Her robe would be an absolute nightmare to animate when doing acrobatic moves. Sniktch gets that stuff but he doesn't actually have dangling pieces, and they can probably take liberties with the movement because he's not human. If we were to take Mathilde's training and sword style, I think it's important to remember who taught her/what her style originates from. Markus taught her how to use a mundane greatsword from the perspective of a mundane, if exceptionally skilled human. She then honed her skills with the Order of the Guardians defensive, grounded style. It's only lately that she's been branching out because of the high magic stuff that she's getting involved in, but most likely she'd have form perfect attacks. Quick, efficient, brutal, lacks in style.
If Mathilde finished her Branalhune fighting style, maybe that'd change. For now she has to settle with fighting like a regular person.
Point, then it would probably would be a case that Mathilde's sword swings and the like are fairly simple with maybe a few fancy animations to represent her disappearing sword trickery. For the more complicated eye catching animations they'd probably lean on her shadow, having it lash out as part of her animations in an erratic and unnatural fashion.
What makes you think that? Mathilde is not a ranged unit primarily. She might be a hybrid unit, but her trump card is and has always been her sword. It's one of her defining traits by now.
Pretty much, Mathilde in TW would be a hybrid Caster/Assassin. Her primary purpose is to use her spells to support her army while she targets enemy characters with the intent of murder death killing them, preferably while they are isolated.
Branalhune would have what a lot of weapons have and have a self buff ability on a cooldown that would give her a monster steriod that could theoretically allow her to slaughter single targets in very short order. Way I see it is that it gives her massive weapon strength and powerful armor sundering effects. Basically when she pops the buff and attacks a character no amount of defense will stop her attacks.
So, the way you would have to play this as an animator is to give up on the idea of flips and rolls for the acrobatics- not parkour footwork but aikido- and instead focus on spins. Sidestep and spin with the sword, spin and vanish with a puff of smoke and a spray of knives, ride a rearing shadowhorse around in a tight circle while lashing out in big sweeping strikes with her sword.
So, the way you would have to play this as an animator is to give up on the idea of flips and rolls for the acrobatics- not parkour footwork but aikido- and instead focus on spins. Sidestep and spin with the sword, spin and vanish with a puff of smoke and a spray of knives, ride a rearing shadowhorse around in a tight circle while lashing out in big sweeping strikes with her sword.
Thinking about the match up with Moonclaw.... it should be pretty hard for the Mathilde player in a duel because the Son of Morslieb does not get his defenses from armor so there is nothing to sunder.
I feel like any duel between Mathilde and moonclaw would be a mid-range thing, him trying to keep her within his aura but himself outside of Branulhune's arc, Mathilde responding with her shadow and pistols and shadowknives
I apologize for any inconvenience, but I'd really appreciate it if anyone could give me the directions to something in-quest.
Where did we get the breakdown of Skaven hierarchy and stuff? With how they jockey for position. I get the gist of it, the sentiment being similar to how a Triumvirate has some form of balance. But I'd like to be able to look through it, because I remember it walking it up to 13. Wasn't that Peace as well?
I hope that makes sense, and again I'll welcome any help.
I apologize for any inconvenience, but I'd really appreciate it if anyone could give me the directions to something in-quest.
Where did we get the breakdown of Skaven hierarchy and stuff? With how they jockey for position. I get the gist of it, the sentiment being similar to how a Triumvirate has some form of balance. But I'd like to be able to look through it, because I remember it walking it up to 13. Wasn't that Peace as well?
I hope that makes sense, and again I'll welcome any help.
"Three is peace," Qrech said, as if that explained everything, turning over the wooden figure in his claws. It was quite a good depiction of an Ogre of some sort, one of many of the carvings that have been accumulating as Qrech entertains himself gnawing his wooden blocks into shapes, and you'd introduced more and more shelves into the room to keep them safe from the puppy Skufit, who apparently sought to emulate his master in gnawing on wood.
"What do you mean?" You ask patiently, and wait for him to finish delicately nipping at a noticed imperfection.
"Rune of Skaven. Three sides, yes? Three means stability. Even if one is weak, neither of the other two can move against it without exposing themself to attack from each other. Skryre attacks and wins, Eshin attacks weakened Skryre, takes everything. Eshin attacks and wins, Skryre attacks weakened Eshin, takes everything. Only way for anyone to gain is all three against the surface."
"So, when Clan Moulder was taken out..."
"Four is feed. Strongest eats the weakest, other two can't get involved because if one moves the other will jump on them. Moulder was strongest, Mors was weakest. Grot-brained leader should have kept attacking Mors. Instead, attacked up. Thought it was four, Moulder-Mors-Dwarf-Orc. But Moulder in the middle. Orcs can't see Mors, Mors can't see Orcs. So instead, two threes - Moulder-Mors-Dwarf, Moulder-Orcs-Dwarf. Moulder attacks Dwarf, Mors attacks Moulder, Orcs attacks Moulder. No more Moulder." He peers down at the Ogre, and places it gently atop the table. "One is freedom. Two is war. Five is plot, two and two but neither can move on the one without the other two attacking them. If the one joined either side, they only get one third of the spoils. But if they stay neutral, bribes forever from both sides. Six is chance. Two and two and two is peace, but three and three is war, who knows which happens first? Beyond that..." He shrugs. "More complicated. Many theories. Many arguments. We know thirteen is best, but nobody agrees on why."
"So if one of the other Clans was removed..." you muse aloud.
I apologize for any inconvenience, but I'd really appreciate it if anyone could give me the directions to something in-quest.
Where did we get the breakdown of Skaven hierarchy and stuff? With how they jockey for position. I get the gist of it, the sentiment being similar to how a Triumvirate has some form of balance. But I'd like to be able to look through it, because I remember it walking it up to 13. Wasn't that Peace as well?
I hope that makes sense, and again I'll welcome any help.
With your side project being promoted to your main responsibility, you spend a fair bit of time deciding whether or not to alter your approach, but in the end decide against messing with something that's working. Qrech seems to be a patriot in his own way, but to Clan Moulder first and foremost, with other Clans barely ranking above Traitor Clans. According to one theory in the Grey College, the best approach to lying is to do so as little as possible, so that the truth in the small details can reinforce a single, central lie. So in your regular meetings with Qrech, you mention that Clan Skryre seems to be holding back against Clan Mors, and Clan Eshin isn't attacking at all, all of which is true and supported by the documents from Clan Mors he has been translating.
"Three is peace," Qrech said, as if that explained everything, turning over the wooden figure in his claws. It was quite a good depiction of an Ogre of some sort, one of many of the carvings that have been accumulating as Qrech entertains himself gnawing his wooden blocks into shapes, and you'd introduced more and more shelves into the room to keep them safe from the puppy Skufit, who apparently sought to emulate his master in gnawing on wood.
"What do you mean?" You ask patiently, and wait for him to finish delicately nipping at a noticed imperfection.
"Rune of Skaven. Three sides, yes? Three means stability. Even if one is weak, neither of the other two can move against it without exposing themself to attack from each other. Skryre attacks and wins, Eshin attacks weakened Skryre, takes everything. Eshin attacks and wins, Skryre attacks weakened Eshin, takes everything. Only way for anyone to gain is all three against the surface."
"So, when Clan Moulder was taken out..."
"Four is feed. Strongest eats the weakest, other two can't get involved because if one moves the other will jump on them. Moulder was strongest, Mors was weakest. Grot-brained leader should have kept attacking Mors. Instead, attacked up. Thought it was four, Moulder-Mors-Dwarf-Orc. But Moulder in the middle. Orcs can't see Mors, Mors can't see Orcs. So instead, two threes - Moulder-Mors-Dwarf, Moulder-Orcs-Dwarf. Moulder attacks Dwarf, Mors attacks Moulder, Orcs attacks Moulder. No more Moulder." He peers down at the Ogre, and places it gently atop the table. "One is freedom. Two is war. Five is plot, two and two but neither can move on the one without the other two attacking them. If the one joined either side, they only get one third of the spoils. But if they stay neutral, bribes forever from both sides. Six is chance. Two and two and two is peace, but three and three is war, who knows which happens first? Beyond that..." He shrugs. "More complicated. Many theories. Many arguments. We know thirteen is best, but nobody agrees on why."
"So if one of the other Clans was removed..." you muse aloud.
This one for sure. It's not just good for the problem at hand, but the Ice Witches have a piece of the Waystones puzzle that possibly nobody else has. Building that connection further is a good way to further our chances of eventually looping them into the project in some capacity.
This one for sure. It's not just good for the problem at hand, but the Ice Witches have a piece of the Waystones puzzle that possibly nobody else has. Building that connection further is a good way to further our chances of eventually looping them into the project in some capacity.
That is fair and I am voting for this as well, but I have seen concerns that it might seem odd to go to them when we do not know anything from the Imperial side.
Longshanks. Strike while the iron is hot. Get a read on the situation from the Imperial side from a group we just worked with. We can reach out to the Ice Witches next to check on the other side of the border.
That is fair and I am voting for this as well, but I have seen concerns that it might seem odd to go to them when we do not know anything from the Imperial side.
What we'd be taking to them is the fact that we *can* learn things on the Imperial side, without it being a whole mess of them needing to go through diplomatic channels to get official approval to obtain an International Visiting Witch Official Priestess Actually visa and etc., etc. As has been noted in the text, the Kislevite side of the border is presumably just as restricted on knowing what's going on with the Imperial side as vice-versa. Being somebody they know they can work with who has the legal authority and a relevant skillset for investigating this is inherently valuable from their perspective whether we currently have any intel already or not. We'd be offering to work with them to develop and share intel on the Imperial side of the border to complement what they've pieced together on their side, basically, because they very likely don't have anyone else who's offering to do that for them or that they're in a good position to ask to.
The problem with the Ice Witch thing is that if we want to get the Kislevite side, then it would be better to go to Boris or the Hag Witches. Liljana said this about Beastmen:
If the Ice Witches were particularly influentatial in the forests then they would know a bit about Beastmen. This seems to imply to me that the Ice Witches are more focused towards the Oblasts and wastes and Chaos in the North, and leave the Forests in the South to the Hag Witches who coordinate with the Ostermarker and Ostlander Hedgewise.
I want to get Kislev's support, but I'm a bit dissapointed Hedgewise and Boris are so low.
It's a good thing an update is coming. I've been spending so long considering all the different options for what we're facing that my imagination is getting wilder and wilder. I need evidence to narrow down the options and pare them from the more ridiculous fantasies.
The latest one was Orion busting down the trees like the Kool-Aid Man and causing chaos for the hell of it.
So with longshanks picked, hedgewise is out the window as far as I'm concerned. They my not be the witch Hunter Longshanks, but they are stil not a group that will play nice with the illegal magic people.
Boris or the ice witches make the most sense next, tho it's possible that the Shanks local knowledge might add more people to the list, like example, the areas border wardens on both sides.
[*] Longshanks Gratitude expires quickly, so you might as well make use their good graces while you have them. In Ostermark they're primarily guardians of shrines and pilgrims rather than Witch Hunters, but they'd still have a good idea of what's going on deep in the forests.
Going to the Longshanks means going to the Taalites, and that means going to the heart of Taal worship in Ostermark: a stone circle just outside the town of Gross Selon, about fifty miles west of Bechafen. Though a path from the road is kept clear and the area inside the circle is hard-packed dirt, the vegetation has otherwise been allowed to grow wild, and most of the stone circle is coated in vines and shrouded in branches. But not all: the three primary obelisks, each twice as large as the rest of the circle, are clear of vegetation. Ancient runes in a language you don't recognize are proudly visible, glowing in a light invisible to mundane sight.
"Lady Magister, Magister," greets a deeply tanned man in robes that mark him as one of the most powerful men within the Cult of Taal, who appears to have been waiting for you. "I am Dobromir, Taal's High Priest of the East. You have questions for the Cult of Taal?"
"I have one question, your Grace. What's going on in Ostermark for it to be so riled up?"
He nods, apparently having expected your question. "Many have asked this of the Cult of Taal recently, and I can only tell you what I have told all the others: whatever power is active here has the ability and the desire to keep their actions unseen."
"These actions take place in Taal's domain."
"And that they are still hidden is why so many are concerned." He nods to you. "You asked to see the Longshanks, and I can see why you would think they would help. But the hierarchy of the Longshanks makes that difficult - there has not been a Guardian of the Greifwald for generations, and ever since these woods have fallen under the authority of the Guardian of the Schattenwald, whose attentions are focused on Ostland. The Longshanks here are all but independent, and act according to their immediate concerns only." A fact that the Hochlander's reports highlighted for you, and it also included that High Priest Dobromir has been one of the loudest voices pushing for the Guardian of the Greifwald to be restored. These events are, perhaps, a good demonstration of why that should be the case, but that also means that he has a vested interest in ensuring that you find the local Longshanks to be of no help.
"I appreciate that, your Grace, but nevertheless I would ask you use your authority to summon those who may have encountered the spoor of whoever or whatever is at work here, so that we of the Colleges may seek it out, as is our prime concern and purpose."
He considers you for a long moment. Your citing of the Articles would be very easy to argue as improper for this specific scenario, as the Longshanks are neither a civil authority nor Sigmar's Templars, but it's a point the Taalites are loathe to make. The Templars of Sigmar have desecularized quite a bit since the time of Magnus and as such the other Cults have been pushing quite strenuously and for quite some time for their own Templars to be recognized as their equal. "The Cult of Taal always stands ready to support the Empire," he eventually says. "I will summon the Longshanks to you, that you may see for yourself what strangeness lurks in the corners of the Greifwald."
You give him a grateful bow, and he nods to you and sweeps out of the stone circle to confer with his assistants. Johann sighs. "Politics. I thought the Taalites would be above all that."
"Only the dead are free from politics," you say, "and even that needs a careful asterisk or two, with Sylvania just south of here." Johann nods, his head turning automatically to look southwards, towards one of the larger obelisks.
Then he frowns, and you step aside as he starts to very carefully orient himself until he stands at what you'd judge to be the centre of the stone circle. You follow Johann's gaze as he looks from one obelisk to another, and frown as you notice for yourself what must have grabbed his attention. "You can identify north, right?"
He nods, and points in the direction exactly opposite to the southern obelisk, and exactly a right angle from the western obelisk. "What's west and south of here?"
The first only takes a moment. "Talabheim is west," you say, "I'd have to check a map but I'm almost sure it would be. In fact, I'd bet that exactly west of you would be the Horn of Taal." You take a moment to focus your senses, and sure enough you can make out, deep below you, a dozen relative trickles of energy combining beneath Johann and being sent as one onwards to the west. "This is a Waystone nexus," you say. "Like the Horn of Taal and the Jade College. For some reason a lot of the Waystone network aligns with the cardinal and ordinal directions."
"It makes sense that this would be one," Johann said. "If it was up to me to find them, going to the Taalites and saying 'take me to your biggest, fanciest rocks' would be my first resort."
"But this is the end of the chain, there's only streams from individual Waystones coming here." That's why you didn't spot it until Johann brought your attention to it, you reason.
"Then why's there three of the big glowy rocks? What's south?"
You consult a mental map. "Some village, starts with K. South of that, Rhebulas, which is barely a town. And... oh. Mordheim. We're exactly north of Mordheim."
The two of you stare at the southern obelisk, and you quickly conclude that it's probably for the best that there's no longer a torrent of incoming energy from that accursed ruin. "Okay, I don't like that. What about..." Johann frowns at the north-eastern one, "about half a point east of northeast from here?"
"Not exactly northeast? Or east-northeast?"
"Definitely not. About fifty degrees east of north."
"Not Bechafen, then." You close your eyes as you try to dredge up maps you haven't closely studied recently. But Kislev being Kislev, there's not a huge amount of landmarks that it could be. "Kislev City."
Johann frowns at you. "I thought they were on board with the waystones?"
"So did I. The Tsarevich told me himself the Kislev City nexus, below the Bokha Palace, was active."
"So why's there nothing coming in from Kislev?"
"Good question."
---
As intriguing as the stone circle may be, you're here for a reason and poking at waystones isn't it. It takes some coordination with the Cult of Taal, but over the next few days you travel with various Longshanks to points of interest in northern Ostermark. Near the border with Talabecland, you peruse an ancient structure too overgrown to identify that the Longshanks have chased cultists of the not-quite-forbidden but quite disreputable Goddess Dark Helgis out of several times in recent weeks. You walk through the subdued town of Biersalhof, where the worship of Biersal is under close scrutiny to determine whether it has yet again drifted from its accepted confines as an aspect of Taal. You consider Goblin bodies being fished out of the Talabec upstream of Bechafen, too battered and waterlogged to determine whether they are Forest or Night or regular Goblins and whether they originated in northeast Ostermark, southernmost Kislev, or in the World's Edge Mountains around Karak Ungor. You have an unnerving conversation with an uncharacteristically canny Ogre leading a group of his fellows in the employ of Ostermark, who appears surprisingly cooperative despite his sobriquet of 'Maneater' and tells you at length in heavily accented Reikspiel about the unusually large pack of giant wolves his Ogres had chased down, defeated, and consumed. And many more concerning oddities who would be too minor to even care about if it weren't for the overall pattern they form: that something is seriously out of balance in the untamed corners of northern Ostermark.
By the end of it, you've travelled over every major road and through every town in northern Ostermark and acquainted yourself with everything that's currently going bump in the night loud enough to alarm a Taalite or Rhyan pilgrim. And individually, none of it justifies a fraction of the alarm and mobilization you're seeing all around you. You're tempted to write it off as mass hysteria just to be done with it, but these are Ostermarkers. They're a people used to life with Kislev and the Forest of Shadows on one side, Sylvania and Mordheim on another, and the World's Edge Mountains on a third. If they're worried, then there's probably a very good reason to be worried, and though you've yet to be able to connect the dots yourself, you're accumulating enough of them that you're pretty sure there are connections to be made.
[Mathilde's insight: Learning, 2+29=31.]
[Johann's insight: Learning, 57+18+10(Guest of Tor Lithanel)=85.]
"These are supposed to be the creepy kind of woods, right?" Johann says to you one afternoon in a Bechafen tavern, as you nurse an overpriced mug of Karak Kadrin ale and glare moodily at your notes.
"Supposed to be. I've been told they're considered part of the Forest of Shadows, which is about as creepy as it gets this side of Athel Loren."
"So where's all the creepiness?"
You wave a hand vaguely. "Out there somewhere. That's what we're chasing."
"I get that, but even in the really tame parts of Laurelorn you're always being glared at either from a tree or by a tree. I have been looking for it and there's just nothing out there. No spites, no spirits, no wooden spirit-golems, no overgrown and overly clever animals."
You consider that. "Talk about missing the forest for the trees," you sigh. "I've been so busy looking for the creepiness in the forest I never noticed there's no creepiness from the forest. Which would imply that either whatever it is that's active has scared the forest into passivity..."
"Or it is the forest."
"And by hiding what they're doing, they're also giving themselves away by hiding all the background creepiness of the forest."
"That's why everything's so stirred up without any cause. It's like an invisible steam tank just rolled through town. Nobody saw the tank itself, but everyone's deafened by the clanking and coughing from the smoke."
You nod. Forest Spirits, then. And not the arch and underdressed kind you get in Laurelorn, the kind that live in the darkest and deepest corners of the most sinister forests and water the roots of trees with the blood of men and beasts and plot vengeance upon anything that dares disturb what they see as the balance of nature. But... all this is supposition. Good supposition, but not the kind of thing you can drop in Paranoth's lap and call a job well done. You need to at least be able to attest that you've seen proof of that supposition, and you need to know what they're up to. Preferably before they actually achieve it. There's still quite a number of local sources of information you've yet to call on, but there's also an entire forest realm you've recently been getting to know who may be able to assist.
Local Sources:
[ ] Elector Count Wolfram Hertwig Chancellor Wolfram Hertwig has a reputation for being sensible, and if anyone would know what's going on in Ostermark, it would be him. But approaching him openly would make your presence here very official, which might get in the way.
[ ] League of Ostermark The trade league of Ostermark's nobility are likely to see you as a shareholder of the EIC first and a Grey Wizard second, but they more than anyone have a vested interest in peace and prosperity reigning over the Upper Talabec.
[ ] Morrite Witch Hunters While the citizens of every province of the Empire respect Morr, Ostermarkers revere him more than most, which means that Morrite organizations like the Order of the Shroud, the Dreamwalkers, and the Andanti fill the role of Witch Hunters in Ostermark where normally the Templars of Sigmar would hold sway. Get in touch with them and see what they might know.
[ ] The Ostermark Hedgewise The Hedgewise of Ostermark are a matriarchal mystery cult with ties to the Hag Witches of Kislev, and many of them are part of Kurtis Krammovitch's extended family. They have eyes and ears in the odd nooks and crannies of Ostermark, and are likely to know more of what's going on here than anyone with official authority. But they are unsanctioned magic-users, and dealing with them might be problematic.
[ ] Tsarevich Boris Bokha You've met him before, and he seems to have made it his business to solve problems that his more straightforward father can't or won't. Seek him out once more and see if he's interested in solving a source of unrest and disruption in the Southern Oblast.
[ ] Ice Witches You worked well with them previously, and though their influence within Kislev is currently at a low ebb, they'd have jurisdiction to investigate goings-on on the Kislevite side of the river.
[ ] From scratch It would not be easy to investigate the matter from scratch, but at least you'd be beholden to nobody. Better to investigate for yourself than to bind yourself to any other group before you have a good idea of what's going on here.
[ ] Other local source (write in)
Outside Assistance:
[ ] Queen Marrisith's suggestion Go right to the top. More Elector Counts thinking kindly of Laurelorn would be very much in her favour, and though she wouldn't come herself, she'd be able to name someone who would be able to help and has the authority to tell them to go.
[ ] Vicereine Cadaeth You're not entirely sure of her nature, but you're pretty sure that whatever she is, she has more insight into Forest Spirits than you do.
[ ] Lady Kaia 'Stormwitch' Fanmaris The Warden of Storms advocates peaceful relations with foreign powers, and has spent much of an Elven lifetime fighting the products of corrupted forests.
[ ] The Grey Lords You do not know of any beings with a superior track record at wrangling forest spirits than the Grey Lords. Ask for the most suitable of their number to assist.
[ ] Other (write in) Laurelorn is full of people and beings that it would be useful to know more about, and this would be a great pretence for that. Name a House, Cult, or inhabitant of Laurelorn, and the Queen will send them to assist.
- There will be a one hour moratorium.
- Only one option can win overall, not one from each category. They're separated for legibility only.
- It's up to you whether it's better to prioritize solving the mystery in front of you, or using this as an opportunity to get to know possible Waystone Project contributors.
