Lopezelpesado
Space worm best worm.
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Reading the quest right now and I've gotta ask, was giving up research on the gods worth it? I was kind of disappointed by it.
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.
- Location
- Australia
I think Realm of the Ice Queen was the last major update? And that was before 2010.
Codex
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We haven't even pursued the Father path yet, so no way of knowing. We haven't even done the Apparition research either, and we got that much earlier. Sometimes whether something is "worth it" or not takes a very long time to get to.
I'm pretty sure that Realm of the Ice Queen was it yes. Even End Times completely ignored Kislev and burned it down before they did anything. At least they put some effort into Bretonnia as bad the effort turned out.
Ericwinter
Definitely not a Skaven Infiltrator
- Location
- America
Also, re-reading that scene, it seemed more that Milica dwarves and their different names for things, or lack of magical knowledge. Not sure that will hold as much true here.
Lopezelpesado
Space worm best worm.
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Well that doesn't help my disappointment, but the idea of mathilde being to busy opening a library to research the secrets of divinity is funny to me.
- Location
- Aotearoa
We sat on a slowly accumilating pool of Aethyric Vitae for what, maybe six, seven years? We've still not taken up a chance to head to Ulthuan, which has been open for a similar length of time. Tongs likewise took years to get to. It's probably better that the thread is able to eliminate some options that doesn't interest the collective.
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Ericwinter
Definitely not a Skaven Infiltrator
- Location
- America
On yeah, we've still got that open invitation, haven't we? Man, I hope we get to that at some point. Hanging with the shadow walkers would be cool. If, you know, Mathilde ever needs rapid intrigue and martial training.
Codex
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Problem with that is that Karag Dum caused a level of exhaustion about Adventure Arcs. The thread had to recover a bit before they would vote for another big investment like Karag Dum. Even this smaller series of mini arcs is already creating fatigue in some voters such that some people voted to finish things up solely to get back to regular turns.
Ericwinter
Definitely not a Skaven Infiltrator
- Location
- America
Yeah, I don't expect it to happen until the end of the Waystone Project—or at least a really good middle point—minimum, and then only if we don't keep getting involved in little mini adventures like this. Still, it's a nice eventually to hope for.
I had an actual showerthought today (okay, I was brushing my teeth, but same thing).
I was trying to work out how apprentice Mathilde adopted a black kitten when she wasn't allowed outside the college, when I realised that there's probably a ton of cats living within the secret hiding places of the college. And if that's true, then Mathilde is probably not the only grey to secretly adopt a cat, but it's something fairly common, but everyone thinks they are special because they keep it hidden from each other.
And since we all know that cats+secrets=Ranald, that means that Ranald, in his aspect as the Father, probably guides kittens to lonely apprentices who have been cast out and rejected by their families in order to make them feel less lonely.
TL;DR Ranald adopts lonely apprentices.
I was trying to work out how apprentice Mathilde adopted a black kitten when she wasn't allowed outside the college, when I realised that there's probably a ton of cats living within the secret hiding places of the college. And if that's true, then Mathilde is probably not the only grey to secretly adopt a cat, but it's something fairly common, but everyone thinks they are special because they keep it hidden from each other.
And since we all know that cats+secrets=Ranald, that means that Ranald, in his aspect as the Father, probably guides kittens to lonely apprentices who have been cast out and rejected by their families in order to make them feel less lonely.
TL;DR Ranald adopts lonely apprentices.
You know, up until fairly recently my opinion of Kislev was that it's a miracle they haven't been wiped out by Chaos. After looking into them and realizing it's basically 'what if we took history's best light cavalry and history's best heavy cavalry and put them on the same side and gave them bears and General Winter', I'm starting to wonder how Chaos hasn't been wiped out by them.
Ericwinter
Definitely not a Skaven Infiltrator
- Location
- America
So… the daughters are Mathilde and Eike?
…I mean, looking at the Chaos Undivided campaign in Total War, I'm kinda with you there.
Though realistically, it's probably just because Kislev can't actually invade the deep Chaos Wastes either. Broken reality is probably just as bad as General Winter.
The alternative, of course, is that the Gray College is a breeding ground for displacer beasts.
Codex
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Well, Age of Sigmar introduces another possibility. In there, Tyrion, Teclis and Malerion (Malekith except he's fused with Seraphon his dragon and bound to the Wind of Ulgu so he became the God of Shadows) managed to seal Slaanesh in a prison that greatly limited his abilities and sent his followers into a disorganised frenzy.
Not sure we can try to replicate that. Tyrion, Teclis and Malerion plotted that trick for centuries and they're all Gods in Age of Sigmar.
It's been pointed out before that most aspects of Ranald - all but the Gambler - are things that naturally fit the Grey College. What, then, do the secret Ranald cultists in the Grey College actually do? What kind of activities they try to push, that the Greys aren't already doing? Cat rearing. Secret cult meetings are just apprentices meeting and trading cat stories.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
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- He
I think there's tiger beastmen in Ind, so there already are some.
Unrest in Ostermark, Part 5
[*] Ice Witches
You are staying right here in Rakhov, to offer your services to the local Boyar and to work alongside the Ice Witches.
Tally
You are staying right here in Rakhov, to offer your services to the local Boyar and to work alongside the Ice Witches.
Tally
"My destination is here in Rakhov, to see the Boyar about the trouble in the Shirokij," you reply. "Can you take me to him?"
You see the worry in the Kovnik's eyes grow as he realizes that you are going to be a part of his life for more than the next few minutes. "The Boyar is currently meeting with the Hromada Ledyanoy Ved'ma," he says, and pauses there, clearly hoping this will dissuade you.
"Good," you say, dashing his hopes. "I had hoped to work with my northern colleagues on this matter."
He looks even more haunted. "Very well. Follow me."
---
The Boyar's fortress mostly consists of a set of walls and towers with a mustering ground within, and the fact that most of the towers give a clear view of the river's most fordable point harkens back to an age when Kislev and the Empire weren't quite as allied as they are today. The modest structure tucked into one corner is something that only diplomacy would lead you to label a proper keep, as it would struggle to measure up to the structure you built at the heart of your own fief. You have to remind yourself not to underestimate Kislev - these defences might be called wildly inadequate by the poorest of Hochland Barons, but each member of the rota this village would be able to muster would be the match of a Knight of the Empire.
[Rolling...]
The Kovnik leads you inside the hall, and within the central hall is a bearded man wearing the tall fur hat of a boyar and the golden sun medallion of the Cult of Dazh, and it is hard to tell through his layers of clothing whether he is well-muscled, well-fed, or both. Deep in conversation with him is an equally large and slightly familiar middle-aged woman who pays no attention to your entry, though the hawk on her shoulder turns immediately to fix you with a suspicious glare. You dig through your memories of your previous trip to Kislev, glad that you went over your notes recently to refresh your memory. "Dzień dobry Boyar Kirill, Ved'ma Milica. Greetings on behalf of the Empire."
The two of them turn to you and Johann and the Boyar looks you up and down, his brow furrowing. "Greetings to you... Lord Magister?" He looks to the Kovnik, who nods and says what you take to be confirmation that he's checked your papers. "What brings the Colleges of Magic to Rakhov?"
You resist the urge to breathe a sigh of relief that at least one of them speaks Reikspiel. "The disruption in the Shirokij threatens to spill across the Talabec, and besides that, the whole Old World is safer when Kislev is strong. I have come to lend my aid alongside the Hromada in this matter."
Milica groans and asks something that sounds rather strained, and the Boyar nods and replies in Kislevarin, and the Boyar looks even more concerned at her next words. "She says it is like if you hoped the Tzar would send an extra rota, and then three pulks and the Kreml Guard arrive. Do you know something that Kislev does not?"
Ljiljana must have really talked you up to her fellows. "The force moving through the Shirokij is using magic to shield itself from direct observation, but I have been able to pierce it for long enough to identify their origin. It is a warhost from Athel Loren."
The Boyar has no response to that, but from her grimace Milica recognizes 'Athel Loren'. She mutters something to him and recognition flares in his eyes. "The forest of Daemon-Elves and maddened spirits in the land of horses in bunting?"
Perhaps one could find a few technical faults with that description, but that phrase does capture the essence of the children of Athel Loren. "The very same."
"What purpose could they have in Kislev?"
"They are unpredictable. When they have appeared in the Empire, it has always been to bring destruction. Sometimes to us, sometimes to some threat within our borders we were not yet aware of."
The Boyar confers with Milica, who grunts and says a few short words. "Kovnik, send riders to Fort Jakova and to Gerslev and the oblast krugs, we muster at Resvynhaf. A boat to Zavstra, too. Milica," he says a few words in Kislevarin, and she nods and walks towards the doors, muttering to her hawk. "That will take word to the city. Did you and your man bring horses, Chief Witch?"
Johann bristles beside you at the title, which is a lot less respectful to Imperial ears than to Kislevite ones, but looks to you and calms at your lack of reaction. "We can keep pace."
"Then let us race Dazh, and see what sort of welcome we must bring to these far-travelled visitors."
---
In the Empire it can be a process of weeks to raise even a local militia, which is why in modern times the provinces rely more on their standing army in all but the direst of circumstances. Outside of the major cities Kislev has no standing army and relies entirely on its mounted levies, which many take to be a sign of poverty and primitiveness. As horns blow, riders muster, and the Boyar comments to you that the rota of Rakhov could have made Vitevo before dawn were they not giving time for word to reach Fort Jakova, you begin to realize the truth of the matter: that the people of Kislev are already a standing army.
The next morning the quiet of dawn is broken by the eerie howl given off by the 'wings' of the Winged Lancers of the Gospodar: a banner of feathers attached to the rear of their saddle that gives off an ululation that ripples through the air and the Winds alike, which rather piques your interest. Everyone that has spoken or written of Kislev at war mentions the howl of the Winged Lancers, and you can see why. At first you suspect enchantment, but as careful a study as one can make on the march later you realize that it is an enchantment only in the most technical of senses, in the same way that a lever is a machine. The product of centuries of tradition and bloodshed have created something that simply exists as much in the ethereal realm as it does in the physical, and when dragged through the ethereal at great speed and in great numbers creates a reverberation that is as unsettling to the soul as the howl of the wings is to the ears. You spend the rest of the day trying and failing to find a way to expand that single sentence into something that justifies an entire paper on the subject, and eventually conclude that you might be able to accomplish it if you're able to personally witness the effect the charge has on sufficiently varied foes.
When the day's ride concludes at Vitevo, which proves to be a walled compound similar to many within Kislev with one key difference: the towers are on the outside. The salt mine within is where the convicted criminals of Kislev City are sent and from which many never emerge, and the small village clustered around its walls is apparently almost as dangerous as the barracks inside. Under normal circumstances, anyway. With a rota from Fort Jakova starting to arrive and several Ungol 'krugs' - nomadic Ungol communities from the oblasts - having already set up their camps and now loudly deriding the Gospodars for how long it took for them to get here, you doubt there'll be much trouble from the locals.
The next morning the rota of Voltsara and another krug have arrived, and nobody insults them by asking them if they're ready to start riding immediately. In another day the force arrives at the small town of Resvynhaf, notable for being where the spring of the Shirokij River emerges from the ground as well as where felled trees from throughout the Shirokij Forest are taken to be processed in its sawmills and sent on to Kislev. It is also, after generations of feeding Kislev City's appetite for lumber and firewood, several miles from the treeline.
"Boyar Kalashinivik - the Boyar of here in Resvynhaf and of the Shirokij villages - is said to be visiting Praag," Boyar Kirill says to you as he assembles a makeshift council of war. "And the Boyar of Fort Jakova has remained in Fort Jakova - unrest in the mountains, he says. So this remains my sole command." He grins at that. "Three pulks led by one Boyar. If nothing else, that will make the Tzar come."
"The Tzar comes, but the city boyars drag their feet," a nervous-looking Kovnik Loza translates for Milica. "His son leads the Kreml Guard here with as much speed as they can manage."
"Which is none," Kirill says with a snort.
"Yha. Gerslev will be here before Tsarevich."
"The ataman says that the Shirokij villages are besieged by some unknown force, it kills any that try to venture outside the walls, some have been killed in their beds. Only by sending multiple messengers at once was Ryazan able to get word through."
"On horseback?"
"Nie, on foot. Shirokij villages only have horses for pulling carts." The Boyar is almost able to keep the derision from his voice.
You'd be suspicious of that if you only knew the reputation of Athel Loren, but after having seen the control their more civilized cousins have over the woods, there's no doubt in your mind. "That has to be deliberate. No man on foot could avoid an Athel Loren picket in a forest. And isn't Ryazan on the river?"
"Yha, where the Shirokij River reaches the Talabec."
"They get word through a hundred miles of forest on foot, but can't get word twenty miles downriver to Bechafen?"
Kirill and Milica exchange looks, and Milica says a single word. "Trap," Loza translates.
"They might terrorize a village on their way through to doing something else," you reason, "but for them to be so inefficiently murderous... they are trying to draw someone in. Someone that would not know that Athel Loren is in their woods, and would simply think it is one more terror of the Shirokij."
"If Boyar Kalashinivik was here, honour would have demanded that he lead the rota in himself," Kirill says. "But he is gone, and the ataman had simply sent word to Praag to ask him what is to be done."
"Is that normal?" you ask.
He shrugs. "Some would call it deference, others cowardice. He sent word six days ago. Praag is..." he thinks, and confers with Loza in Kislevarin. "Five days, with remounts. Boyar Kalashinivik should arrive in four days."
Milica speaks again. "It is a trap," Loza translates, "but it is a trap for a mouse, and a bear is about to step in it."
Kirill nods. "When the Tzar gets here, every mustered man will be led into that forest to kill whatever he finds."
"How long will that take?" you ask.
"One day after the city boyars finally assemble their rotas. When that will be, I cannot say. Tomorrow? Next month? When the world freezes?" There's a series of Kislevarin comments from all three of them, and you catch enough of it to guess that what is being said is rather uncomplimentary about city-folk.
"So whoever arrives first of the Tzar and the Boyar will lead a force into the forest?" Kirill nods. "Would it be the whole force?"
"Even if it is Boyar Kalashinivik and I refuse to join my pulk to his, in the absence of their own Boyars, the other forces could choose to follow him instead of me. And they would. Enemies march on Kislev's soil."
"They'd lead an all-cavalry force into a forest?"
After Loza translates that, Milica begins to speak with even more firmness in her tone than usual. "This is not the Empire," Loza relays. "We do not have islands of civilization in an ocean of trees and beasts. We do not accept entire realms of enemies within what we call our borders. This is our land. All of it, our land. They must die for stepping upon it."
"And the Tzar has never backed down from a fight in his life," Kirill says, pride and exasperation warring in his tone. "So yes. There will be a red day before this week is out."
Boyar Kalashinivik will arrive in four days and Tzar Vladimir will arrive in two days at the soonest. The first to arrive will lead the gathered forces into the Shirokij. Each of the following preparations will take one day, and the two with the most votes will be chosen. You may or may not have the opportunity to perform further preparations after that point.
[ ] Bring in the Kreml Guard
Tsarevich Boris is leading the Kreml Guard, but they are travelling on foot on a dirt road and may not arrive in time for the battle. Kislev's forces actually having infantry would be helpful for a battle in a forest. Use Rite of Way to speed their journey.
[ ] Bring in Ice Witches
Currently, the only Ice Witch that is likely to be present for the battle is Milica. If you travel to Kislev City, you could bring in additional Ice Witches on Shadowsteeds. Milica says there are at least two and perhaps as many as five Ice Witches in Kislev City that would be able to respond and could meaningfully contribute to a battle.
[ ] Bring in the Tzar
Tzar Vladimir is on his way and bringing the very many rotas of Kislev City with him. It might be preferable for him to get here first, and would definitely be preferable for him to get here knowing who his enemy is going to be. Travel to Kislev City, tell him all you know, and tell him he needs to get moving or he'll miss the fight.
[ ] Find the Boyar
For some reason, the Athel Loren forces seem to be trying to lure in Boyar Kalashinivik and his rota. Boyar Kalashinivik should be somewhere on the road between Praag and Kislev. Intercept him and see if you can figure out what this is all about.
[ ] Investigate the missing leyline
The Waystone Nexus in Gross Selon seems to be set up to receive energy from Kislev City, but currently nothing is coming through. Investigate where the leyline should be between Resvynhaf and Kislev City to see if it is still flowing out of Kislev City, because if it is, then it is being intercepted somewhere in the Shirokij.
[ ] Scout the Shirokij
Of the forces here, only you would have any chance of moving unseen through the Shirokij. Use this to try to scout the enemy.
[ ] Other (write in)
- There will be a two hour moratorium.
- If anyone is playing along at home, I'm mostly using the map of Kislev from Realm of the Ice Queen, but with a few extra settlements on the border from one of the fan-made maps.
- Yes, it's Tzar with a Z and Tsarevich with an S. Blame GW.
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I think we should look into that Waystone, that was what clued us in to begin with and if that is not connected with the army of elves and spirits out there I would be shocked. Waystonnes have a lot of power in them and the Asrai likely have the lore to tap them. We do not want to get hit in the face with a leyline's worth of power.
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Its a dumb idea and isn't an option anyway because meta gaming, but I almost want to go in swinging that acorn we have.
Just grab a fox or something and the acorn and go in saying "fuck off or I'll feed it the acorn don't think I fucking won't!"
Just grab a fox or something and the acorn and go in saying "fuck off or I'll feed it the acorn don't think I fucking won't!"
- Location
- France
I think we should bring in the Kreml Guard. Talking to the Boyar seems useful, but we might not get lucky with a familiar Ice Witch to hype us up as we arrive and smooth our arrival. Talking to the Tzar seems politically risky (we'd be telling fight-guy to hurry up, which is either rude or stupid if he has a valid reason to be slow). However bringing in the Kreml Guard will be a noticeable improvement to our actual combat capabilities, a massive improvement to our ability to actual search and control and defend forested land, and of course it reduces the odds of them being harassed by elves on the way while our forces are separated.
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