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Elrisse supports Alric, so bringing her in to sabotage him could backfire massively.
Elrisse doesn't support Alric, she's hedging her bets:
"A question in response, if I may." She nods. "It is odd to me that someone in a position that would demand loyalty, or at least neutrality, to the Magister Patriarch is aligned against him."

She considers that for a time. "I can see why you would believe that to be the case, but it isn't," she finally says. "I am here talking to you, not nipping at his heels in Talabecland. What Alric wants most of all is for his Order to finally outgrow him, and if this Project is a success, that serves Alric's ultimate objective and Mira's immediate goal."

"You're hedging your bets."

"I suppose one could describe it that way."
She's not picking a side one way or the other. If a Daemon is involved, she's likely to do whatever would be most optimal for dealing with that Daemon, rather than supporting or sabotaging Alric. I don't think she cares much about the politics.
 
She's not picking a side one way or the other. If a Daemon is involved, she's likely to do whatever would be most optimal for dealing with that Daemon, rather than supporting or sabotaging Alric. I don't think she cares much about the politics.
Which means that if she feels the most optial thing for dealing with a daemon is combining forces with Alric (and why wouldn't she feel that?) it will get in the way of sabotaging Alric.

And in any case, if we want to bring in Elrisse we can bring in Elrisse. Renegotiating with Mira will make it somewhat more likely to go over well with Regimand but it isn't required, and it will cost us an action when we have very few left. We'll need another action next turn to actually bring in any Light wizards, which will leave us with a single action until the next murder.
 
Which means that if she feels the most optial thing for dealing with a daemon is combining forces with Alric (and why wouldn't she feel that?) it will get in the way of sabotaging Alric.

And in any case, if we want to bring in Elrisse we can bring in Elrisse. Renegotiating with Mira will make it somewhat more likely to go over well with Regimand but it isn't required, and it will cost us an action when we have very few left. We'll need another action next turn to actually bring in any Light wizards, which will leave us with a single action until the next murder.
Working with Alric is sabotaging him. It's limiting the credit he gets.

I don't care about the argument, I don't want to get involved. I'm just pointing out that Elrisse does not support Alric.
 
Working with Alric is sabotaging him. It's limiting the credit he gets.

I don't care about the argument, I don't want to get involved. I'm just pointing out that Elrisse does not support Alric.
Right, there is a sense in which working with Alric is sabotaging him, and I doubt Elrisse will be opposed to doing that. But most people who talk about bringing in more Lights don't mean Alric.
 
Does anyone see any big problems with heavily hinting our Ranaldite friends that Krieglitz manor is unguarded and safe for breaking in and then ensuring that some part of that wealth goes somewhere useful for Empire, other than enriching the underworld, of course? This combines well with Mathilde herself plundering manor beforehand and clearing it from anything potentially dangerous in magical and/or informational sense, and using that same underworld for selling off the loot, making our involvement fully deniable for Unfähigers' investigation - large theft can't be clearly connected to Grey Wizard investigating the ritual at the time anymore, and plunderers overcoming their superstitions for sake of easy loot is what happens naturally after all, can't blame us for that. Perhaps this is just unnecessary as we can sell off through local underworld and offload suspicions on them either way without spending one more action on siccing on thieves?
The idea appeared in the thread sure, but as far as I remember never get anywhere.

No, but I do not see any meaningful profit that would be worth spending an action. It is the plunder by Mathilde specifically that I oppose for reasons that I have already mentioned before.
 
Ok but no matter what type of chaos light wizards can still murder him. We have 2 possible sites and multiple targets having more wizards in the area to cover or fight the incoming can just be better. Also I would rather have them on site since we have either 1 week or 2 weeks next turn. If we try to bring in more wizards at week 7 they may not arrive in time to help.

The light wizards also really complicate the investigation. Elrisse has divided loyalties between Alric and her order and has chosen a neutral stance to navigate them, Egrimm really hates Alric and could rush ahead in an attempt to sabotage him and wreck our own investigation, and most importantly neither of them can find out Heidi's secret at any cost, which is the entire reason we're getting involved. If this was just a regular chaos sorcerer killing a regular noble family, we would have walked away by now—but we can't because someone close to us is at risk, and we have, at minimum, a religious duty to ensure they are protected.

The more people we bring in, the harder it is for us to conceal our true motives and protect the people we need to protect.

If a demon manifests, we can throw Alric at it, and then when he's gloating undercut him by proving that we found the sorcerer first and he was just the cavalry we called in—but frankly, I don't think demons will appear until the ritual reaches it's apex in about 3 months time. Alberich is some sort of chaos sorcerer, but I doubt he's got enough juice to throw demons around until after he's done the ritual. Interrupting him, with our current skills and equipment, should be well within our capabilities.
 
There are other light wizards than the 7 light wizards we have met, they have the largest college. Mira should know wizards she can trust or heck just get Mira. Remember making it so Alaric can not claim all the credit is the goal. Also negation can gain us other things like access to several libraries we currently do not have acres too.
 
There are other light wizards than the 7 light wizards we have met, they have the largest college. Mira should know wizards she can trust or heck just get Mira. Remember making it so Alaric can not claim all the credit is the goal. Also negation can gain us other things like access to several libraries we currently do not have acres too.

The point of the renegotiation action is to get more assistance for the waystone project. If she sends underlings to help us humiliate Alric, that is fewer concessions we can get for the waystones. The only reason Elrisse and Egrimm are options are because they have already committed to working with us on the waystone project.
 
I am unconvinced that bringing in more wizards is needed, or even necessarily helpfull.
But what i do know is that going to Mira to renegotiate will almost certainly lead to us trying to get more stuff for the project, instead of the investigation.
Bringing in more wizards may also bring more attention towards Heidi and her secrets.
 
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Renegotiating with Mira will make it somewhat more likely to go over well with Regimand but it isn't required, and it will cost us an action when we have very few left. We'll need another action next turn to actually bring in any Light wizards, which will leave us with a single action until the next murder.
Our objective isn't to stop the murder, though, it's to keep Heidi out of treason town. I'm advocating for renegotiation to redistribute the division of labour so that we can dump the anti-chaos bits like stopping the murders and the legwork like organizing the manhunts with various local actors on her and her people while we pick and choose the parts that actually help us keep Heidi out of trouble.
 
Our objective isn't to stop the murder, though, it's to keep Heidi out of treason town. I'm advocating for renegotiation to redistribute the division of labour so that we can dump the anti-chaos bits like stopping the murders and the legwork like organizing the manhunts with various local actors on her and her people while we pick and choose the parts that actually help us keep Heidi out of trouble.

But that's not what the renegotiate action will do though. It will turn our fig leaf of an excuse we gave to Regimand into a fig tree of an excuse, and it will benefit the waystone project (which, frankly, I don't think needs more assistance from the Lights at this stage), but Mira won't dedicate more resources to the investigation—we're asking her for payment for doing the investigation, not assistance.
 
There are other light wizards than the 7 light wizards we have met, they have the largest college. Mira should know wizards she can trust or heck just get Mira. Remember making it so Alaric can not claim all the credit is the goal. Also negation can gain us other things like access to several libraries we currently do not have acres too.

Not that many more, perhaps a dozen at most a score wizards more and many of them will have tasks of their own and whoever is sent will have a political stake in this, one we will not be able to know for certain.
 
But that's not what the renegotiate action will do though. It will turn our fig leaf of an excuse we gave to Regimand into a fig tree of an excuse, and it will benefit the waystone project (which, frankly, I don't think needs more assistance from the Lights at this stage), but Mira won't dedicate more resources to the investigation—we're asking her for payment for doing the investigation, not assistance.
Or it potentially reveals our fig leaf was just a fig leaf.
 
The Light College have a lot of Apprentices to form up their Choirs because they recruit a lot from orphanages across the Old World and they make up for their lack of power by working together, but consequently they have one of the lowest proportions of higher level wizards in the Colleges. This is because Light Magic is considered to be the hardest base Lore to master. It's hard to grasp Hysh. Light College is only big if you include Apprentices, which in this case you probably shouldn't. It becomes pretty small if you only count Magisters and above.

Funnily enough, the Grey College is kind of the opposite? You either die early or you become skilled enough that you become very, very hard to kill, so you end up having a higher proportion of higher level Wizards because they're all so long lived. The average LM number is around 4, but the Grey College is exceptional in that they have 7. They probably have less low level wizards than some of the other colleges though.
 
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The Light College have a lot of Apprentices to form up their Choirs because they recruit a lot from orphanages across the Old World and they make up for their lack of power by working together, but consequently they have one of the lowest proportions of higher level wizards in the Colleges. This is because Light Magic is considered to be the hardest base Lore to master. It's hard to grasp Hysh. Light College is only big if you include Apprentices, which in this case you probably shouldn't. It becomes pretty small if you only count Magisters and above.

Funnily enough, the Grey College is kind of the opposite? You either die early or you become skilled enough that you become very, very hard to kill, so you end up having a higher proportion of higher level Wizards because they're all so long lived. The average LM number is around 4, but the Grey College is exceptional in that they have 7. They probably have less low level wizards than some of the other colleges though.
One correction the Grey college has 8 because Mathilde is one.
 
One correction the Grey college has 8 because Mathilde is one.
I'm including Mathilde and excluding Algard (because he's Patriarch):
Lady Magister Grey: Skilled in stealth and enchantment, she adopted the Grey moniker after destroying a Chaos Dwarf Hellcannon foundry to avoid the many Hobgoblin Assassins sent after her. She assassinated many of these Hobgoblins and performed revolutionary autopsies on them.

Rector Melkoth: Triple digit age range, fooling time itself to make his age impossible to calculate. Head of the Grey College's Battle Wizards and an incredibly experienced Battle Mage himself, as he is the inventor of the Grey Signature spell Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma. He can casually cast his Miasma as a prank, and is exceptionally skilled in Battle Magic in general.

Provost Kurtis Krammovitch: Head of the Grey College's diplomatic efforts within and outside the Empire and the Colleges. Double agent for the Hedge Folk turned triple turned quadruple agent with a very convoluted story full of rumor and speculation involving the Hedgewise he was born into, giving him a lot of knowledge and connections with them as groups and giving him an unofficial role as their liaison. Knows the lore of the Hedgewise.

Walther Kupfer: Known for fomenting civil unrest in the Druchii city of Clar Karond from within the city's slave pits, resulting in house feuds that still blow up from time to time. Old and "retired".

Porter Reiner Starke: Former youngest Lord Magister of the Grey Order before Mathilde. Duty as Porter means he is in charge of the Grey College's espionage commitments, including Internal Security. Has intimidating piercing grey eyes and seems very pious. Canonical version believed belief in Sigmar was essential to the unity of the Empire and thus heavily encouraged Sigmarite belief. Rumored to have led a purge against a Tzeentchian cult by the name of the Cult of the Broken Wheel, possibly leading to his promotion to Lord Magister.

Bursar Wilhelmine von Bucht: Duties as Bursar include economic and financial control and oversight over the Grey College, specifically over the tithing and enforcing of the Vow of Poverty. Known for destroying the house of Goellner when they thought their trade empire was too powerful, for dismantling multiple smuggler guilds, and concealing the Imperial Regalia from Dieter IV to prevent him from causing more chaos.

Mathilde Weber: Current youngest Lady Magister in the Grey College. Former Spymaster of Stirland and now former Court Wizard and Loremaster to King Belegar of Karak Eight Peaks. Known for her deeds as the campaign leader in charge of the destruction of Castle Drakenhof, and as an instrumental component in the retaking of Karak Eight Peaks and the destruction of Waagh Birdmuncha. Recently came back from the Chaos Wastes, restoring Karak Vlag from the Warp and confirming Karag Dum's status, and is currently acting as Head Librarian of Kron Azril Ungol, Head Researcher of the World's Edge Branch for the Multidisciplinary Advancement of Thaumatergy, and the head of the Waystone Research project done in cooperation between the Eonir of Laurelorn, the Colleges of Magic and the Dwarfs of the Karaz Ankor.
Whenever I'm unsure about something, I go back to look at my previous posts.
 
I'm now wondering whether it's possible there are lord/lady magisters of the Grey College we don't know about - like the two unknown members of Algard's council?

It would make sense that we met everyone - but, well, this is the Grey College, there could well be a Lord Magister that everyone thinks is dead because it's more convenient for them that way.
 
I'm now wondering whether it's possible there are lord/lady magisters of the Grey College we don't know about - like the two unknown members of Algard's council?

It would make sense that we met everyone - but, well, this is the Grey College, there could well be a Lord Magister that everyone thinks is dead because it's more convenient for them that way.
Do you really believe there is merely one LM Grey? :p
 
I'm now wondering whether it's possible there are lord/lady magisters of the Grey College we don't know about - like the two unknown members of Algard's council?

It would make sense that we met everyone - but, well, this is the Grey College, there could well be a Lord Magister that everyone thinks is dead because it's more convenient for them that way.
Well, if Olorin is still alive, he's a former Patriarch.
 
I'm now wondering whether it's possible there are lord/lady magisters of the Grey College we don't know about - like the two unknown members of Algard's council?

It would make sense that we met everyone - but, well, this is the Grey College, there could well be a Lord Magister that everyone thinks is dead because it's more convenient for them that way.
The two unknown members could very well be below LM level. Magisters or even Perpetuals if their skill set fits. Not everyone who holds a high position needs to be an LM. They are in short supply.

I also think it's unlikely that there are more, considering 180 year time span of the colleges and the low magic levels of humanity. Seven is already a ridiculous amount, I'd find it hard to believe there's still more. Maybe there are retired LMs I suppose, but they wouldn't be LM anymore. It requires a certain level of ambition to be LM, and "retired" is not the kind of thing that happens to that person. Either they're dead or they're only an LM in name only.
 
Do you really believe there is merely one LM Grey? :p
I'm half-convinced that several of the other LMs cosplay as LM Grey now and again - and visa versa. (Hence the whole Mask of Magister Grey thing I came up with for Broken Mirror).

It's just too useful a thing to limit it to "either you're a grey or you're an individual" - just switch between the two as convenient, even Mathilde can't reliably see through, or even detect, Lord/Lady Magister level illusions. Volans might have been able to, and obviously Light Mages with glowing eyes can, but 99.99% of the time there's nothing keeping them from switching identities freely.
 
I think it's important to remember that there was an incredibly high death count of Wizards in an event in living memory:
They did die. When Horx was shot by Witch Hunters, the Storm of Magic ended in an instant and anyone who was using an Arcane Fulcrum was killed by the arcane backlash. When the Cult of Sigmar called for the disestablishment of the Colleges and by extension the deaths of every single Wizard in the Empire, they did so in the full knowledge that those who were responsible for the Night of a Thousand Arcane Duels died in it.
Every Wizard who participated in the Storm of Magic over Altdorf in 2415 IC instantly died if they were drawing on an Arcane Fulcrum. The Colleges were then persecuted for decades and recruitment would have certainly slowed down if not stopped. Many Wizards would have died at that time making sure every Wizard outside the Colleges would be safe from the predations of Witch Hunters. This was all 60 years ago.

There isn't much room for there to be lots of LMs. Mathilde is a rare example of someone who became LM around her 30s, but most take longer than that to be honed in that edge, and the timeline indicates that many of those who were either LM or had the talent to be LM likely didn't survive the events surrounding the Arcane Duels, or there were prime talents that were never recruited because of the sieges.
 
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