I guess so, but that really does feel like the issue of projecting the last war on the next one, specifically the rescue of Vlag. Personally I think it is more likely that the people of Kislev have noticed the issue with their own Waystone network before Imperials on the other side of the border.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- Fantasy Users' Choice!
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- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
I guess so, but that really does feel like the issue of projecting the last war on the next one, specifically the rescue of Vlag. Personally I think it is more likely that the people of Kislev have noticed the issue with their own Waystone network before Imperials on the other side of the border.
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
[X] Ice Witches
I prefer going to the Ice Witches here. Simply for the fact that, of people Mathilde has worked with, they're likely to be closer to the situation.
I prefer going to the Ice Witches here. Simply for the fact that, of people Mathilde has worked with, they're likely to be closer to the situation.
- Location
- Germany
I still prefer the Ice Witches, as I worry that convincing the people at Kislev City to care about this problem, rather than leave it to the local authorities, will take time and effort from Mathilde.
While the locals will already be interested in solving this without any work to convince them.
While the locals will already be interested in solving this without any work to convince them.
Kovnik is a rank used by the imperial Russia inspired "Khador" faction in Warmachine. I don't know where they got the word from, however.
The last time we mentioned beastmen to an Ice Witch, she simply wrote the whole thing off as Hag Witch business.
Don't be such a downer, think of the positives. What if the Tsar decided to 1v1 Drycha for bragging rights? Boris could start his revitalization much sooner
What if he decides that this is a good opportunity to send bears and start early anyways?
On a slightly more serious note, actual troops from Kislev are only a small part of going top down. The Boyars could be split on how to solve the issue or who should be in charge etc, issues that would all evaporate if Boris sent word that he wants this dealt with.
- Location
- Earth
I find that I always do better with a visual aid, so here's a rough overlay, building on the Winds of Chaos map:
Mathilde's daily shadowsteed range is about 250 miles, so I wouldn't worry too much about her traveling capabilities.
You're not wrong about the the local nobility having responsibilities, but local armies are built for local threats. If the scale of this threat is enough to threaten an entire province or a large region, then I would strongly suspect a larger force to be necessary, and that would only be found with central authority.
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And if some snot nosed princeling from the capital tells them to trust this weird shadow witch from the empire they might become even more split. We know very little about the politics of the country other than the fact that Boris presented himself as deeply influential with the Hags and Ice Witches, we do not know the extent to which that is true, much less do we know what sway he may have with the Boyars of the Southern Oblast. In going to him we would be betting that the central government is united and respected enough to do more harm than good in a reasonable span of time and than the prince himself is seen as a legitimate person to be handing out marching orders to the locals.
I find that I always do better with a visual aid, so here's a rough overlay, building on the Winds of Chaos map:
Kislev City is around 100 miles away straight north of Rakhov, and the Forest of Shadows (or woods contiguous with it) stretches from there westward straight into the Talabec for about 200 miles, at which point it reaches Ostland to the west and Ostermark to the south.
Mathilde's daily shadowsteed range is about 250 miles, so I wouldn't worry too much about her traveling capabilities.
You're not wrong about the the local nobility having responsibilities, but local armies are built for local threats. If the scale of this threat is enough to threaten an entire province or a large region, then I would strongly suspect a larger force to be necessary, and that would only be found with central authority.
How do you know it is threatening an entire region and how are we going to prove it? 'We smelled some very scary flowers in a vision once'? It feels like there is this pervasive disdain for politics and the notion that of course the locals are going to fall in line that simply does not to my mind match up with how feudalism works. This is not an existential threat of chaos it is fey in the woods, scary fey, but still they are not going to burn down the province and salt it with warpstone. I think we should give the people of Kislev the respect and consideration that their culture, society and mode of organization merits instead of imagining Mathilde as Gandalf in Rohan. Drycha is not Sauron.
The local nobles are going to be suspicious of us and they may well be suspicious of 'help from the capital'
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- Location
- Europa, Jupiter Orbit
If nothing else Boris is the official delegate of the Tsar. A Tsar that is simultaneously the de jure absolute ruler (I don't think Kislev has a constitution) and too lazy to do all the "tedious" parts of his job. So the boyars might drag their feet a little bit when the Tsarevich is involved, but if they didn't respect him at all and sabotaged every command then I don't think that Boris's father would hesitate to bash a few heads together extra hard just so that he doesn't have to deal with it again tomorrow.
tl;dr ~ The "snot-nosed princeling" is currently doing a lot of the ruling Kislev business and can make his enemies hurt.
My interpretation is that Boris is much loved by his people because he's willing to go out and talk to them, unlike his father who spends all day feasting and hunting with his generals.
He said that the "Kossars know that they are mine"—which I think means "the Kossars know they owe their loyalty to me, not to my father, the actual Tsar". I think having the seal of the crown prince would carry a lot of weight and positive influence, even in a mostly autonomous country like Kislev.
Boris was also born under lucky omens as declared by the hags, the Ice witches, and also the priests of Ursan I think? In Kislev they take that very seriously.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Priests of Ursun were not involved in the Omens thing, but he did say "Ursun knows me", likely hinting that he's already an influential figure in the church. He only took the trial to become High Priest after becoming Tzar, but he was clearly involved in the Ursunite faith before then.
How centralized is Kislev, how much is that de jure absolute authority worth? Like this is not France under the sun King, it is fantasy Russia pre-Peter the Great. We do not know what the rights and privileges of the Boyars look like, but we to know the Tsar is inattentive to his duties and his heir is trying to take over some of them, a situation which seems very likely to have local nobles shouting about overreach. Even if that does not lead to them ignoring him altogether (which I do not think is likely) it might well slow down the cohesion of a united defense
Yes he did say that, a fact for which we have no corroboration by anyone outside of himself. I think it is fair to assume some amount of bias when someone is talking about their own authority while trying to sell another party (in this case Mathilde) on said authority. It should be noted that the Kossars are Ungol and not the Gospodar Boyars. We are basically blind to the politics of this country and by bringing in the central government we would be making a major political move... also blind.
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- Location
- Tarn-Vedra
[X] Ice Witches
In theory, every single settlement owes fealty directly to the Tsar, as they don't have a formal feudal hierarchy like the Empire. In practice, there are villages that have literally never received an order from any Tsar in living memory, and boyars of large towns often exert authority over nearby villages, either on the basis of privileges granted generations ago or just because they are right there and the Tsar is far away. As long as taxes are paid and rotas are contributed in good time and in good order when called upon, any given corner of Kislev can avoid the attention of the Tsars for centuries.
But the one way that the system does function well is in calls to arms. Kislev wouldn't exist if it wasn't able to quickly recognize and mobilize against a major threat.
He was recommended to us by the Ice Witches, and to be honest I have no reason to believe that anything he said to us was said in bad faith. I don't understand why you think he lied about the reach and extent of his authority. Boris—both the one from DL and the one from canon—does not strike me as the sort of person who makes promises he can't afford. He is a man of action—he says something, and then he does it. Your interpretation of the character does not fit anything I've read.
Chlof
Her Ladyship
- Pronouns
- She/Her
до вдова высоко, до царя далеко
Or something like that.
- Location
- Earth
To be very clear, I didn't say 'there is a region wide threat,' I said 'If there is a region wide threat.' Mathilde doesn't have proof at this point on the exact nature of what's going on beyond 'something from Athel Loren,' but she should have very valid concerns over it.
To recap, Mathilde the 26 Piety hero detected the attention of all four Chaos Gods on a dark presence that could be traced hundreds of miles away. I think that is plenty of IC justification to feel some concern. As for the difference between scary fey and Chaos, I feel like that's a distinction we as players can easily make between two factions, but not one that would be readily apparent to the people of Kislev threatened by a clearly ominous and magical presence in their forest. Think back to Alkharad's College of Necromancy, and what standard procedure dicated then. I'd rate Alkharad below Drycha (or whoever this turns out to be), but it was still a significant threat with appropriate levels of alarm.
It's not like she wears 26 piety on her sleeve and the chaos gods are always watching Kislev, Mathilde is known to a very smell number of people in the country (most of them Ice Witches funnily enough). It should also be noted that this is not the empire, if we had told Kiselv of something like the College of Necromancy it would have been considerably harder and required more proof to be believed
That's not true at all, why would you even think that? Magic isn't distrusted in Kislev at all, so if Mathilde had gone to any authority figure with the same evidence she handed Algard, they would have been more inclined to believe her than the Empire would have.
I meant more if she had done so with just her eyewitness account of there being a college of necromancy, which is what we have in this case, our word no more and no less.
Mathilde has "Pulled Karak Vlag out of hell" on her CV, that's why Boris was so enthusiastic about the project. If she comes to him and says "using magical means I have determined that a powerful force from Athel Loren is active in the Shirokij" he's going to believe her.
Ericwinter
Definitely not a Skaven Infiltrator
- Location
- America
*Glances at the attempted institutional reform of Ranaldite worship, divinely gifted familiar, giant temple to Ranald that she built, and fucking Grudge declaring her as belonging to Ranald*
…You sure about that?
- Location
- USA
I thought the reason why he was so enthusiastic was not because what she did ("pulled Karak Vlag out of hell") but because of what the Waystone Project would've promised him, i.e, what she can do in the future. Restore Praag. Push back Troll Country. Expand Kislev's borders.
Anyone can promise anything, but there's a reason Boris thought Mathilde could actually deliver, and the reason Boris gave was Vlag:
We are a Lady Magister—we have been vouched for as trustworthy by the Grey Collage, by our Patriarch, by the Supreme Patriarch, and by the Emperor.
To doubt our word is to doubt them, and if we abuse our word, we abuse the trust they have placed in us. Accusing us of lying or fabricating evidence is a diplomatic incident, and if we do lie or fabricate evidence then we are borderline treasonous. We have the authority to mobilise armies, if necessary, provided that we have a really good explanation for the Elector who owns that army after the fact.
If we say "X is happening", then any reasonable authority figure is going to believe us—and if they don't, we cut them out of the picture and take charge ourselves. That's what being a lord magister means.
And I haven't even touched upon our personal reputation as the person who pulled castle drakenhof down to the foundations, who lead a multispecies army at the battle of Karak Eight Peaks, who identified and destroyed the college of Necromancy, who pulled a literally damned Karak out of hell.
If we say "You are being invaded by the crazy wood elves from Athel Loren" then by the gods we're going to be believed, especially in a culture where female magic users are automatically accepted as authority figures.
- Location
- USA
I wasn't paying too much attention to the thread at the time, but I think that was one of the reasons people didn't vote for Kislev: If Mathilde couldn't deliver that much with the results of the Project, she'd be boned, wouldn't she?