- Location
- New York
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- He/Him
[x] Favour to Mira
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- Fantasy Users' Choice!
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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.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
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A product of me staring at Eltharin runes for too long is that I found out a neat little tidbit. There are three Eltharin Runes representing Dragons that I've been able to find. The Chained Dragon, World Dragon and Guardian Dragon. What I found neat is that all of them share a similar distorted S shape, just like the rune that they were likely based on, the Charoi rune, standing for "Strength, Ferocity and Mane of Hair". This is further proven by Skale, the Rune of the Guardian Dragon, also standing for Strength and Honor. Sarathai, the symbol of the World Dragon, stands for Unyielding Defiance and is used by the Kindred of Selathoi AKA the Eternal Guard of Athel Loren. The rune for Ildir, representing the Chained Dragon, also represents Duty and Obedience.
I just thought this was a neat fun fact. Oh, also, the Rune for Cython represents the Serpent, and it kind of looks like a distorted five, which as you guys might know, also looks sort of like an S (I'm one of those people who makes their fives look like an S). Issth is the rune for Serpent of Light, which also contains a similar shape to Cython, so at least they were consistent when drawing the runic shapes. Makes it compelling.
Now I'm just wondering why Cython was referred to as Cython instead of Issth. Seems like Serpent of Light would be more fitting than "The Serpent/Symbol of Lileath". The other meanings of Cython are "Wisdom, Knowledge and Futility", which is fitting when referring to Cython, but Cython wasn't a name they gave themself, it was a name given to them. Did whoever name Cython actually get to know them first? I'm curious.
I just thought this was a neat fun fact. Oh, also, the Rune for Cython represents the Serpent, and it kind of looks like a distorted five, which as you guys might know, also looks sort of like an S (I'm one of those people who makes their fives look like an S). Issth is the rune for Serpent of Light, which also contains a similar shape to Cython, so at least they were consistent when drawing the runic shapes. Makes it compelling.
Now I'm just wondering why Cython was referred to as Cython instead of Issth. Seems like Serpent of Light would be more fitting than "The Serpent/Symbol of Lileath". The other meanings of Cython are "Wisdom, Knowledge and Futility", which is fitting when referring to Cython, but Cython wasn't a name they gave themself, it was a name given to them. Did whoever name Cython actually get to know them first? I'm curious.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[x] Favour to Mira
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
These are the words of someone about whom I have developed a sudden and intense envy.
Is this a biblical reference? The Serpent of the Tree of Knowledge is pretty prominent in media.
Guessing it means nothing in-franchise, but I drew the line at references at Bombo Baggins when someone mentioned it in the thread.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
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I was the one who mentioned that, and I prefer Bimbo Baggins. Warhammer has all kinds of stupid references, you better get used to them.
And you know, Bimbo isn't the only one. Check out the Comradeship. They have Olorin the Grey Wizard, Aragand the Layabout, Legless the Elf, and Giblit the Dwarf.
Olorin was mentioned in DL:
So I hold out hope for the rest of the Comradeship to be canonised in DL.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[x] Favour to Mira
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
"Classified". She's the Empress. She has tools. Tools that are need-to-know.
There's nothing stopping us from doing it during the main investigation. It just didn't seem like the best opening move.
And there's the answer to one of my questions.
This definitely makes me feel better about my preferred option, since now everything but "say nothing" is kind of a lie.
[X] Favour to the Empress
One risk here is of course that Regimand will start to wonder why the Empress neé Haupt-Anderssen would specifically approach Mathilde among all LMs of the four more investigative Orders. Or why she isn't satisfied with someone as prestigious as the Light Patriarch taking care of it.
But I'm willing to cross those bridges when we get to them.
I do not think that "that would be breaching some unidentified third party's privacy" is sufficient reason to any Grey Wizard worth his salt. "Classified" would at least have a chance of being taken seriously.
I have a feeling that the fame/favor distribution here would work similar to how it works with paper writing. I.e. Mathilde and Alric wouldn't share a zero sum amount of favor from interested parties. They would both be the heroes and only lose out a bit of reputation for not being amazing heroes standing all alone in the face of adversity.It will be amusing if it turns out to be the case that one of Mathilde's most effective ways to spike Alric ambition might be to...
... genuinely be annoyingly cheerfully helpful and stop the Chaos (or possibly Vampire) plot.
So that we could take half -- or more if we did more of the work -- the credit for doing so.Thus denying Alric the big boost of credit and fame, because we'll have done a lot of the work.
That said, just in case people are willing to entertain the idea of massive political backstabbing, we could always help Alric directly and then play the credit taking thing by ear. Elrisse is not loyal to Mira and Egrimm is a Lord Magister now, which makes negotiating with Alric to stay well away from him easier. It would make us permanent enemies in the Light Order, but it would also make us a few powerful friends.
Nothing Heidi did here that inadvertently helps Chaos is something Ranald didn't guide and instigate. She didn't kill any Haupt-Anderssens. She didn't help the last one's fall to Chaos. She is in no way a causation of the plight of the Unfähigers. Her ability to appropriate the Haupt-Anderssen name and bear the Emperor a legitimate (mostly) son was granted by Ranald for that explicit purpose.
Alric must have at least a couple of Light LMs respecting his ability to lead. Else, how did he even keep control of his College, on paper or otherwise?
Holy shit. So this is literally a sign from Ranald. Not the DL character. The real one. Because that's just too many random rolls resulting in exactly four days ending up in the chapter. tinacbnieac and all that.
[X] Favour to Ranald
You've worked with Ranald to achieve great things, enough to know when He wants something and why listening to that feeling might be a good idea. Meeting in four days is the least of the signs you've gotten about this mess.
Another that comes to mind is Marked for Death. The main character's highest social skill is deception, yet he barely ever lies to anyone that matters narratively and is generally known for honesty and clear communication (and putting his foot in his mouth).
We've already seen at a self-maintaining Waystone in Altdorf. And that one also didn't have the normal type of magic runes. Might be connected.
If we don't know of it we can't be said to actually have matched wits with any if them.
Have we ever seen him fail at anything other than leadership and beating Dragomas in a duel (which OOC we know that he had a 34% chance of succeeding at, higher than any other challenger). I feel like far too many people are underestimating Alric. He's been a Magister Patriarch for longer than Mathilde has been alive and gained the Supreme Patriarch title multiple times. He hasn't been bad enough at any of that to get assassinated for the good of the Empire. He repeatedly went into the wild to solve some massive problem that would allow him to ride that prestige into ousting Mira from a seat he had previously lost due to either good reason or politics. Elrisse respects him. And I've seen no indication that he has actually gone senile in his age.
Alric is no joke and we should stop treating him like one.
This is a valid concern though.
What kind of action would "try to look for the most radical known Karaz Ankor Runesmiths beyond apprentice level" be? Not for the explicit purpose of the aforementioned hybrid items, but because they might be useful to have as friends or even on the Waystone Project (though I don't think Thorek would be thrilled of having to work with some disrespectful Journeyman Runesmith).
One way to approach this would be by inviting Runesmiths to gripe about some barely tolerable example of their kind and then asking someone else about that person's whereabouts.
Is this an "I don't want to have to think about it" stop or a "don't give your QM ideas you don't want to have him use" stop?
That paragraph said that he was more interested in his own thing than helping. Not that he wasn't interested at all.
I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when Roswita kicked him out though.
Mathilde rolled a 6/100.
I would dispute that. Even if that alone was still our end goal, we should at least find out how Alric's investigation is going. Both concerning his avenue of approach and his progress so far.
Edit for approval:
[X] Politics and Personal - In addition to the favor to Mira, you're concerned that, depending on how things play out, the problem could spill over to the Empress and/or Roswita.
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Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
List of Alric's fuck ups in no particular order:
- The Night of a Thousand Arcane Duels, his apprentice triggered it and he was trapped during the proceedings
- The fact that most of the Lords Magister still hate him over the above
- Not just failing o fight Dragonas, but failing so hard he was bested with journeymen scale magic (The OOC odds to not matter, once something is rolled that is reality, defending Alric's competence based on his OOC odds in the duel is like defending Thorgrim's 'die well' on the grounds that he rolled a 2)
- Losing control of the Light College
- The fact that he manged to be chased out of so many places including Stirland when he tried to meddle
- The fact that his previous protegee Ergrim appears to loathe him with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Most conversations with him involve how shit Alaric was
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- Location
- Canada
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- He/Him
Yeah, alright, I suppose that makes sense.
Although looked at that way, it rather begs the question how Thorek thinks anyone's going to repair/replace Waystones, if he's unwilling to develop the mixed-magics skill to do so. We're not doing this research for it's own sake.
- Location
- Manchester, UK
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- He/They
He might well be willing to once he actually understands how waystones work.
His willingness can't be changed by pointing out things he already knows - but learning new things together? That might do it.
Well he might be fine with doing it for Waystones, since they have the seal of ancestral approval by existing, but not for anything new .
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Favour to Mira
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
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- He
The Grey, the Light, but what are the others? Celestial and Amethyst?
- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
All of those failures, other than losing to Dragomas which I already acknowledged, were failures of diplomacy or leadership. Except maybe his being imprisoned in a crystal, though we don't know how that went down. Even Egrimm and Mira never seem to question his actual skills as a Wizard or combatter of Chaos entities/plots.List of Alric's fuck ups in no particular order:
What do you know... the number of Slaanesh. I guess that makes him a perfect fuck up.
- The Night of a Thousand Arcane Duels, his apprentice triggered it and he was trapped during the proceedings
- The fact that most of the Lords Magister still hate him over the above
- Not just failing o fight Dragonas, but failing so hard he was bested with journeymen scale magic (The OOC odds to not matter, once something is rolled that is reality, defending Alric's competence based on his OOC odds in the duel is like defending Thorgrim's 'die well' on the grounds that he rolled a 2)
- Losing control of the Light College
- The fact that he manged to be chased out of so many places including Stirland when he tried to meddle
- The fact that his previous protegee Ergrim appears to loathe him with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Most conversations with him involve how shit Alaric was
Though I admit that adding "diplomacy" is moving the goalposts. So insofar that matters, you are right and I am wrong.
As for the duel with Dragomas, your point of the portrayal mattering more than the rolls to establish a character or circumstance is valid. But in this particular case I believe that his initial chance of success is a fair indicator of his IC historically established skill and that his abject failure is more of an indicator of short term circumstances like mindset, preparedness and Dragomas' ability to read and counter his opponents.
All in all my point still stands. Alric clearly has many flaws, but extrapolating that into a general incompetence across all fields of Light Wizard expertise is a gross miscalculation of the facts. While losing the patriarchy is a demerit, regaining a previously lost political post is in most circumstances harder than acquiring it in the first place. Underestimating Alric across the board is a mistake.
Yes. At least when it comes to investigating weird and ongoing murders.
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I think that given that we are talking about joining him in a delicate investigation his failures of diplomacy are arguably more important than any skill at magic he may have. This is not a battle in the open field against an army of chaos marauders where the question is 'can he cast Timewarp?'. I genuinely do not trust him to be more of a help than a hindrance in this investigation given his track record, especially his recent one
- Location
- Who knows?
I think you might be interested in this write in.
[ ] Favour to Ranald
You've worked with Ranald to achieve great things, enough to know when He wants something and why listening to that feeling might be a good idea. Meeting in four days is the least of the signs you've gotten about this mess.
SuperSonicSound
Shadowmancer of the Shadow Cabal
I think you're looking at this wrong, Alric always manages to get back into power despite his falls from grace, so what does that actually tell you? The man is if not competent at least very capable, he may be error prone but the sheer fact that Mira worries he will be able to get back into power proves he's capable. I wouldn't take things at face value frankly and treating Alric like a fuck up IS the skin deep face value judgement.
He always gets back the position of head of the Light Order. That does not solve any of the chronic issues above.
WinterLantern
Smoked bird
- Location
- North England
[X] Bring in Heidi
I don't think working with Alric is on the table. For now I'm going to assume that Regimand is correct about the culprit here. If so, any confrontation Alric has with them risks a conversation along the following lines:
DEMON: "I'm here to wipe out this family as revenge for my line going extinct."
ALRIC: "But wait, what about the Empress?"
DEMON: "She's not related at all, have fun with that."
The ideal solution, I think, would be to take out the demon/whatever-it-is silently and ghost out. That leaves Alric chasing shadows until he gives up, with no heroics or hard proof that it's gone. Ideally, he never even learns Mathilde was there. Failing that, the second best option is to take out the demon ourselves, and then just drop an unconvincing "sorry, didn't know you were here" on Alric when he shows up. That has the downside of tangling us into College politics, but Alric's more likely to jump to conclusions along the lines of "Mira bribed her to sabotage me" than "She's trying to cover up a conspiracy that goes all the way to the Empress."
DEMON: "I'm here to wipe out this family as revenge for my line going extinct."
ALRIC: "But wait, what about the Empress?"
DEMON: "She's not related at all, have fun with that."
The ideal solution, I think, would be to take out the demon/whatever-it-is silently and ghost out. That leaves Alric chasing shadows until he gives up, with no heroics or hard proof that it's gone. Ideally, he never even learns Mathilde was there. Failing that, the second best option is to take out the demon ourselves, and then just drop an unconvincing "sorry, didn't know you were here" on Alric when he shows up. That has the downside of tangling us into College politics, but Alric's more likely to jump to conclusions along the lines of "Mira bribed her to sabotage me" than "She's trying to cover up a conspiracy that goes all the way to the Empress."
I seriously doubt this will be followed by
ALRIC: "A demon has told me something which, if acted upon, will cause serious trouble to the Empire's leadership. It must be true!"