So I'm getting an urge to try another attempt at my "Mathilde as a Total War DLC Lord" omake from a while back, but since Egrimm is now an ally I need a new rival for her. Anyone know of someone that would work?
The general idea I sort of want to go for this one is to focus on the Divine aspect of things, make Mathilde's stuff be very Ranald themed. Also on that note any good ideas for DLC units that she would add?
I'm still workshopping the idea for the DLC storyline, at the moment I am sort of thinking of Mathilde's campaign being focused around some kind of massive con. Would take the Waystone project as a baseline and weave some more Ranald elements into it, end point would be helping Ranald steal something of extreme importance or something similar...still not sure.
But since I know there are people here more familiar with the lore than me and since we are talking Total War stuff I thought I might as well ask.
Now that I'm awake and not half asleep, it turns out that what I'd provide here might not be what you'd want. I had lots of ideas for how Mathilde's mechanics would work in Total War, but it seems you're asking for narrative aspects and focusing on Divinity. Not really what I was thinking of yesterday.
As a side note, I think for the majority of the quest Mathilde would have worked better as a Legendary Hero than as a Legendary Lord, probably as an attachment to Belegar. I can see a DL scenario where you get Belegar with four Heroes that aren't Ancestor Ghosts. Mathilde (Grey Wizard), Ulthar (Thane), Kragg (Runesmith) and Titus Muggins (New Fieldmarshal Hero). All of them would have their own unique skill lines and traits and would be essential in the process of getting to K8P.
The reason I think that Mathilde would have worked well as a Hero is because Mathilde was never an army manager. All the situations where she ended up in command were against her will, and she left a lot of the logistics to those who specialised in it and often went to scout ahead or do stuff by herself. She prefers to have a direction and perform work herself, which can obviously be represented by the Hero Actions of Total War. She can Assassinate enemy Agents, Damage Enemy Units, Steal Technology, and she'd have a passive effect to increase Public Order in friendly territory in friendly territory and decrease it in enemy territory. I also think she'd have the "Increase Mobility" action for joining with a friendly army, and she'd have a trait that boosts the chance of an army she's attached to to perform a successful ambush or for an enemy ambush to fail.
You could even incoroporate the Coin into this as an artifact that you can switch, with a cooldown so you have to switch one turn ahead of what you want instead of spontaneously changing as much as you want. Protector would signficantly decrease Corruption and increase Public Order in a local province, Night Prowler makes her undetectable on the campaign map so she can't be targeted by Enemy Agents, and her Hero Actions don't cause Diplomatic Penalties because no one knows that she's done them, and maybe a few miscellania. Deciever would boost Hero Action success chance and Gambler would give her a Ward Save and boost Magic Item discovery chance by 100%.
While I spent this entire post talking about Mathilde as a Hero, I do think that Mathilde is shaping up to be a Lord, particularly during and after Karag Dum and in the current phase for Laurelorn. If I was making a campaign where she would be a Legendary Lord, I would put her in Laurelorn and have the focus be on the Waystone Project and someone who wants to destroy it. The focus is obviously not on Ranald, so sorry if that's now what you want. If the focus is on Waystones, then a natural opponent is Moonclaw the Lunatic Prince from the Beastmen faction. He is the "Son of Morrisleb" and desires the destruction of all Waystones so Morrisleb reigns supreme over the land, so a natural rivalry would be apparent. There could be some sort of Waystone mechanic involved where the two of them race to locations to restore or destroy the Waystone in the area, which provides buffs to them that can create a cascading mechanic.
As a Lord, Mathilde would obviously hold similarities to Alith Anar. Alith Anar's standard stance is "Stalking", which is special because it gives him an Ambush success chance while he's just moving in the campaign map. Astonishingly useful because it means you can ambush without going into Ambush stance, and he also has Ambush stance but his Ambush is even better than normal Ambush. It's a bit gauche to steal from him I suppose, but I'm sure Ranald/Loec can make it up to him.
Alith Anar also has "Use the Shadow Paths" stance that lets him teleport like the World Roots/Underway/Beast Paths except it involves moving through the "Shadow Realm". I'm not sure Mathilde should take that, but she's got a good enough relationship with the Dwarves that I don't think they'd mind if she borrowed their "Use Underway" stance. Unfortunately her start position isn't super mountaineous, so it might not be as useful as it could be.
I imagine that Mathilde would have boosts to Ambush success chance and reduction to enemy ambush success chance, that she would have some sort of Rite of Way ability (likely unlockable) which boosts campaign movement range and reduces penalties from moving through many different types of terrain including attrition in the campaign map. I can also see Rite of Way being used in battle to provide an area effect Strider ability. Her Shadowsteed would also give her Strider and Perfect Vigour once she gets it. I can also imagine that either she would already have or she would grant Vanguard Deployment, Stalk, Snipe, Master Ambusher and maybe even Unspottable traits.
I haven't even gotten to how the Coin would be represented if she was a Lord! Or other mechanics I had in mind. This post is getting too long. I'll follow it up later I guess.
