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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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DragonParadox said:
Now of course we were also told that many spells are also niche and not taught on mass,
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And this is, I think, fundementally why I'm so hostile to "completing the spellbook" actions. Because it wouldn't actually be completing the spell book, not in any way that Mathilde would actually recognize in character. It's a purely OOC goal, both in conception and execution.
 
Glau said:
And this is, I think, fundementally why I'm so hostile to "completing the spellbook" actions. Because it wouldn't actually be completing the spell book, not in any way that Mathilde would actually recognize in character. It's a purely OOC goal, both in conception and execution.
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My motivation for wanting to take the 'Complete the Spellbook' action is that Regimand keeps dunking on Mathilde with 'Cloak Activity.' Sounds justifiably IC to me. I'm a bit less sold on the BM, but even then I'm pretty sure there's an unofficial Loremaster title waiting there, and that would also be IC motivation.
 
Glau said:
And this is, I think, fundementally why I'm so hostile to "completing the spellbook" actions. Because it wouldn't actually be completing the spell book, not in any way that Mathilde would actually recognize in character. It's a purely OOC goal, both in conception and execution.
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The "Grey Wizard Spellbook" is an actual thing—Mathilde had both her Matrix and her Map added to it. It's just that there exist lots of spells, such as Rite of Way, that are not inscribed within the spellbook.

It's sort of the "core" spells that all grey wizards should aspire to learning, and then they can develop their individual idiosyncrasies based off the foundation the spellbook provides.
 
Glau said:
And this is, I think, fundementally why I'm so hostile to "completing the spellbook" actions. Because it wouldn't actually be completing the spell book, not in any way that Mathilde would actually recognize in character. It's a purely OOC goal, both in conception and execution.
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ReImagined said:
My motivation for wanting to take the 'Complete the Spellbook' action is that Regimand keeps dunking on Mathilde with 'Cloak Activity.' Sounds justifiably IC to me. I'm a bit less sold on the BM, but even then I'm pretty sure there's an unofficial Loremaster title waiting there, and that would also be IC motivation.
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This doesn't sound like "Complete the spellbook" action, but rather "let's learn one specific spell X because it would be useful".

And we don't want to learn battlemagics on flimsy reasoning, given that learning them is never safe and can never be made entirely safe, meaning for each of those spells we risk gaining a new Arcane Mark, of which there is exactly 1 beneficial remaining and several with mild to near crippling negatives.
I most certainly don't want us to get the one where everyone permanently forgets our face, for example.
 
Like, Teclis is a magical genius and all. The elf's are amongst some of the best magic user in the world, but they aren't the be all end all either.

Mathilda has throughout her relatively short life, developed a ton of spells, and even if she isn't adjusting them so everyone can use them, that's still a lot. The collages have existed for over a 100 years now, so realisticly most of the spells should at least be coming from human hands.

I'd expect Teclis to have had a hand in battle magic and so on, because that is kinda why the collages were founded. He was just teaching humans really fast how to throw battle spells because of the giant world ending horde barring down on everyone.

Teclis didn't get to stay around for long after that. He is good, but he isn't Nagash whom developed an entierly new field. Teclis just took the old elven field and essentially adjusted it so it's (relatively) save for human usage.

If the elf methods was so superiour to all other forms of magic, and Teclis was such an genius, then they'd really not have such a big problem, yea? They'd not need to have Slann constantly pump in geomantic juice so they can float alive, they wouldn't have needed the extremly cursed sword of Khaine to defend their lands if their magic was so strong. They wouldn't have been pushed out by the dwarfes if they could just crush them with their high magic.

High magic is strong, but it's not unsurpasable nor invincible, and neither is Teclis.

Teclis founded the collage, and because of his actions tons of wizards aren't burned alive on a pyre anymore in the old world. But the collages wasn't founded soley on Teclis effort. There's a reason why you hear about Volans and other great magic users of the collages. Teclis was without a doubt extremly important for how this could happen, but they have now existed for over a 100 years now, developing new magic. Disproving old theories(including Teclis own theory!).

They are no longer a faction made in the shadow and mimecry of Hoeth's white tower, but instead something else. Something that stands for it's own special tradition. The stuff, discovers made by Mathilda alone could very well be things that would Teclis stop and go "..Wait what"
 
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Also, I'm getting annoyed trying to find the names of the Houses scattered about the updates and comments. (because I sure as hell cant remember who is who)

Houses and their views on continued interaction with the empire.

Major House Thyriolan: Saphery, Hoeth. against involvement with human affairs, but pro waystones.

Major House Ecthelion: Saphery, Hoeth. They're less stringently against involvement with the Empire than House Thyriolan, but unlike House Thyriolan they do look down upon humanity. (sidenote: looking at this again, I think its implied that both of them voted against, just that Ectheion is a little more open than the other. I think the thread has overblown that to pro interaction)

Major House Tindomiel: Saphery, Hekarti? vote in favour of interaction with the Empire

Major House Fanpatar: Yvressian House, Ladrielle. vote in favour of interaction with the Empire. the Prince seems curious about human and Dwarven inventions.

Major House Ellemakil: A formerly Avelornian House, Ulric?. Presumably, they are the House most enthusiastic about cooperating with humans.

Major House Malforric: Asuryan. They are also the Warden of the Sun. Voted hard no. they are possibly the most isolationist Major House in the entire city.

Major House Mardil : Trade: vote in favour of interaction with the Empire i think.

Major House Miriel: Vaul: Voted against interaction with humans, but seems not that bothered.

House Maeglin: Atharti: don't know yet how they voted. considering they are a pleasure cult it probably wont be that hard to get them on side if we can get them access to new foods, spices, books, art whatever.

Major House Filuan: seems to vote with the Queen.

The Ward of Storm: The current Warden is Kaia the 'Stormwitch', who advocates peaceful relations with the Empire.

The Ward of Frost: the Warden position rotating to whoever is available at the time. Pro coming up with a solution for the problem.

The Grey Lords: who the fuck knows.

(needs clearing up, but this will do.)


@Boney any chance this can go up somewhere easy to find?
 
Sa'kage said:
If the elf methods was so superiour to all other forms of magic, and Teclis was such an genius, then they'd really not have such a big problem, yea? They'd not need to have Slann constantly pump in geomantic juice so they can float alive, they wouldn't have needed the extremly cursed sword of Khaine to defend their lands if their magic was so strong. They wouldn't have been pushed out by the dwarfes if they could just crush them with their high magic.

High magic is strong, but it's not unsurpasable nor invincible, and neither is Teclis.
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The trueness of the High Elves paradigm isn't relevant to the practical firepower of their magic. Even if their theories about magic are right, sending enough spellcasting bodies at them will still kill them.

That said, I agree that Asurs aren't infaillible, and that their theory (at least as explained to the Colleges) doesn't account for everything.
 
ReImagined said:
Just for reference, @Codex also made an incomplete? compilation here, if you want to combine/add details.
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It's incomplete in the sense that it doesn't have every single detail, which is what I wanted to do, but for the purposes of Houses, it's got them all (the ones that have been revealed at least). I'd do an updated version if there's demand for it.
 
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K von Carstein said:
He was ambushed by a super prestigious promotion and the chance of being a hero of his people. Given that and how well the Colleges turned out, I can't really blame him for staying on Ulthuan.
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That kinda makes me wonder how the wider Empire would react if Teclis showed up Tommrow, all casual "Yo, i"m back and ready to continue teaching"

Would the Emperor, EC counts and other institutions just be nervously looking at the situation in the sense of "By Sigmar, he's coming to kidnap our wizards"

And just how much that would worry them. Like, army would lose bright and jade wizards and so forth. Makes wonder on the political situation
 
Sa'kage said:
That kinda makes me wonder how the wider Empire would react if Teclis showed up Tommrow, all casual "Yo, i"m back and ready to continue teaching"

Would the Emperor, EC counts and other institutions just be nervously looking at the situation in the sense of "By Sigmar, he's coming to kidnap our wizards"

And just how much that would worry them. Like, army would lose bright and jade wizards and so forth. Makes wonder on the political situation
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Why would they think he's going to kidnap their wizards? He would teach them more ways of killing the Empires ennemies, that's all the authorities are asking.
 
Sa'kage said:
That kinda makes me wonder how the wider Empire would react if Teclis showed up Tommrow, all casual "Yo, i"m back and ready to continue teaching"

Would the Emperor, EC counts and other institutions just be nervously looking at the situation in the sense of "By Sigmar, he's coming to kidnap our wizards"

And just how much that would worry them. Like, army would lose bright and jade wizards and so forth. Makes wonder on the political situation
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They won't be worrying about losing the wizards, the colleges loyalty are pretty well defined by now, and most of those directly taught by Teclis are dead. Even when learning under Teclis his students were well aware that their duty is to the empire, not to mention that unlike the Greys a lot of the orders have a much stronger pre Teclis tradition to rely and define them.

They will be wary of some political plays by ulthuan, especially in regard to the marienburg situation. But I like to think that Teclis as an individual have enough credit with the Empire after saving it ass and being buddy buddy with Magnus that they will accept that he at lest come with relative benign intention. The Colleges were his pet project after all, and if I recall correctly even in opposition to the phoenix king orders.
 
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seekingflame said:
They won't be worrying about losing the wizards, the colleges loyalty are pretty well defined by now, and most of those directly taught by Teclis are dead. Even when learning under Teclis his students were well aware that their duty is to the empire, not to mention that unlike the Greys a lot of the orders have a much stronger pre Teclis tradition to rely and define them.

They will be wary of some political plays by ulthuan, especially in regard to the marienburg situation. But I like to think that Teclis as an individual have enough credit with the Empire after saving it ass and being buddy buddy with Magnus that they will accept that he at lest come with relative benign intention. The Colleges were his pet project after all, and if I recall correctly even in opposition to the phoenix king orders.
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Not in opposition to the Phoenix King's orders. Yrtle and Finreir objected to Teclis' decision to teach humans magic but he overruled them, and Yrtle died in the Great War. Finreir didn't seem to stick around afterwards but clearly he didn't have much power to stop Teclis. The Phoenix King had next to nothing to do with Teclis' actions. Teclis does what he likes, Finubar and Tyrion were busy securing Ulthuan against Druchii invasion alongside Alarielle.
 
Unrelated question to the current discussion: can we take multiple classes from the college as 1 AP? Back on Turn 23 and 24 we learned multiple spells as one AP, wondering if we could do something like this:
-[ ] EGRIMM: Learning: From the colleges (Mathilde pays gold costs):
--[ ] Power Stones and their Creation
--[ ] On the Education of Apprentices
Would it require college favor to arrange class schedules so that we could learn both efficiently?
 
BrewCrew said:
Unrelated question to the current discussion: can we take multiple classes from the college as 1 AP? Back on Turn 23 and 24 we learned multiple spells as one AP, wondering if we could do something like this:
-[ ] EGRIMM: Learning: From the colleges (Mathilde pays gold costs):
--[ ] Power Stones and their Creation
--[ ] On the Education of Apprentices
Would it require college favor to arrange class schedules so that we could learn both efficiently?
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No we can't take multiple classes with one AP. We had the ability to learn multiple spells, but that was by rolling the gacha so to speak. We gave up the ability to choose what spells we could choose for the ability to learn multiple spells. Generally, Boney does not allow multiple distinct actions t obe taken with the same AP.
 
BrewCrew said:
Unrelated question to the current discussion: can we take multiple classes from the college as 1 AP? Back on Turn 23 and 24 we learned multiple spells as one AP, wondering if we could do something like this:
-[ ] EGRIMM: Learning: From the colleges (Mathilde pays gold costs):
--[ ] Power Stones and their Creation
--[ ] On the Education of Apprentices
Would it require college favor to arrange class schedules so that we could learn both efficiently?
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I do not think that would work, we learned multiple spells because the base action was to learn multiple spells, what we paid for was to make the gatcha not be random by getting the right teachers. There was no time limitation there, just a teacher availability limitation. By contrast I do not think we can buy AP with any IC resource because at its core AP is the measure of how much the GM spends writing a turn.
 
Codex said:
Not in opposition to the Phoenix King's orders. Yrtle and Finreir objected to Teclis' decision to teach humans magic but he overruled them, and Yrtle died in the Great War. Finreir didn't seem to stick around afterwards but clearly he didn't have much power to stop Teclis. The Phoenix King had next to nothing to do with Teclis' actions. Teclis does what he likes, Finubar and Tyrion were busy securing Ulthuan against Druchii invasion alongside Alarielle.
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Right, it was the other Archmages that objected, I must have fell into Asarnil hype about how everyone takes every chance they have to dunk on Finubar authority as Phoenix King.

Through I do faintly recall either WoQM or canon about a disagreement for Teclis to go and help out the old world while the Druchii was at the gate. Might go digging later.
 
I'm going to propose a hypothesis on human spellmaking:

When Teclis taught magic to the college he only taught them a very bare bones, pared down version of the curriculum, being both light on theory and including many fewer spells than Hoeth actually had in their libraries. As he was concerned with making the colleges as effective as possible, he made the college spell list mostly out of spells that he thought were very good in terms of power, versatility or teachability, or preferably all three.

As a consequence of that, the results of most human attempts at spellmaking aren't as good as the spells that Teclis taught even if they potentially are as good as the average elven spell in general.

That could result in all sorts of downstream effects that cause the inherited spells from Teclis to have more prominence. It could mean that anyone going into spell creation with the plan of "I'll make an improved version of spell X by tweaking some of the details" quickly runs into the problem that all of the details have already been tweaked in very deliberate ways and most changes will be net downgrades. It could mean that there's a prevailing belief in the colleges that human made spells are less good in general and not worth the trouble to learn or make. It could mean that people who try out spellmaking will tend to have their attempts seem clearly less useful than the spells around them, leading to discouragement from the process. It could mean that when instructors are figuring out which spells they need to make sure to teach people to keep them in living memory and which to put on a scroll and shove into the back of the library they'll tend to choose the second for human spells much more often than elven ones.
 
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