Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[IronFist]

I do wish we had any inkling on how to improve the windsight. We are simply one of the best, not the best, and the utter top is deparated from us with insane gulf. That will not do

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Try to see through a Pall of Darkness: Am I a joke to you?

 

[kingreaper]

Yea that's basically all it's good for some runelord favour or CF when we write the 'book' on it later. Given we're basically not going to spend any more rune lord favour any way that's pretty meh at this point.

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I really doubt we're never going to spend runelord-favour again. What we'll spend it on I don't yet know, but I'm sure an opportunity will come up where it seems vital - for instance if we have the opportunity (for whatever reason) to build a new magical fortification on top of a major waystone we're going to want to pump as much Runesmith Favour into that as Belegar did into the Eye of Gazul.

 

[Lampshade]

Do you have reason to believe that we misunderstood anything about the box or that we would gain anything from looking at it again?

This sure implies that we learned everything there was to learn about it.

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Find out how it achieved the perfect balance needed to trap more snakes for unlimited power?

We learned everything there was to learn about it with the tools and skills we had at the time, which have both improved considerably.

and "weaponize it" feels like a waste.

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[><] Fill Dragonflask with AV

 

[SuperSonicSound]

I really doubt we're never going to spend runelord-favour again. What we'll spend it on I don't yet know, but I'm sure an opportunity will come up where it seems vital - for instance if we have the opportunity (for whatever reason) to build a new magical fortification on top of a major waystone we're going to want to pump as much Runesmith Favour into that as Belegar did into the Eye of Gazul.

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I doubt we'll never have an opportunity to spend runelord favour again but at the same time we have a large number of avenues already available for instance for self improvement that just aren't likely to happen, and if it's in the runesmiths advantage to do such a thing IIRC it'll get done with out the favour which was part of the new mechanic as Mathilde is now officially a dwarf and such an ask is almost certainly going to be directly important to the dwarves.

I think the ultimate end state of AV is basically "magical money maker" and it'll be amazing at that but any hope that AV would be transformative is essentially dead and we've basically no way to leverage CF or DF in day to day activities.

 

[Lampshade]

but any hope that AV would be transformative is essentially dead.

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Use it to develop a species of plankton that binds rampaging winds into AV:

The Everchosen uses End Times.
It's super effective!

The Elves are confused.
They hurt themselves in their confusion.

Panoramia uses magic-binding plankton.
It's super effective!

The Everchosen is confused.
"What was the landmass to ocean ratio again? OH FU-"

Everchosen fainted.

 

[LightLan]

Research wise yeah, but it is an endless source of Runelord favor, trouble is we cannot really think of anything to do with that either. Part of me just wants to hand them 10 gallons of it free next purchase round, just so it will be put to good use and not just left to stew in barrels.

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I am certain our colleagues from the colleges will ask for some as soon as we publish our AV paper, preliminary or finished.

Strange things are catnip to wizards.

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

Honestly, I refuse to believe the magical, never seen before, liquid essence of the warp has zero uses or applications.

There are secrets to be unlocked here, same as with windherding, and we should not be shy about travelling down both research trees.

It's been pointed out that Teclisian theory is an incomplete understanding of how magic works, and both windherding and AV don't align nicely with it. If we can use that to lay the foundations of a non-Teclisian paradigm, with the resources and support of the colleges, think of what good that would do. Imagine a new breed of imperial wizard, using original magics that are not dependent on some elf's high school "magical warfare 101" textbook.

You want to beat Teclis and Nagash at their own games? Then invent a new magic system.

 

[SuperSonicSound]

Honestly, I refuse to believe the magical, never seen before, liquid essence of the warp has zero uses or applications.

There are secrets to be unlocked here, same as with windherding, and we should not be shy about travelling down both research trees.

It's been pointed out that Teclisian theory is an incomplete understanding of how magic works, and both windherding and AV don't align nicely with it. If we can use that to lay the foundations of a non-Teclisian paradigm, with the resources and support of the colleges, think of what good that would do. Imagine a new breed of imperial wizard, using original magics that are not dependent on some elf's high school "magical warfare 101" textbook.

You want to beat Teclis and Nagash at their own games? Then invent a new magic system.

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There were secrets to be plumbed, but we collectively chose to lock them away because the side of the equation you're talking about that Teclisian theory doesn't mesh well with is divine casting.

Also I'm not saying it has no uses, just that they aren't revolutionary/transformative. A cheap source of energy for runic or arcane magic seems to be all thats on offer.

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

There were secrets to be plumbed, but we collectively chose to lock them away because the side of the equation you're talking about that Teclisian theory doesn't mesh well with is divine casting.

Also I'm not saying it has no uses, just that they aren't revolutionary/transformative. A cheap source of energy for runic or arcane magic seems to be all thats on offer.

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The part of divine magic research we locked away was using it to identify and expose the Gods, and besides, Teclisian magic fails to explain lots of things outside of Divine Magic; Qhaysh, Elementalism, Damsels, the Waaagh, and Yin-Yang, just to name a few of the top of my head. We can still develop a non-teclisian understanding without touching divine spellcasting.

 

[Glau]

At this point we are better off starting to share the stuff so other wizards can start their own research with their own ideas. We've got the benefits we can put of keeping it secret, now we reap the reputation and political gains we can get from publishing and giving samples to the people we like.

Much like the skaven stuff, but this time maybe we can use access to it as a lure to get magisters begging to join WEB-MAT.

 

[SuperSonicSound]

The part of divine magic research we locked away was using it to identify and expose the Gods, and besides, Teclisian magic fails to explain lots of things outside of Divine Magic; Qhaysh, Elementalism, Damsels, the Waaagh, and Yin-Yang, just to name a few of the top of my head. We can still develop a non-teclisian understanding without touching divine spellcasting.

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No we locked away everything related to the divine with AV and that included experimenting with making AV into Ranald god energy and seeing if we could do anything else with it.


Qhayish is high magic.... How exactly do you think the Elven paradigm doesn't explain that again? Unless you mean the colleges don't have any understanding of it in which case fair point.

You know what else we don't have that all of those options you listed require? A source of them to work with and experiment with. Sure plenty of things exist that could in theory enable Mathilde to gather insights into them, what they aren't is in her workshop/lab where she can try to dissect them and they have have absolutely no bearing on AV because AV doesn't transform into them.

Any way the problem with saying "Create a new magical system" is that unless we can remove arcane marks it's impossible the Ulgu arcane marks are permanent and mean we never do magic in a different way again with out creating dhar. Clearly not a problem for Nagash when he can go "Ah yes Dhar the fuel for my spells" bit more of problem for Mathilde.

 

[Mopman43]

The part of divine magic research we locked away was using it to identify and expose the Gods, and besides, Teclisian magic fails to explain lots of things outside of Divine Magic; Qhaysh, Elementalism, Damsels, the Waaagh, and Yin-Yang, just to name a few of the top of my head. We can still develop a non-teclisian understanding without touching divine spellcasting.

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Even if Teclisian Theory as the Colleges know it doesn't go into High Magic, I would assume the High Elves have a pretty good understanding of it.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

I think AV still has great use in enchantments, might have a use in powerstones, and definitely has military applications.

I could be wrong, but thats why you look.

And for the people that never were interested in AV, that's completely fair.

But Someone is just salty as shit about not getting the thing they wanted most (Divine AV), has even admitted at points that they are just salty as shit.

like, I don't really like calling out, but when you have called out 'AV is a Dead End!' just because your pet choice was voted against. That's a bit of a bad look. Especially when the other AV voters back that pick over the thing they wanted more (Enchantments or Powerstone mostly), zero sense of thread comradery there. 'thank you for the help! but I had my go, wasnt happy, so fuck you your not getting your chance lets move on to the next thing!'

 

[IronFist]

"I've no doubt," he says slowly, "that your manling craft has uses for the substance. But every drop you could spare would be of great value to the descendants of Thungni."

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We haven't even tried to use it for our Craft.

We're not writing it off before we do.

 

[SuperSonicSound]

I think AV still has great use in enchantments, might have a use in powerstones, and definitely has military applications.

I could be wrong, but thats why you look.

And for the people that never were interested in AV, that's completely fair.

But Someone is just salty as shit about not getting the thing they wanted most (Divine AV), has even admitted at points that they are just salty as shit.

like, I don't really like calling out, but when you have called out 'AV is a Dead End!' just because your pet choice was voted against. That's a bit of a bad look. Especially when the other AV voters back that pick over the thing they wanted more (Enchantments or Powerstone mostly), zero sense of thread comradery there. 'thank you for the help! but I had my go, wasnt happy, so fuck you your not getting your chance lets move on to the next thing!'

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My dude you're pointing some rather heavy artillery at me here when I said literally the opposite of what you're claiming now.

given how long I pushed for Ulgu tongs and the way that turned out though I wont get in the way of some one wanting to do that research action.

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But okay, it's purely because I'm "salty as shit" and has nothing to do with taking time and sober reflection of the possibilities, i'm just mad k. I mean wow.

 

[The Void]

I do agree with the fact that it is hasty to immediately presume that AV is a dead end, but at the same time, I do also agree with the fact that it is a laborious undertaking. Though considering the sheer timescale of the Waystone Project I don't think there would be a huge issue to get AV involved there as a sideproject, or to see if it is related to the Waystone in any capacity.

 

[SuperSonicSound]

I mean if people want to spend two ap to bop the AV and check its ability for use in enchantments im happy to do it.

My expectations are easy/renewable source of powerstones and no benefit for enchantment. I think AVs avenues of research are basically exhausted. The military option for AV is something im not sure of, but when it originally came up the most likely answer was something dhar related.

 

[henkalv]

I just imagine Boney been sitting on awesome AV grenades that can just delete greater deamons for most of the quest, and the whole thread is going "weaponizing is pointless"

It just tickles me.

I figure the option wouldn't be there if there was absolutely nothing there, but AP hell makes me reticent to actually vote for it. And just pouring all the AV into the dwarven war machine seems like a pretty good investment for the betterment of the world all on its own anyway.

 

[A_Somebody]

Yeah regarding AV I honestly want to just publish and start chucking gallons of it at anyone who'd be willing to dedicate the time to do something with it. It's theoretically cool, but to me it seems like we're just letting it gather dust.

 

[Lampshade]

I think AVs avenues of research are basically exhausted.

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There was a discussion a few hundred pages back about how a lot of what we considered solid science 200 years back seems hilarious now. 200 years back the Empire didn't even have Colleges. You never know which path will be paradigm-changing if you don't try.

We could ask Dragomas to send a barrel to get examined in Cathay

Also, didn't the Eonir have a waterfall that resembled AV that they were happily crafting into stuff?

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

Even if Teclisian Theory as the Colleges know it doesn't go into High Magic, I would assume the High Elves have a pretty good understanding of it.

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As I understand it, Teclisian theory explicitly excludes Qhaysh from its model of how spellcasting works, that was an intentional design decision Teclis built into the theory. This was partly so that the elves would keep their monopoly on high magic, partly because it's difficult and dangerous for humans to learn, and partly because he didn't have time to teach it, what with the whole Storm of Chaos thing.

It's likely that one of the secrets we're aiming to get out of the Eonir is Qhaysh, and that'll be useful even if we can't personally use it—at the very least we'd be able to make countermeasures to it, which could be very important if Marienburg ever kicks off.

 

[LawsOfRobotics]

AV is basically now a dead end yes.

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A cheap source of energy for runic or arcane magic seems to be all thats on offer.

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This seems very pessimistic. AV was brought up in the context of super weapons like the Eye of Gazul:

"Are there any other apocalypse weapons you've been sitting on that you want to share with me?"

You think of the Aethyric Vitae, of the Liber Mortis, of the Second Secret of Dhar. "None ready for deployment," you hedge.

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While the Eye of Gazul was not originally envisioned as an army destroyer like it became when Algard and Kragg got involved it was still going to be a strategic weapon for breaking sieges.

In that context I think it makes a lot of sense to continue researching the AV and eventually try to weaponize it. While not all the research actions will pay off it doesn't make sense for Boney to give us a bunch of actions that end in a dead end with no hint towards that. It wouldn't be fun to write and it wouldn't be interesting for us to read. In the QMing style explanation there is this:

6) Earned Awesome
Another one learned from tabletop roleplaying. Having a heavily optimized character that can break a quest over their knee right out of chargen gets old very quickly. Having a long-running character that's fought for every advantage that can do so because they earned it is immensely satisfying. Having to work and sacrifice for something makes it more meaningful when you eventually get it than if it's just given to you. This is part of why new traits happen at the end of arcs, why Vitae took a lot of study to get it to a point where it had a value (and it's still not tapped out), and why it takes more than eyeballing a God to unlock the secrets of the Divine. There's also the believability side of it: If it was easy, someone else would have done it already.

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Which specifically gives the AV as an example of something that can be an awesome moment if enough time is spent to earn it. I don't even really want Boney to chime in here because that would feel like promising to give us something, but this negativity about AV doesn't make sense to me and doesn't fit with my expectations based on how the quest has gone so far.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

With so much of the League in custody, you've got plenty of chance to practice the arts of intrigue. You perform dozens of interrogations, then Mindhole the participants and interrogate them again. You turn them against each other, against the League, against their backers; you pull every scrap of information out of their head over and over and over. You engineer a phoney escape attempt, pretending to be in the previous Spymaster's employ. Then you engineer another, pretending to be in your own employ, and it's amazing how many of them would agree to become a mole in the League if offered their freedom - if it wasn't utterly dismantled, it'd be trivial to destroy it. You see their faces fill with desperate hope as they slip out of their cells and down the corridor, and see their expression fall as they run into a wall of Greatswords waiting for them.

After you've convinced three of them in a row that you're their long-lost and long-forgotten sister by using the details of their youth they told you before you Mindholed them, you realize you've reached the limits of what can be learned with a captive audience like this. But you've learned so much about what makes people tick, and what would make them break down.

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A reminder that early 20s Journeyman Mathy was a significantly nastier piece of work than 40-year-old Lord Mathy. she somehow de-hardened with time and trama.

by the end of that she was just pulling the wings off of insects just to see how they reacted. current Mathy would probably still do this if she had to, but only what she had to and feel bad about it.

 

[K von Carstein]

As I understand it, Teclisian theory explicitly excludes Qhaysh from its model of how spellcasting works, that was an intentional design decision Teclis built into the theory. This was partly so that the elves would keep their monopoly on high magic, partly because it's difficult and dangerous for humans to learn, and partly because he didn't have time to teach it, what with the whole Storm of Chaos thing.

It's likely that one of the secrets we're aiming to get out of the Eonir is Qhaysh, and that'll be useful even if we can't personally use it—at the very least we'd be able to make countermeasures to it, which could be very important if Marienburg ever kicks off.

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Isn't Qhaysh flat-out impossible for humans to use? It takes centuries for elves to learn, and they have much less risks (being elves and all) to get an arcane mark. I don't see how a human could learn all 8 Winds to Lord Magister level (the minimum to begin learning High Magic) then begin to master Quaysh. We don't live long enough for that, and humans would get an arcane mark well before that. Sure, Damsels can use multiple Winds, but the Laday likely allows them to cheat.

 

[Jyn Ryvia]

Isn't Qhaysh flat-out impossible for humans to use? It takes centuries for elves to learn, and they have much less risks (being elves and all) to get an arcane mark. I don't see how a human could learn all 8 Winds to Lord Magister level (the minimum to begin learning High Magic) then begin to master Quaysh. We don't live long enough for that, and humans would get an arcane mark well before that. Sure, Damsels can use multiple Winds, but the Laday likely allows them to cheat.

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The fay enchantress seems to be getting there, but she is THE Damsel, and might not be human(elf) or human anymore.

Fozzrik might have been closer than any human yet, but no one knows how he got as far as he did, or exactly how far that is.

not even Him.