Er... why? What do we have to gain out of this personal crusade that would be enormously destructive even in (the vanishingly unlikely) event of victory?
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Er... why? What do we have to gain out of this personal crusade that would be enormously destructive even in (the vanishingly unlikely) event of victory?
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- She/They
Please drop this.
As for the question, I think the thread is reading this wrong. Here's what I think is happening.
Mira kicks the whole thing off, telling a Lady Magister specialized in hunting black magisters that she's being seconded to a project of the grey's in exchange for unspecified but likely very political favors. (Maybe she connects us to Regimand, who was paying games with black magisters about the same time she was hunting them?)
Our new LM figures "due diligence" and asks around where it is convenient. Because she doesn't have a shadow horse and she doesn't have the grey college's info system, she goes to Stirland and asks around Wurtbad, then comes back and asks around Altdorf. Stirland gets her a testimony from Roswita, because Roswita is cool with wizards now and so would def talk to a lady magister, and she's a witch hunter so our new LM is going to take her very seriously. But the city still talks mostly about our management of the watch and the EIC, I'd imagine, since we were a local figure before we got famous.
So she stops by the grey order to confirm our project and things, and happens to ask Starke about the watch incident because that's the one thing she found that hints at worrying sympathies on our part. Starke, internally, goes "she did what with the watch now?", and either he wasn't there for our magister promotion yet or he knew, that was the reason he approached us about being faithful earlier. Either way, he decides he needs to know from us rather than just assume, and so here we are.
I think mathilde is playing games with herself over this: the light college is much more straightforward than the greys, so assume this is our new LM investigating as she told us.
But, assume the greys are just as twisty as she is. This is Starke testing is for his own information, since he considered the matter closed as far as his position is concerned.
So I want to hint at distain for Sigmar. I want Mathilde to humanize herself to her fellow wizards, and set us up for a philosophical rivalry with Starke over which religion is better for the order.
Because ultimately, while trauma is true, the reason we were right there beside him in the front ranks was loyalty and (platonic) love. So, grief is more honest to me.
The other thing I'd like the thread to worry a bit more about is that we have a Lady Magister specialized in hunting unauthorized magic users in our project now. So, a threat to any hedgewise who join, and a threat to us over the source of our Dhar knowledge. I don't know how much of one, but we have secrets and want to do stuff under color of law, and she's indicated she sees her job partially as keeping an eye on us.
So. This got complicated.
As for the question, I think the thread is reading this wrong. Here's what I think is happening.
Mira kicks the whole thing off, telling a Lady Magister specialized in hunting black magisters that she's being seconded to a project of the grey's in exchange for unspecified but likely very political favors. (Maybe she connects us to Regimand, who was paying games with black magisters about the same time she was hunting them?)
Our new LM figures "due diligence" and asks around where it is convenient. Because she doesn't have a shadow horse and she doesn't have the grey college's info system, she goes to Stirland and asks around Wurtbad, then comes back and asks around Altdorf. Stirland gets her a testimony from Roswita, because Roswita is cool with wizards now and so would def talk to a lady magister, and she's a witch hunter so our new LM is going to take her very seriously. But the city still talks mostly about our management of the watch and the EIC, I'd imagine, since we were a local figure before we got famous.
So she stops by the grey order to confirm our project and things, and happens to ask Starke about the watch incident because that's the one thing she found that hints at worrying sympathies on our part. Starke, internally, goes "she did what with the watch now?", and either he wasn't there for our magister promotion yet or he knew, that was the reason he approached us about being faithful earlier. Either way, he decides he needs to know from us rather than just assume, and so here we are.
I think mathilde is playing games with herself over this: the light college is much more straightforward than the greys, so assume this is our new LM investigating as she told us.
But, assume the greys are just as twisty as she is. This is Starke testing is for his own information, since he considered the matter closed as far as his position is concerned.
So I want to hint at distain for Sigmar. I want Mathilde to humanize herself to her fellow wizards, and set us up for a philosophical rivalry with Starke over which religion is better for the order.
Because ultimately, while trauma is true, the reason we were right there beside him in the front ranks was loyalty and (platonic) love. So, grief is more honest to me.
The other thing I'd like the thread to worry a bit more about is that we have a Lady Magister specialized in hunting unauthorized magic users in our project now. So, a threat to any hedgewise who join, and a threat to us over the source of our Dhar knowledge. I don't know how much of one, but we have secrets and want to do stuff under color of law, and she's indicated she sees her job partially as keeping an eye on us.
So. This got complicated.
- Pronouns
- It/Its
I'll drop it from here, but I would like to clarify that I'm not saying that we should kill all the Sigmarites, just remove them as a major governing institution of the empire, to merely a major faith
Zedman7054
Eternally 3rd
- Location
- United States
Ah, the botched conversion of the Watch, it's actually kind of funny that it's being brought up now because it was just a short while ago I remembered it myself. It was, and still is, the greatest mistake Mathilde has ever made, and I will stand by that statement not least of which because of how badly it all turned out. It's actually nice to see it be brought back up after all these years, it would be easy to just ignore it, especially after the quest left Stirland for the most part.
Grief would be the most honest answer. People were legitimately grieving for Abelhelm, some still haven't gotten over it, and Mathilde was in a low place all around. It wasn't really until after the initial conquest of K8P that she normalized.
Not to say piety (and it's control) or Skaven weren't also true but it really wasn't actually about piety, it was about revenge and as has been pointed out, Mathilde didn't really know about Skaven at that point of her career, that was just players metagaming.
That said, the truth isn't always the best option. Admitting we have a grudge against the patron God of the Empire, is risky, even foolish. Every other reasoning is less bad.
Thinking of it like that...this vote could be seen as a trade -off between immediate scrutiny and long-term scrutiny.
Grief would be the most honest answer. People were legitimately grieving for Abelhelm, some still haven't gotten over it, and Mathilde was in a low place all around. It wasn't really until after the initial conquest of K8P that she normalized.
Not to say piety (and it's control) or Skaven weren't also true but it really wasn't actually about piety, it was about revenge and as has been pointed out, Mathilde didn't really know about Skaven at that point of her career, that was just players metagaming.
That said, the truth isn't always the best option. Admitting we have a grudge against the patron God of the Empire, is risky, even foolish. Every other reasoning is less bad.
Thinking of it like that...this vote could be seen as a trade -off between immediate scrutiny and long-term scrutiny.
- Location
- Finland
High priests kick the bucket all the time.
Then the next highest priest becomes high priest.
The church is an organization that has had a millenia to get good at replacing priests as needed.
If you kill all the priests, that just means there is now suddenly lot of new priests.
- Location
- France
[ ] Grief
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- Pronouns
- It/Its
I'm not saying assassinate the high priest, I'm saying remove the church's official backing and in the worst case scenario the high priest gets himself killed fighting it
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
3 more hours until the vote opens.
- Location
- Finland
Cult of Sigmar is so central to empire, both in official and unofficial capacity, that what you suggest is all but imposasible to do.
We just got the likely next emperor consecrated to Ranald, and i doubt it will do anything to harm Cult of Sigmars position.
We are talking of cultural engineering over several generations, at best, to get anywhere near what you are suggesting in a way that is not bloody, short lived, and probably ends in destruction of the empire as a single polity.
Does the skaven explanation even have to be about the Skaven?
I mean, the skaven are not the only enemies that can infiltrate sewers. Vampire and other undeads, goblins, chaos cultists, etc. are all foes that I could see taking advantage of a city's underbelly. And who better to act as as protectors in the dark than Ranaldites? Ranaldites are more suited to tunnel warfare, counter-expionnage, infiltration, etc. Ranald just seemed the better suited for an organisation sulking in the dark than Sigmar!
If there is such a write-in, I'll probably vote for it.
I mean, the skaven are not the only enemies that can infiltrate sewers. Vampire and other undeads, goblins, chaos cultists, etc. are all foes that I could see taking advantage of a city's underbelly. And who better to act as as protectors in the dark than Ranaldites? Ranaldites are more suited to tunnel warfare, counter-expionnage, infiltration, etc. Ranald just seemed the better suited for an organisation sulking in the dark than Sigmar!
If there is such a write-in, I'll probably vote for it.
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
delightful
minimap_op
plsnerf
- Location
- Lower Lefthand Corner
You're forgetting the Witch-Hunters and that the main intrigue enemy in Stirland is vampires. Getting rid of Sigmar faith in any organization in Stirland for any deity other than Morr is always going to look suspicious as fuck as a starting point. Outside of Skaven there really is not a good argument that Sigmar is worse for fighting an intrigue war in Stirland.
consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
- Location
- Jerkville
Sure there is. Kasmir may have eventually overcame his faults and risen above the petty worthless self aggrandizing bickering that seems to define Sigmar's Church, but before then he was actively detrimental to efforts at preventing Vampiric infiltration. And he was the absolutely most positive interaction we have ever had with the institution.
Reality trumps theory and organizational reputation apparently entirely derived from resting on the laurels of past accomplishments. Now if we ever actually talk shop with Abelhelm's old network of contacts to establish that they are primarily Sigmarite instead of massively disillusioned like he was, we can revise our worldview accordingly.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
The church of Sigmar has 3 electors. That's more than any other single institution. It is so deeply embedded in the Empire's society that the only thing that could dislodge it is a french revolution style expropriation and political reorganization.
Now, I'm all for such a revolution, but I am under the impression that most people on SV don't actually want to reenact the Terror.
- Pronouns
- It/Its
that's a shame, one could certainly be useful
It is rare to find goblins beneath human cities, they are not what you would call subtle. Cultists and vampires are best countered by Sigmar over Ranald so as far as I can see that argument makes Mathilde out to be incompetent or biased which raises even more questions.
The Stirlandian League? The previous spymaster? What ever it was that the Stirlander candidate for EIC handler was up to?
Stirland had no intelligence apparatus when Mathilde took her post. Vampires were certainly a problem, but any spymaster also has to deal with regular corruption, and Stirland wasn't short of it. Also, the watch was not and could never be the templars - worshipping Sigmar doesn't turn watchmen into witch hunters. What it could've maybe been was an information network, and an argument could be made that Ranald was a good fit for that. Not a great argument, but not an obviously ridiculous one either.
Sigmar might be a good fit against cultists and vampires. But Ranald can certainly be argued to be a better fit for the environement, namely sewers. In the dark underbelly of cities, I'd much rather be able to find out of threats without them noticing. And a knife in the dark can be such more efficient than a hammer or a sword.
And if Reiner wants to assume we were ALSO acting against skaven without us mentionning them directly, well...
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Hi, I'm new to this quest, so please take it easy on me 
That said, the most relevant part of the question here as I read it seems to be why Ranald specifically, so how do we answer it without outright spilling that he's our best bro?
I'm thinking a combination of factors: The biggest issue with Grief, as it is written, is that we do not want the extent of the personal connection to be on file, so we add just a bit of piety to circumvent that. Not to mention that in the context of who Mathilde is talking to and who she worships it's practically her duty to throw shade at Sigmar.
[] A combination of factors.
Mathilde was still quite new to knighthood yet fought to defend her liege until reinforcements arrived, only to watch him slowly die. A combination of grief and inexperience gave the impetus for change, her principles as part of the Gray Order gave it shape. She's loyal to the empire and it's people, so who does she complain to when Sigmar isn't? Given how Sigmar openly muscles out other gods but then abandons the most devout followers, Ranald the Protector seemed to be the answer.
That said, the most relevant part of the question here as I read it seems to be why Ranald specifically, so how do we answer it without outright spilling that he's our best bro?
I'm thinking a combination of factors: The biggest issue with Grief, as it is written, is that we do not want the extent of the personal connection to be on file, so we add just a bit of piety to circumvent that. Not to mention that in the context of who Mathilde is talking to and who she worships it's practically her duty to throw shade at Sigmar.
[] A combination of factors.
Mathilde was still quite new to knighthood yet fought to defend her liege until reinforcements arrived, only to watch him slowly die. A combination of grief and inexperience gave the impetus for change, her principles as part of the Gray Order gave it shape. She's loyal to the empire and it's people, so who does she complain to when Sigmar isn't? Given how Sigmar openly muscles out other gods but then abandons the most devout followers, Ranald the Protector seemed to be the answer.
- Location
- USA
Looking at the list Codex put together, I can't help but wonder if maybe the last couple of times Alric re-claimed his Order Patriarchy was by becoming Supreme Patriarch again. It certainly would be a much faster shortcut than "poke around in the wilderness and/or play political games."
- Location
- Earth
Here's what Boney said on it before:
So it certainly wouldn't hurt, but the timing is that the Duel happens every eight years, while Alric and Mira swapped roughly every year.
Also, depending on how early those terms were, Mira might not even have been a LM yet.
Welcome to the quest!Hi, I'm new to this quest, so please take it easy on me
That said, the most relevant part of the question here as I read it seems to be why Ranald specifically, so how do we answer it without outright spilling that he's our best bro?
I'm thinking a combination of factors: The biggest issue with Grief, as it is written, is that we do not want the extent of the personal connection to be on file, so we add just a bit of piety to circumvent that. Not to mention that in the context of who Mathilde is talking to and who she worships it's practically her duty to throw shade at Sigmar.
[] A combination of factors.
Mathilde was still quite new to knighthood yet fought to defend her liege until reinforcements arrived, only to watch him slowly die. A combination of grief and inexperience gave the impetus for change, her principles as part of the Gray Order gave it shape. She's loyal to the empire and it's people, so who does she complain to when Sigmar isn't? Given how Sigmar openly muscles out other gods but then abandons the most devout followers, Ranald the Protector seemed to be the answer.
Generally, combining options has the issue of magnifying the drawbacks—here, we'd get the drawbacks of both Grief and Piety with regard to opening her relationships with Abelhelm and Ranald to scrutiny, while not necessarily getting twice the benefits.
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The idea is that we would have plausible explanations on both fronts while leaving the rest ambiguous, as proper grey wizards should. We might invite scrutiny on two ends, but not to such depth as if it was only one. Not to mention that a wider focus could be useful all on its own. We'd have more room to maneuver rather than having to retcon something very specific.
Then again, it depends on our priorities here. If we just want this guy to go away, we tell him it was the rats all along, but if we wan him fully on board with our story, even if it's one he doesn't like, then it needs authenticity from containing a large portion of the truth imo.
[ ]Rushed Masterwork after Elector fell
We could claim that a Stirland Watch that worshipped Ranald would be more syncretic and easier to push into Sylvania to integrate with the locals was our original idea for a Masterwork before Drakenhof? the concept being a sort of prototype of Roswita's paper on starving out Vampires by taking away their luxuries via cutting away from the underworld where they were likely sourced and providing information from it as well. We worried that after Drakenhof fell that the power vacuum left behind may close quickly before we could get proper information channels to prevent it and attempted to push for the Watch to fall into your plan without proper considerations and enough time to do it properly and it led to the pushback, which led to you to reevaluating the likelihood of success as untenable and dropping the project.
We could claim that a Stirland Watch that worshipped Ranald would be more syncretic and easier to push into Sylvania to integrate with the locals was our original idea for a Masterwork before Drakenhof? the concept being a sort of prototype of Roswita's paper on starving out Vampires by taking away their luxuries via cutting away from the underworld where they were likely sourced and providing information from it as well. We worried that after Drakenhof fell that the power vacuum left behind may close quickly before we could get proper information channels to prevent it and attempted to push for the Watch to fall into your plan without proper considerations and enough time to do it properly and it led to the pushback, which led to you to reevaluating the likelihood of success as untenable and dropping the project.
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