Elves: All this land area we never use... I guess it won't hurt if humans populate this and that area.
*1000 years later*
Elves: Hey wait a moment, I didn't allow that!
I guess the LLC style operation won't work if the other side can do something about it.
So I'm catching up on parts of the thread I missed by just reading everything in reader mode and I just read the Negaverse: The Hochlander part 1 and 2 (thanks @ReImagined for the recommendation to check out the Apocrypha). I was really amused reading this part:
The more I hear about her the louder the Mission Impossible theme blares in my head. I bet after she dropped us off, she later rappelled down off the gyrocopter into the middle of a Beastman ritual and defeated them all in one-on-one combat or something equally outrageous.
because I started imagining Mathilde rappelling out of the gyrocopter into Karag Dum.
Which then got me thinking, and I thought of the worst plan ever that we should never actually do. If we ever want to go back to Karag Dum and really solve the mystery of what happened to it, here is the Mission Impossible approach to do so. Note: the only reason I can imagine we might want to do this is if we need a definitive answer because of our favor for Thorek Ironbrow and you are free to tell me why this is a terrible plan that will get Mathilde killed quickly with no results. The biggest issue I can think of is that I may be underestimating the size of the Steppe (and also that it involves sneaking into a deathtrap).
The plan:
Step 1: Get an item enchanted with the amber magic: Form of the Soaring Raven (Relatively Simple)
Step 2: Fly several gyrocarriage flights out to the Steppe to preposition supplies for fuel and maintenance of a gyrocarriage at a hidden cache. This is intended to be enough fuel and supplies positioned far enough out that the gyrocarriage can make 2 round trips to Karag Dum and back from the supply cache, then have fuel to get home. This is hopefully easier because we now have Karak Vlag as a staging point to launch these from.
Step 3: Using the supplies at the cache, fly the gyrocarriage to the edge of the Karag Dum crater (or a short distance away so that the beastmen don't see the gyrocarriage, Mathilde can Shadowsteed the rest of the way to the crater). This would probably only be Mathilde and the pilot to maximize range, and the pilot would fly back to the supply cache or a safe spot after dropping Mathilde off, then return to Karag Dum several days later to pick her up.
Step 4: Use the Form of the Soaring Raven charm to fly from the crater edge to Karag Dum, bypassing Morghur the Shadowgave, the beastman army, and the scary forest, hopefully without alerting anyone that you are even there.
Step 5: Wizard ninja your way around Karag Dum to find out what really happened.
Step 6: When your ride home is back (or scheduled to be back), leave the way you came.
So that is how you Mission Impossible the Karag Dum mystery, now tell me why it will never work.
There's a reason the entire Expedition didn't begin and end with 'pay Asarnil to visit Karag Dum'. There aren't a lot of things in the world that can solo a dragon of Deathfang's calibre, but most of them hang out in the Chaos Wastes.
If Asarnil and Deathfang can't make it, a gyrocopter alone probably can't either. It might theoretically doable I guess if Ranald threw all his metaphysical weight into bending the odds to have the gyrocopter evade notice but the risks are astronomical.
Also, I'm pretty sure running a bunch of Ghur through Mathilde, who is full of Ulgu, would generate Dhar instead of a raven.
If Asarnil and Deathfang can't make it, a gyrocopter alone probably can't either. It might theoretically doable I guess if Ranald threw all his metaphysical weight into bending the odds to have the gyrocopter evade notice but the risks are astronomical.
It doesn't touch the brain. Boney's specifically warned against any kind of magic that affects the mind from other Winds. Good way to go crazy. Or possibly set your brain on fire, given Mathilde's belt.
To make things clear, I am not at all sure about the exact interactions of magic involved, which is why I qualified that point, but by my understanding it works by avoiding the brain:
@BoneyM would there be any dhar-related complications with the Seed of Regrowth if we took a head injury in battle like a concussion or cranial obliteration?
Your plan does not address the fact that gyrocopters are built to fly in places where physics works and is not subject to sudden changes in the natural laws because of chance or whimsy.
Your plan does not address the fact that gyrocopters are built to fly in places where physics works and is not subject to sudden changes in the natural laws because of chance or whimsy.
Can I interest you in a plan where we get the Kurgan to attack the Chaos Dwarves en masse, plant evidence that Karag Dum manipulated them to make that happen, infiltrate their retaliation force, dismantle it from within at the opportune moment, solve the mysteries of Dum, mumble mumble rhubarb, and return home in triumph?
- [X] Have all potential ritual victims gather in one place or as few specific place under your, Alric's or Regimands protection under heavy guard. That way Alberich will be forced to come to his victims under protection.
Righto, let's hope I was right about the usefulness of the Night Prowler here or I will feel damn silly about getting people hyped about it and possibly causing a vote swing.
...I'm going to wake up early to check the update, aren't I.
EDIT, SPOILERS FROM OROKOS:
Modifiers might change things, but at a raw roll comparison of +24, I think we will at the very least be able to muddy the credit waters for Alric: Mathilde's roll vs Alberich's roll
You know, with recent talk of going Dämmerlichtreiter, there's a line that's been on my mind ever since we learned what the ritual here was.
"As you called down the Fall of the Haupt-Anderssens, so too did you call down the memory of the Hunter Count, and where the cause and memory of the Hunter Count is strong, his Dämmerlichtreiter shall answer."
Your plan does not address the fact that gyrocopters are built to fly in places where physics works and is not subject to sudden changes in the natural laws because of chance or whimsy.
How do forts stop shapechanged bird infiltrators when they're not in the Chaos Wastes?
Or is that in fact standard siege tactics, outside the Wastes? Is "the telepathic animal goes in" the Warhammer Fantasy equivalent of "the balloon goes up"?
Righto, let's hope I was right about the usefulness of the Night Prowler here or I will feel damn silly about getting people hyped about it and possibly causing a vote swing.
...I'm going to wake up early to check the update, aren't I.
Even without Coin Upgrades, being in the zone most likely to first encounter the target makes sense. Everywhere else, we're trying to guess the movements, or banking on our reaction time, and being Street Zone compounds our advantages.
How do forts stop shapechanged bird infiltrators when they're not in the Chaos Wastes?
Or is that in fact standard siege tactics, outside the Wastes? Is "the telepathic animal goes in" the Warhammer Fantasy equivalent of "the balloon goes up"?
Magic is indeed a major strategic angle—a large part of why the Colleges were re-established after the Night of a Thousand Arcane Duels was the Empire's utter failure in retaking Marienburg due to having no magical support.
With that said, forts are made to hold territory and deter armies. They might have their own anti-aerial capabilities, or their own flyers, or their own magic users. However, the bulk of their resources are going to be devoted against mundane threats, because that's >99% of what they deal with. The occurrence of magical affinity in the general population is something like 1 in 30000 in the Empire. In most cases there simply aren't enough magic users to go around, so it becomes a bit of an outside-context problem—generally outside the scope of what they're supposed to deal with. Even Journeywoman Mathilde was able to abduct a noble from his own castle, before we start getting into what a LM or Necrarch could do.
Altdorf's nightlife has something of a reputation, but Talabheim proves easily its equal. Surrounded as it is by stone cliffs and holy forest one need not fear some unholy terror slipping through a crack in the more modest walls most cities are protected by. The streets at night are free of the fog that so often dominates Altdorf and patrolled by the fiercely dedicated and Ulrican City Watch, a holdover from the Ar-Ulric's interregnum in Talabheim who are too threatened with being subsumed by the Taalite Taalbaston Guard to decay into laziness and corruption like so many others. Though one can occasionally pick out the quiver and leathers that marks a hunter in the crowd, it would be very easy for just about anybody to fade into the crowds of those patronizing the nocturnal industries and slip unseen past the searchers.
A clever quarry would not take this at face value, however. A clever quarry would eventually turn their eyes upwards, and if they have more than mundane senses to see they might spot the roving patch of Ulgu that scans the streets for a period, only to disappear completely and reappear somewhere else. But no matter how keen the senses of the watcher, they can only be in one place at a time, and one need only wait until the presumed architect of this manhunt moves on and then the way will be clear for them to pass unhindered.
While one Grey Wizard hunts from high above and using the signature magic of their Order, a second lurks among one particular crowded street, the only one you can reach from the slums of the Tallows and the warrens of the Ratholds beyond without passing through a Longshank cordon. Even the most suspicious of gazes slides right past her, clad though she is in elements of two groups anathema to the man she seeks, as she is shielded by a power older and greater than that of the Grey Order. None around her suspect that at any moment a Dwarven blade might manifest in her hand, ready to deliver justice to-
Your idle internal monologue is interrupted by the enticingly sweet scent wafting out of the sedan chair passing by you, which turns cloying and sickly in your nose until you have to resist the urge to sneeze. These enclosed litters are quite popular amongst nobles who have business that takes them into streets too narrow for a carriages, and renting them is quite popular amongst nobles who can't afford to buy them but still wish people to think them capable of doing so. For this reason they have a set of hooks upon which their latest customer's heraldry can be hung, and though the hooks are currently bare, sketched onto the cart in charcoal is a skull above a hunting horn. You've heard a lot about the alleged self-destructive nature of Chaos, but someone putting their personal heraldry upon their hiding place while the subject of a manhunt is as pure a demonstration as you're likely to find.
Truth be told, you'd have trailed this sedan chair even without that - it wouldn't even be the first conveyance of the night to draw your attention for an odd smell, though the previous example was merely a noblewoman who had over-perfumed to try to cover up just how many drinks she'd had at the theatre - but that charcoal sketch clinches it. You slip into the wake of the sedan chair and focus your senses until you're able to make out the deeply sullied soul within, and even the odd angle they're sitting at to accommodate their grossly oversized right arm. The porters, as far as you can tell, are not ensorcelled in any way, though it will be the Longshanks' job to determine how they were compelled into taking such a forbidden cargo.
You could act now, though the crowds might make it tricky. Or you could wait, and hope that his course takes him somewhere more advantageous for you, instead of less. You don't know what his plan is to get out of Talabheim tonight, but it could very well involve accomplices.
Kill him He is a Magus and Daemonologist. He has thoroughly earned death, and is too dangerous to let live.
[ ] Kill: Branulhune Attack here and now, bisecting both sedan and Magus with a single swing. The crowds will complicate matters, but at least they are a known variable.
[ ] Kill: Shadow Knives Shadow Knives can pass through armour, so the thin wood of a sedan chair's wall will pose no obstacle. Riddle Alberich with magical knives. If you do it from the right angle the porters might not even notice that their passenger has died.
[ ] Kill: Dragonflask Wait for the sedan chair to leave the crowd, then subject it to Bright College artifice.
[ ] Kill: Other (write in)
Capture him Alive he will be the more impressive prize, and he could be convinced to reveal who taught him decades ago and who has sheltered him since. The Longshanks, like all Witch Hunters, have the accoutrements to render a magic-user helpless.
[ ] Capture: Throttle If you walk alongside the sedan chair, it would be possible to ensnare Alberich with the spell Throttling and choke him unconscious. He might make a fuss while you do so, but the ropes would be very hard to spot in the shadowed street full of milling crowds.
[ ] Capture: Mockery of Death Or more fully: Shroud of Invisibility, Substance of Shadow, then Mockery of Death. It might be challenging to manage all three spells at once, but done right it will take Alberich by complete surprise and render him completely helpless, and you'll be able to pluck him right out of the sedan chair and let it continue on without him.
[ ] Capture: Reinforcements Thanks to Wolf, you can actually do a surprisingly convincing howl, which is the signal that will call in three militarized orders of the Cult of Taal. Four, if the Horned Hunters are within earshot. Bring them in and you'll have the numbers to handle any complications.
[ ] Capture: Other (write in)
[ ] Follow The night is still young. At the end of his current path lies a point at which he will be sandwiched between a Light Wizard and two Grey Wizards, a thoroughly unenviable position for any worshipper of Chaos. You might prefer the range of options you would find there.
I'm voting very much for the kill here. He is far to dangerous to the civilians around him and as much as we could gain from a capture. Letting people possibly get owned zoned ain't worth it.
Problem is, he will most likely pull the 'THAT WASEN'T EVEN MY HEAD OHOHOHO' thing out on us.
While one Grey Wizard hunts from high above and using the signature magic of their Order, a second lurks among one particular crowded street, the only one you can reach from the slums of the Tallows and the warrens of the Ratholds beyond without passing through a Longshank cordon. Even the most suspicious of gazes slides right past her, clad though she is in elements of two groups anathema to the man she seeks, as she is shielded by a power older and greater than that of the Grey Order. None around her suspect that at any moment a Dwarven blade might manifest in her hand, ready to deliver justice to-
I think going for the kill is definitely the right call. No need to overcomplicate things. Unless there's some weird catch somewhere? Paranoia striking; it seems too easy?
I'm voting very much for the kill here. He is far to dangerous to the civilians around him and as much as we could gain from a capture. Letting people possibly get owned zoned ain't worth it.
Also, we're not here to tie up every little detail and leave things as pat as can be. Alric can take care of running down every last lead while we head back to our actual jobs.
I'm thinking either Shadow Knives or Mockery of Death, depending on the desired level of lethality. Alerting Alberich's minions while there are innocent bystanders that could become collateral damage is something I'd prefer to avoid. Even if they can't extricate him, they'll likely be inclined to avenge him.