde's insane windsight and/or avatar senses. It seems even more ridiculous to take the action the same turn we start the project so we'd be examining the waystone on our own as one action and with other members of the project as another action on the same turn? What's the benefit there?

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I am very much against starting without at least one Elf House definitely on board.

 

[Boney]

Even though it has been an option for ages, I don't think we ever did the "ingratiate" action. At least not since we left Stirland and not on anyone but a fellow Councillor. Could you give an example of what one could expect from it, narratively and mechanically? Not necessarily an example using our most likely target, but something concrete enough to demonstrate why it might potentially be worth an AP? Because I'm pretty sure that it is more than a basic and redundant information gathering action, but that is just an opinion right now.

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You do a thing that would make someone like you more, and as a result they like you more. I don't understand what's unclear about this.

 

[Potus]

Does anyone know how well-versed the Amethyst College is on waystones? My personal opinion is that we should have some on hand to help deal with Dhar corruption, mostly to hide from any suspicion about our surprisingly deep knowledge on the subject. Also I think they are cool and we should talk to Elspeth more

 

[Jreengus]

I am very much against starting without at least one Elf House definitely on board.

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Are you quoting the right person here? I'm not sure how your reply relates to you've quoted.

EDIT: Also, I suspect that looking at the Waystone personally is how Mathilde leverages her Windsight and personal intuitions, and that the Framework action is bringing together a bunch of theory and conflicting magical traditions, not so much examining the Waystones directly - and that Mathilde will be busy organising everyone else for that action.

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In response to me asking if we could examine a waystone with webmat members so we benefit from any insight they can provide Boney said lay the foundations would cover that. So yes lay the foundations will involve Mathilde personally examining a waystone.

 

[DragonParadox]

The Waystones definitively won't run away or fall by the wayside like other projects and optional actions that people fret about potentially might. And while I didn't vote for the Waystone Project, I thought the appeal is interacting with Bobey's take on deep lore and magic weirdness. Random magical traditions are part of that.

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It is not a matter of the Waystones running away, but of the fact that we have had a lot of preparation. The appeal at least for me was not general magical weirdness or else I would have voted sinecure to deal with the backlog. It is called the Waystone Project but the only contact we have had with Waystones since Karak Vlag was incidental. It would be like taking the position of Loremaster of Karak Eight Peaks and then spending several turns in Aldorf trying to sway the emperor into helping.

On top of that it is very hard to asses how much progress we have made right now, I mean sure we can count the organizations we got, but we do not know how useful any of them are. Maybe we have unveiled the secrets of the universe, maybe we have been doubling up lore, maybe we are all clueless or anything between, and we cannot know until we actually get down to it and poke a waystone.

With that said I hope it is more understandable why when I hear 'let's get organizations X Y and Z' I am starting to wonder to what end? When do we know to stop?

Does anyone know how well-versed the Amethyst College is on waystones? My personal opinion is that we should have some on hand to help deal with Dhar corruption, mostly to hide from any suspicion about our surprisingly deep knowledge on the subject. Also I think they are cool and we should talk to Elspeth more

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According to Max when he poked the libraries of the various colleges they do not know more than the norm. He flagged the Lights and the Jades, but not any of the others.

 

[mathymancer]

One turn does not yet take two months, does it?
Even if it does, this Quest survived and managed to keep people's attention for far longer than that.

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Time between the start of turn 35 and turn 36 was, in fact, a little over two months.
I'm not saying the quest will die if we take too long, I'm saying that voters are going to take the IRL waiting times into consideration when voting, and that's a perfectly legitimate thing to care about.

 

[Codex]

Does anyone know how well-versed the Amethyst College is on waystones? My personal opinion is that we should have some on hand to help deal with Dhar corruption, mostly to hide from any suspicion about our surprisingly deep knowledge on the subject. Also I think they are cool and we should talk to Elspeth more

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This is what Max found:

"The Amethysts, Brights, and Celestials were helpful," he reports, "though they didn't have much more information than the Gold library - scraps and speculations and a lot of horror stories. The Amethysts did have a partial map of the Sylvanian Waystones, however.

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They have the standard info and a partial map of Sylvania's Waystones, but that's it. Max didn't get the impression they were hiding something like the Jades and Lights.

 

[consequences]

Even though it has been an option for ages, I don't think we ever did the "ingratiate" action. At least not since we left Stirland and not on anyone but a fellow Councillor. Could you give an example of what one could expect from it, narratively and mechanically? Not necessarily an example using our most likely target, but something concrete enough to demonstrate why it might potentially be worth an AP? Because I'm pretty sure that it is more than a basic and redundant information gathering action, but that is just an opinion right now.

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Outright sucking up and giving backrubs never won, but conceivably might have if we ever felt the need to attempt to somehow speedrun grinding relationship faster than saving a fellow councillor years of work did.

 

[Codex]

I would take the ingratiate action to establish trade contracts with House Mardil or introduce the EIC's gun production to House Fanpatar if we could take those as EIC actions. The reasoning being that the closer we tie ourselves to the existing power structures with trade and alliances and contracts the harder it'll become for the isolationists to push us away. It's helpful to show them what they're missing out on by having those who voted for contact benefit and prosper from trade.

 

[Woltaire]

correct me if I am wrong but didn't boney say this would be the most or one of the most political projects we could have chosen? With that come with the assumption that we will be doing a lot or mostly horse trading, polictal shegians ect especially in the very early stages of the project when we are getting it all set up

 

[Redshirt Army]

According to Max when he poked the libraries of the various colleges they do not know more than the norm. He flagged the Lights and the Jades, but not any of the others.

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Not quite - he didn't find anything from the Ambers, but that was more because they don't really do libraries. So Ambers are a ??? from Max, compared to the "probably don't have anything" he got from the other Colleges.