Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
How's this for a possible answer?

[ ] Failure upon Failure
You'd been trying to expand the watch's duties so it could help you with intelligence operations, and believed that an alternate patron would help with that. When they rejected it, however... well, you were fresh off the campaign of Drakenhof. Where the magister and patriarch you'd recruited had proven useless- worse than useless, in the case of Sunscryer. Where you'd fought with everything you had to guard the body of your fallen lord, only for him to die anyway hours later. Where the campaign's success, the destruction of Drakenhof, wasn't your success and was instead simply finishing Abelheim's will. Everything seemed to be going against you at the time- even your first foray into academia went so badly it left you with a distaste for the subject that took years to shake- and so when the watch pushed back on your efforts? It was the final straw, and you lashed out.
 
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I'd not this isn't (mainly) about Starke's interrogation of Mathilde. For one he'd have better sources than asking her to her face what she thinks and giving her an open license to lie.

This is about the public face the College present about it.

[ ] Piety
You converted the Wurtbad Watch to Ranald because you worship Ranald, and it would have given you a better hold over the organization. Simple and true, but it would mean revealing your faith.

This essentially makes us a public face of Ranald, doign heroism in the shadows.
Not really something a GOOD Ranaldite is supposed to do, but our piety is fairly well known.
Downside is that it entangles us into faith issues, for instance, it would be very awkward to go to Bretonnia to recruit for the Waystone Project while they pretend we don't worship Ranald, while we openly worship Ranald. Not really a showstopper by any standards, but you get the good with the bad.

[ ] Grief
You acted rashly after the death of Abelhelm, a death that Sigmar could have prevented, and acted out against a largely Sigmarite institution under your control. While true and understandable, it does hint towards the extent of your rather complicated feelings towards your former liege, and you might not want those hints available for cross-referencing if the Underwear Incident ever comes to light.

This spins the public story as Mathilde's strong loyalty to her employer, despite said employer being traditionally opposed to wizards. Our resume backs it up, we worked for a Witch Hunter, then for a dwarf, serving both with impeccable loyalty.
Its not a bad brand to have, but on the flip side, it allows for less proper rumors, because we aren't the impartial sword of the Grey, but can be swayed by personal attachments(we can of course be swayed, but if we advertise it, it opens us up to more people actively befriending with the expectation of returns.

[ ] Trauma
You stood over your dying liege and fought against an endless tide of undead, waiting for reinforcements that almost never came. You took command when nobody else would and gave orders that led to the deaths of thousands. You sentenced a Necromancer to death and smiled as you watched him burn alive. In the aftermath of all that, you were not at your best. That's why you mishandled the situation.

This focuses on Mathilde's sheer youth. And to be honest she was for all purposes a kid back then. In over her depth. The spin would be on Mathilde being a genius, and young, but while she's no longer very young, it remains a reminder of her relative youth for her rank. Look to Mathilde for the brilliant on the spot decisions, not for well grounded mature decisionmaking.
It also shows a more human side of course, less illusion of infallibility.

[ ] Skaven
Sure, you didn't know about them then, but Reiner doesn't know that. Say that you had plans to turn the Watch into an instrument for defending against the Skaven. As part of the Conspiracy of Silence, Sigmarite creed denies the existence of the Skaven, so it was necessary to convert the Watch to some other God, and the Night Prowler was the best fit for a subterranean war.

The "Just As Planned" party line. Its all a scheme from 20 years ago fresh out of College.
Mathilde is in control and always have been.
Of course, this is a bit porous if you poked deeper(which Starke could, but whether he'd bother varies), certainly Skaven AREN'T involved in Stirland
But the party line is that she was a wise old sage from the moment she graduated and everything is part of her master plan.

[ ] Nothing
Give a non-answer. You don't fully remember the details, but you made the best decision you could with the information you had available to you at the time. With the benefit of hindsight you would have done things differently.

This is the Officially Redacted approach. Just put up a wall of Grey College No Comment, and it'd be buried to the public.

[ ] Leave
Reiner has been very clear that you can just leave. Do so.

"Eh, I don't really give a shit, do whatever"
 
Biologically, the Skaven are constantly hungry. They are naturally jittery, energetic creatures with a unique hormonal response that gives them a serious adrenaline boost that significantly boosts their combat abilities at the cost of the Black Hunger, and if Skaven warrens get too big they squirt the Musk of Battle so they can expand and get more food or die trying. Theoretically, the Skaven could never sustain such a large, extremely hungry population while staying hidden and advancing as a society, but Boney came up with an ingenious solution.

The Slime:
"What if it's a diet thing? You remember the slime I was studying? From the Skaven?" You nod. "The animals that eat it seem to be in perfect health physically, but they become jittery and more prone to fighting, especially over food. What if the Dwarves have a similar problem with their diet?"
Self reproducing slime that acts as an effectively infinite food source. Except they become more jittery and prone to fighting. Sounds familiar? Sounds like Skaven.

This got away from me, but honestly I'm not sure if the Slime has anything to do with Warpstone. Panoramia has been studying it for years and Mathilde got a good look at it, and I don't think it gave off a Warpstone vibe like the regenerating vat did. It seems to be a vital part of the Skaven diet though, considering how hard it is to feed entire warrens and keep the breeders healthy enough to keep giving birth.
 
I'm personally leaning towards Trauma, but I'm fairly open to any of the options other than Piety(Open Ranaldite? you're supposed to at least have some deniability) or Leave(if you wash your hands of the whole thing that means Starke spins it however is most convenient for him and the College)
 
I'm awake and saw a new update huzzah!

Anyway I honestly think Grief is the best answer here mostly because it fits the most in my opinion.
 
I'd go with piety. Canon Starke is kinda unopposed in pushing Sigmar wherever he can, let him know that it won't be unopposed.

We're not being open Ranaldite here, we're talking in private.
 
I'd go with piety. Canon Starke is kinda unopposed in pushing Sigmar wherever he can, let him know that it won't be unopposed.

We're not being open Ranaldite here, we're talking in private.

Are we planning to oppose him? Because we are kind of off in the woods doing our own thing at the moment. The most contact we have with the Empire outside the colleges is the EIC and what takes up half an action per turn, call it two weeks every six months so that is one month per year. That does not seem to be a lot of time to be opposing Starke in.
 
The Skaven one is immediately tempting considering our bonafides there are absolutely rock solid.... but I think a determined investigation could probably intuit we would have had very little chance to learn about the Skaven this early on in our career. Hell, I think the Skaven largely avoid Sylvania ever since they got their haul of shiny rocks out of it centuries ago.

All of the other options are the sort of things that could be construed as excuses of some degree or another (no matter how justified), Skaven is the only one where it reads like 'I had a working plan, valid reasons for implementing the plan, I just failed in executing the plan because I didn't grasp all the factors involved'. A failure in execution is arguably less undermining than a mistake in judgement.

That being said- I really don't think this is Starke trying to put us on the spot here, I think this is someone who's history of being an arguable triple(?), quadruple(?) agent trying to best integrate the Hedgewise has given him a lot of personal experience with the need to recast past choices in the least damaging light possible. I think he's genuinely trying to help us repaint things in the most favorable light for us.

Sure. But if you look at the actions we took it really does look like we were setting the watch up to be anti-skaven.
 
I like skaven just because it's such a grey order response to give. Inscrutable and infallible.

Also, unrelated, I know that Colour Wizards live longer the more in-tune with the winds they are, but what does that actually mean, like, another decade, standard dwarf lifespan, I don't quite get the scale there.
 
I like skaven just because it's such a grey order response to give. Inscrutable and infallible.

Also, unrelated, I know that Colour Wizards live longer the more in-tune with the winds they are, but what does that actually mean, like, another decade, standard dwarf lifespan, I don't quite get the scale there.
Melkoth and Alric are in the triple digits. Not many examples because the strongest Wizards don't tend to die of old age, and the Colleges are only 180 years old, which isn't even the full lifespan of a Dwarf.

So the answer is somewhere in the triple digits, but we can't place that yet with such a small sample size in such a comparatively short time period that the Colleges have been a thing.
 
I like skaven just because it's such a grey order response to give. Inscrutable and infallible.

Also, unrelated, I know that Colour Wizards live longer the more in-tune with the winds they are, but what does that actually mean, like, another decade, standard dwarf lifespan, I don't quite get the scale there.

We do not know because the Colleges are quite young and there are still some people from the first generation running around. We do know that full gilding will make you immortal.
 
I like skaven just because it's such a grey order response to give. Inscrutable and infallible.

Also, unrelated, I know that Colour Wizards live longer the more in-tune with the winds they are, but what does that actually mean, like, another decade, standard dwarf lifespan, I don't quite get the scale there.
There have been some hints that it depends upon how many arcane marks you have; the more marks you have, the more in tune with your wind and the less human you are, and the less mortal you are.
 
We do not know because the Colleges are quite young and there are still some people from the first generation running around. We do know that full gilding will make you immortal.
Where are you getting that from? Nothing about Gilding in Realms of Sorcery says that. I checked the list of Gold Wizards I've been able to find and I have not found any immortals. Has Boney said something on this topic?
 
Where are you getting that from? Nothing about Gilding in Realms of Sorcery says that. I checked the list of Gold Wizards I've been able to find and I have not found any immortals. Has Boney said something on this topic?

The gold is imperishable and called out as not decaying in any way, which would logically include aging. Granted since this is an inference on my part I should have used a less definitive tone.
 
Probably end up voting Skaven. Even with the scrutiny of like "well there was no known warren there and hasn't been any emerging" even in a poor light it just looks like a journeyman stumbling into the data packet and being like "OH FUCK GOTTA PREPARE!"

Not the most professional move in execution, but the spirit's there and we know there's plenty of people well above her paygrade at the time who had no idea about the ratties and likely would have reacted as poorly with the surprise reveal. It's a reasonable panic action for a journeyman at worst. Sensible(ish) preparations to make if you were in the know, with her motivations backed up by circumstance if people go questioning our watch commander at the time :V.

Given her spiraling upward track record with the Skaven, it's just a good origin story haha.

The option of just going "lol. LMAO!" about this absolutely below our eyeline trifle and just silently peacing out of the office is tempting too :p
 
The gold is imperishable and called out as not decaying in any way, which would logically include aging. Granted since this is an inference on my part I should have used a less definitive tone.
The gold being imperishable and not decaying is not called out. This is the complete non mechanical description of Gilding in Realms of Sorcery:
"Description: You permanently substitute one of your body parts with a replacement of gold. There are three versions of this ritual you can cast, depending on the body part you wish to gild. The easiest version (requiring Magic Characteristic 2, Casting Number 18, and 200 gc worth of gold) can gild only a single finger or toe. The effects of this are purely cosmetic, though are a considerable sign of status among Alchemists. A more difficult version (Magic 3, Casting Number 20, 300 gc of gold) can gild your entire hand or foot, one of your ears, or your nose. The most difficult version (Magic 4, Casting Number 22, 400 gc of gold) can turn an entire arm or leg, your head, your heart, or your lungs to gold.

Gilded body parts function as they did prior to the ritual. Gilded extremities move with dexterity and retain their sense of touch, gilded ears can hear, a gilded heart continues to beat, and so forth. Gilded body parts are not clumsy or armour-like whatsoever; to the contrary, they are frequently elegant and beautiful to behold…and valuable. In fact, many alchemists have fallen prey to mobs of starving peasants, finding their gilded parts torn free from their bodies. Harvested gilded body parts are typically worth 10% of the gc price to complete the ritual.

In addition to these abilities, all gilded body parts can withstand any pain, heat, or the like when applied directly to the gilded body part. You can pick up red-hot iron with a gilded hand, for example, but having such a hand will not do you a great deal of good if your entire body is immolated. Finally, the reaction of normal folk in the Old World to those with gilded body parts is difficult to overstate and cannot be represented by bonuses or penalties to die rolls. Gilded body parts mark a character as beyond the comprehension of mundane folk, and every Human interaction will reflect this."
Now I can't remember the exact wording that Boney uses in quest for gilding, but I'm not sure if he ever outright said that the gold never decayed or not. This is putting aside whether the gold never decaying has any sort of effect on spiritual longevity. Most Wizards are no longer beings of flesh and blood by the point they're at Melkoth and Alric's level, and yet they still seem to age.
 
Fair point. Tearing down altars to Sigmar and putting things up to Ranald doesn't help the situation.
Mathilde was never that stupid. She tore down no altar of Sigmar, merely put ones for Ranald up.
My main concern about Grief is nothing to do with people going "wow, you sure were worked up about your boss, wonder if anything unprofessional was going on." That's a big nothing and I don't care about it. My concern is that it will give Reiner Starke insight into our Disdain For Sigmar trait, which isn't a game-ender or a trap or, like, horrifically bad, but which will still damage our relationship. I mean, if we discovered that someone we work closely with has a Disdain For Ranald trait, we'd be less favorably-inclined to them from that point forward, wouldn't we? I'd rather not leak that information if avoidable.

Trauma seems like what I'll be going with.
If we go grief, we can play off our Dwarven stint as redemption journey for our rash action.

Though I prefer trauma. No one can claim Mathilde has not gotten a handle on it with her successes in K8P and Vlag.
 
Probably end up voting Skaven. Even with the scrutiny of like "well there was no known warren there and hasn't been any emerging" even in a poor light it just looks like a journeyman stumbling into the data packet and being like "OH FUCK GOTTA PREPARE!"

Not the most professional move in execution, but the spirit's there and we know there's plenty of people well above her paygrade at the time who had no idea about the ratties and likely would have reacted as poorly with the surprise reveal. It's a reasonable panic action for a journeyman at worst. Sensible(ish) preparations to make if you were in the know, with her motivations backed up by circumstance if people go questioning our watch commander at the time :V.

Given her spiraling upward track record with the Skaven, it's just a good origin story haha.

The option of just going "lol. LMAO!" about this absolutely below our eyeline trifle and just silently peacing out of the office is tempting too :p
Essentially what I was going to say. What Mathilde did back then looks a lot of like panic buy when faced with either the data packed or some other proof about underground beastmen that she did not know the name of.

Hell the head watchman we brought in was in the know, she could pretend he was the one who clued her in a way that did not trigger the data packet but panicked her in to making missteps. She figured out more late on.

So I will probably vote for skaven and approval vote for grief.
 
Skaven is just... perfect. Everything we did with the watch looks like we were preparing it to fight the skaven. If they ask the thief we put in charge of it? He thinks we were trying to fight the war below.

And the best part is, the thread was absolutely preparing it to fight the skaven.
 
Essentially what I was going to say. What Mathilde did back then looks a lot of like panic buy when faced with either the data packed or some other proof about underground beastmen that she did not know the name of.

Hell the head watchman we brought in was in the know, she could pretend he was the one who clued her in a way that did not trigger the data packet but panicked her in to making missteps. She figured out more late on.

So I will probably vote for skaven and approval vote for grief.
The thief didn't allude to Skaven, that was the head of the Ratcatchers.
 
In a meta sense, what was the thread's reasoning for foisting Ranald onto the Watch? Asking because it predates my time here on the board and I'm too lazy to dig through all the various posts.
 
I vote for Skaven personally, it's even (technically) true. The guy we hired to lead the watch was making it an anti Skaven org and talked about the "war below". We were making the watch to fight Skaven, we just didn't know it at the time
 
The thief didn't allude to Skaven, that was the head of the Ratcatchers.
No the thief absolutely did:
He looks around the inn nervously - it's usually crowded, but not this early, and there's nobody within earshot. He lowers his voice anyway. "You're fighting the War Below."

"The War Below," you say musingly. Overly dramatic name for fighting against vermin and smugglers, but it has a nice ring to it. "The Watch is looking for a new leader. Ideally, someone with the creativity and inside knowledge to bring it success as it expands across Stirland."

Edit: Also Mathilde was looking to turn the watch into a Stirland wide organisation, so the fact there weren't Skaven under Wurtbad specifically doesn't really matter if we claim it was an anti Skaven move.
 
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