Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[LawsOfRobotics]

I have been working on a proposed plan for next turn. I had been planning to save this for when it was time to actually plan the next term but since the thread is already discussing that I would like to post it now and get feedback. If we have follow up actions based on what happens with Alric and Alberich, and what happens in the Gryphon Wood this plan will probably have to change, maybe by using an overwork.

[ ] Plan Vitae R&D Lab + Bright Pilot
-[ ] MAX: Study an artefact: Books and rubbings from an Asur explorer of Lustria and the Southlands
-[ ] EGRIMM: Study an artefact: Ghyran Nut
-[ ] WEB-MAT: Hire someone as a full-time Gyrocopter pilot (Adela)
-[ ] Lay the foundations: work with the current members of WEB-MAT and the Waystone Project to build a single unified framework for understanding the Waystones.
-[ ] Experiment with integrating the Vitae into enchantments.
--[ ] COIN: The Gambler
-[ ] Investigate how the Vitae reacts to a power stone.
-[ ] EIC: Investigate what trade goods the Eonir might be willing to import from the Empire.
-[ ] LIBRARY: Seek an agreement with a Cult to have access to their libraries (Verenans)
-[ ] SERENITY: Observations on the Windfall north of the Dark Lands

This does not use an overwork because this plan is likely to result in a lot of new options for actions next turn and it seems wise to save it instead of using it for something non-urgent this turn. It does not use Windherder because the coin is already used on the Vitae enchantment, and I think we want the coin to reduce miscast chance for either. Most of the investigate actions with Vitae did not have visible rolls so I don't think the coin is required to make the power stone investigation safe. I would like to take 2 classes at some point soon: Power Stones and their Creation, and On the Education of Apprentices, in preparation for further Vitae investigation and prepping for Eike. It would be fun to try to take both classes with Egrimm, but we don't need to do it this turn. Most of the self-improvement actions also don't seem urgent and don't unlock new options for us or advance the plot like the research actions. This also makes the most progress on researching what seem to me like our most valuable artefacts: the Vitae, the nut, and the books about Lustria and the Southlands.

 

[PurposefulZephyr]

Why do we want to wring another reward out of Mira when we'd have a much better reward waiting?

Headpats were somewhat rare lately.

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

Alright then. It was just a thought, because unlike making items we have no use for and will immediately give to someone else, Windsoak Mushrooms are a project we've been working on for a while and which will have a clear and significant benefit to the Colleges.

Click to shrink...

If we can discover how to successfully put two enchantments in one item, we can write a paper on that and then other enchanters can start doing it, and that will be extremely useful to the colleges.

Windherding isn't a vanity project, it's an entirely new method of making magical items that no one has developed before.

 

[Altom]

Why do we want to wring another reward out of Mira when we'd have a much better reward waiting?

Headpats were somewhat rare lately.

Click to shrink...

Well, headpats can only be given by a superior( in some fashion)/ relative and by now we are short on both

 

[ReImagined]

Is that the average number of LMs or the average number of LMs we (as in the thread) know by name?

Click to shrink...

Average per college, though the exact composition varies.

My back-of-the-envelope and currently unofficial breakdown is:

250 Minor Talents, Sealed, and Perpetual Apprentices
200 Apprentices
100 Journeymen, 25 Battle Wizards
50 Magisters, 5 Elite Battle Wizards
4 Wizard Lords, 1 'Graduated' Battle Wizard
1 Patriarch

Click to shrink...

 

[Zero Gravitas]

Average per college, though the exact composition varies.

Click to shrink...

Ah. 4 felt low - turns out that didn't include LMs that come from the BW track and the head honcho of the respective College which is fair enough.

Well, headpats can only be given by a superior( in some fashion)/ relative and by now we are short on both

Click to shrink...

Dragomas will likely take some pleasure at seeing Alric shown up and Heidi is the key to royal headpats.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

Everyone is impressed when the plumber fixes the leaky tap while they are unplugging the drain without being asked.

Everyone gets annoyed when the same plumber tries to shake you down for extra pay for doing something you don't ask them for.

It's literally a type of extortion (extortion under unwanted service.) examples being cleaning your windows at a stoplight, picking up your luggage for you at a terminal then asking for a tip and throwing a big drama if the person doest pay (a common trick in Egypt, I've gotten into the habit of running to the drop-off and just standing under the opening.) contractors asking if you want to add or install stuff in your house but not telling you its an extra charge until its too late by implying its free or part of the services already. etc etc.

its a trick that often works (if only because its easier than fighting it) but it's a trick that pisses people off.

not a politically sound move when you have to deal with someone more than once.

 

[BagFullOfLizards]

[X] Kill: Branulhune

Let's do things by half measures. Specifically, Alberich's halves.

 

[DragonParadox]

It basically boils down to how much we trust Mira, do we thinks she is useful and/or honorable?

If yes keep our mouth shut and hope for future returns, if not try to milk it while there are at least some scraps to be had. Since my base standard for reliability in this quest is 'dwarf' I am more in the latter camp, but I do not expect it to win any votes. I am more or less resigned to no extra rewards, which is fine, we did not go into this expecting to get more out of it, but I do also think people who expect Mira to be our friend will be disappointed.

From what we have seen of her Mira is a political creature who is willing to put a great deal of college resources, up to and including LM advancement on the table for personal advantage. Whichever way you slice I do not think she will find much use in cultivating us beyond our immediate use as we do not have much involvement in College or even Imperial politics.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

It basically boils down to how much we trust Mira, do we thinks she is useful and/or honorable?

If yes keep our mouth shut and hope for future returns, if not try to milk it while there are at least some scraps to be had. Since my base standard for reliability in this quest is 'dwarf' I am more in the latter camp, but I do not expect it to win any votes. I am more or less resigned to no extra rewards, which is fine, we did not go into this expecting to get more out of it, but I do also think people who expect Mira to be our friend will be disappointed.

From what we have seen of her Mira is a political creature who is willing to put a great deal of college resources, up to and including LM advancement on the table for personal advantage. Whichever way you slice I do not think she will find much use in cultivating us beyond our immediate use as we do not have much involvement in College or even Imperial politics.

Click to shrink...

exactly.

and if she is worth cultivating as a long term Ally, then trying to ring her for post-deal rewards is a bad way to go about it.

if she is not 'honourable'(in the way people seem to want her to be), she will just ignore us.

if she is 'honourable', then great, you go your instant gratification, just required burning the bridges we had with her because she sure as hell isn't going to risk making a deal with someone that moves the goal-post and expects your to pay up again.

 

[DragonParadox]

exactly.

and if she is worth cultivating as a long term Ally, then trying to ring her for post-deal rewards is a bad way to go about it.

if she is not 'honourable'(in the way people seem to want her to be), she will just ignore us.

if she is 'honourable', then great, you go your instant gratification, just required burning the bridges we had with her because she sure as hell isn't going to risk making a deal with someone that moves the goal-post and expects your to pay up again.

Click to shrink...

I think there is a middle ground where she will pay us to get us out of her hair and so as not to have a pissed off Grey Magister on her hands, but she would otherwise in no way be useful or helpful long term unless it gains her something.

As I do not trust her any further than we can throw Cython I am willing to gamble on it. A low chance of something is better than a guaranteed nothing.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

From what we have seen of her Mira is a political creature who is willing to put a great deal of college resources, up to and including LM advancement on the table for personal advantage. Whichever way you slice I do not think she will find much use in cultivating us beyond our immediate use as we do not have much involvement in College or even Imperial politics.

Click to shrink...

Considering Mathilde is profoundly connected to the Dawi a friend of the Empress and a rising star in the Colleges Mira would have to be extremely shortsighted to eschew having a good relationship.

Mira has no way of knowing if Mathilde will or won't head the Grey College or even take the Supreme Matriarch seat in the future nor how much influence will Mathilde accumulate.

 

[DragonParadox]

Considering Mathilde is profoundly connected to the Dawi a friend of the Empress and a rising star in the Colleges Mira would have to be extremely shortsighted to eschew having a good relationship.

Mira has no way of knowing if Mathilde will or won't head the Grey College or even take the Supreme Matriarch seat in the future nor how much influence will Mathilde accumulate.

Click to shrink...

1. The dwarfs are not that relevant to most things the Lights would involve themselves in and the Empress only has limited soft power and in any case the depth of our... bond is not that well known. I think that puts us firmly in the 'may be useful later' category, not the 'butter up at once'
2. We are the youngest LM among the Greys I do not think she even imagines that we would go for the top job for decades, if we even want to, which we have given no indication of

 

[Rafin]

You're overstating the case for the ring. Radiant Gaze is a Relatively Simple spell; it does less damage than Shadow Knives, which we can cast ourselves with no prop necessary and which lets us weave in a free teleport. It is a cute trick, but it's not as good as what we've got natively, and furthermore you've turned the limitations on the Dragonflask from "you need to cast spells nonverbally for a little while after you use it" to "no casting for 10 minutes." Obviously it sounds terrible when you make it far worse than Boney did.

I am all about Windherding more so we get the trick down, but "replace the most Bright magic we can fit into a single magic item with a baby Light spell for baby Journeymen" and calling that an upgrade is silly. The dragonflask's use case is a pocket nuke if we're cornered or if we need to break a strongly-defended hard point. It's not great for daily use, but it's a powerful trump card to keep in reserve.

Click to shrink...

Doesn't weaving Smoke and Mirrors into a non-battlemagic spell increase its difficulty?

Much like with characters one cannot just say 'the dice did it'. Just like a 2 on Thorgrim's reaction means that IC Thorgrim is the sort of dwarf who would say 'die well' a low roll on a research topic is limiting for what can be done with something, it informs Mathilde's abilities, it is not just pure luck and happenstance.

Click to shrink...

I wrote something a bit informed by anger before reading your subsequent comments. I feel like I should apologize, even though I didn't actually do it and you don't know what for (it wasn't that bad).

I still think you overestimate the effects a single bad roll had on Mathilde's own abilities (or those of most others). A crit fail might give a permanent negative trait, but we've had bad rolls before and while they affected the narrative and the portrayal of Mathilde's personality they did not affect our ability to succeed at stuff with dice. The only thing I remember having done that is when the Matrix paper took far too many attempts.

We didn't vote to renegotiate so we don't get the payment. We're not running a scam here. We chose to do this job for free. If you want payment, you have to ask for it beforehand instead of springing it up. She didn't set out a bounty for us to collect.

Click to shrink...

You and I must have very different opinions on what constitutes a scam. During negotiations Mathilde didn't promise that she'd sabotage Alric. Because it was a promise she didn't feel comfortable making. But both Mathilde and Mira knew that Mira wanted Alric sabotaged and asked Mathilde to do it.

If you want an example that's roughly as exaggerated as your claims of this being a scam:
Imagine you go to a mechanic and ask them to fix two things on your car. The mechanic asks for money for the one thing up front but states that he probably can't do the second part. Not if she is supposed to make the deadline where you need the car back.
Then, when you come to get your car, she tells you that she managed to fix it after all. Are you now angry at the mechanic? Do you expect to get the second part for free?

Thing to keep in mind with the above example:

• The price tags for everything were known.
• Contacting you would have taken considerable time and effort for some reason. Time and effort that would have cut into the mechanic's work time and might or might not have made her unable to fix the second thing in time after all.
• This car will get you a promotion to CEO.

[ ] EGRIMM: Study an artefact: Ghyran Nut

Click to shrink...

Studying the Nut with Panoramia matters more to me than getting a WEB-MAT action out of it.

I also would really like at least one Elven House on board. Two would be a dream scenario, but I get how I might be in a minority there. Also, when are we going to do the whole Father thing?

Everyone gets annoyed when the same plumber tries to shake you down for extra pay for doing something you don't ask them for.

Click to shrink...

She did ask us. And she named the price she was willing to pay for it. But Mathilde said she probably would not be able to do it. Or didn't want to for some reason.

 

[Mopman43]

Doesn't weaving Smoke and Mirrors into a non-battlemagic spell increase its difficulty?

Click to shrink...

I've never seen anything suggesting that. Mathilde was spamming S&M + other spell in the attack on the Kul encampment.

 

[Rafin]

I've never seen anything suggesting that. Mathilde was spamming S&M + other spell in the attack on the Kul encampment.

Click to shrink...

I thought it was in a WoQM before or after we learned it as our first "official" battle magic. Might be misremembering.

 

[ReImagined]

Doesn't weaving Smoke and Mirrors into a non-battlemagic spell increase its difficulty?

Click to shrink...

K / Smoke and Mirrors: The mark of a Grey Battle Wizard is the ability to weave teleportation cantrips into other spells they cast. They appear to jump around the battlefield at will, hopping anywhere within short range with every spell they cast.
- Can be tied into a Fiendishly Complex or Battle Magic spell to teleport without any additional risk of miscast. Can also be cast on its own. Range is limited to line of sight and about a hundred yards or so.

Click to shrink...

Realistically, it probably does, but to a degree that's below the level of abstraction.

 

[LawsOfRobotics]

Studying the Nut with Panoramia matters more to me than getting a WEB-MAT action out of it.

Click to shrink...

This would be nice but Panoramia doesn't work for us. Is there a WoQM on us being able to do this?

I also would really like at least one Elven House on board

Click to shrink...

I think we will have a lot more options for what to do to on the Waystone project after we lay the foundations. I suspect there are greatly diminishing returns for adding more participants before that and once we have laid the foundations we will end up with plenty of follow up options for actions where we have a much better idea of who we need to involve in the project to make more progress. If we keep adding more organizations we will keep having to do favors without knowing if the organization will even be helpful beyond what we already have.


On the subject of Mira, we will likely already be getting rewards in the form of college rep and favor or some other reward from the empire for stopping a chaos cultist. The Grey college will be especially happy to reward us for keeping the fact that the cultist was a former EC quiet if we pull that off. Mira's goodwill is a nebulous but valuable reward so we don't need to push her for something more concrete right now. Demonstrating that we will go above and beyond to pay back our debts and do the right thing for the empire means that if we ask her for favors in the future she will be more inclined to be generous.

 

[kingreaper]

The problem with Chamon and Shyish mushrooms is that we need two winds to work at the same place - Chamon or Shyish to soak the mushrooms, Ghyran to make them grow despite the presence of the other winds - without Dhar. That's what Windherding is about. It is at least possible that solving that problem will provide Mathilde with experience that could later be used in other projects.

Click to shrink...

We'd need to make it so that the Chamon is in the parts that are growing (so it can be absorbed) but also not in the parts that are growing (so it doesn't interfere with growth).

Because it's not that a lack of Ghyran is preventing them from growing - they can grow fine in pure-Aqshy - it's the presence of Chamon or Shyish. And while we could put a Ghyran enchantment on them to make them grow, it'd want to be on the part of them that we need to soak in Chamon, not just near it. And we'd need to keep the Ghyran from getting absorbed, despite it being in exactly the right place for absorption.

And we'd be doing all that while working with two non-Ulgu winds, neither of which we can directly control.

That's some seriously high-tier windherding - it's not a good first step it's more along the lines of something we could do after creating windherded Fiendishly Complex enchantments.

 

[silentorphan]

This would be nice but Panoramia doesn't work for us. Is there a WoQM on us being able to do this?

Click to shrink...

Didn't Mathilde study the Windsoak mushrooms with her? How is this different?

 

[Resonant]

Doesn't weaving Smoke and Mirrors into a non-battlemagic spell increase its difficulty?

Click to shrink...

Casting Smoke and Mirrors by itself is actually harder than Weaving it into another spell. I can't find Boney's WoG that says this but I remember they said that before.

Also @Boney Will Mathilde be informing Heidi about this Alberich event after its resolved?

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

Doesn't weaving Smoke and Mirrors into a non-battlemagic spell increase its difficulty?

Click to shrink...

Doesn't weaving Smoke and Mirrors into a non-battlemagic spell increase its difficulty?...

weaving Smoke and Mirrors into a non-battlemagic spell....

weaving Smoke and Mirrors into spell.....

Windherding.....

weaving Smoke and Mirrors

I'll be right back.

 

[ReImagined]

This would be nice but Panoramia doesn't work for us. Is there a WoQM on us being able to do this?

Click to shrink...

Can we ask her without having to her her in Web-Mat? Like can we do a Mathilde action and mention in the text that we would like to work with Panoramia if she is available? I recognize that she might not be since we have no claim on her time but at the same time the Nut might be interesting enough to tempt her into collaboration I would think.

Click to shrink...

Yes.

Click to shrink...

Didn't Mathilde study the Windsoak mushrooms with her? How is this different?

Click to shrink...

We studied them on Turns 33 and 34, when Mathilde was still Loremaster and had DUCK actions. We now have WEB-MAT actions instead, and Panoramia is nominally not part of WEB-MAT.

 

[Zero Gravitas]

1. The dwarfs are not that relevant to most things the Lights would involve themselves in and the Empress only has limited soft power and in any case the depth of our... bond is not that well known. I think that puts us firmly in the 'may be useful later' category, not the 'butter up at once'
2. We are the youngest LM among the Greys I do not think she even imagines that we would go for the top job for decades, if we even want to, which we have given no indication of

Click to shrink...

1)The Light College likes Runework as much as anyone else. The Empress doesn't have a ton of power but she has a lot of influence and Mathilde is at the bare minimum a close and valued acquaintance.
2) Mathilde being young is a point in her favour since she's quite clearly not exhausted her potential. Unless Mira is even worse at politicking than Alric she won't want to deal with an irked Mathilde for decades.


Like... Mira can't simultaneously be a dispassionate political mastermind yet at the same time not want to make connections with someone that's both very powerful and well connected right now and also has huge potential for growth.

 

[Rafin]

Realistically, it probably does, but to a degree that's below the level of abstraction.

Click to shrink...

Ah, I just forgot that Fiendishly Complex spells counted too.

...and that Shadow Knives is one of those.

This would be nice but Panoramia doesn't work for us. Is there a WoQM on us being able to do this?

Click to shrink...

We studied stuff with other people all the time even before WEB-MAT. Including with Panoramia. Why would that suddenly have changed?

Casting Smoke and Mirrors by itself is actually harder than Weaving it into another spell. I can't find Boney's WoG that says this but I remember they said that before.

Click to shrink...

That rings a bell.