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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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The "use Deed on money" idea has been shot down by a lot of people already, but I just want to add that it feels like its breaking the spirit of the Vow of Poverty. Right now I feel our breaking of the Vow of Poverty is fine because we're spending so much of it on actually useful things. We're using our income as a tool in our arsenal, but we don't hoard wealth.

I feel if we wind up with more money than we can actually spend, that would cross the line of actually breaking the spirit as well as the letter of the Vow.
 
LadyLynn said:
I feel if we wind up with more money than we can actually spend, that would cross the line of actually breaking the spirit as well as the letter of the Vow.
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I don't think it is actually possible for Mathilde to have more money than she can spend. At any point she can simply take arbitrarily large amounts of money and drop it into one of the coffers labelled [Dame Weber's Fief] [Waystone Project] or [KAU]
 
And if all else fails she can donate it to the Shallyans, whose needs are as bottomless as the world's suffering is endless.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Even better, we could invest it in Karak Vlag, who need a lot of infrastructure rebuilding and are only slowly developing the connections to the outside world they need.
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I think this is the better option, to be honest. They probably need a lot of support.

And hey, if the debt of gratitude gets too big? We can just ask them to make us a big statue or something.

Or rename the hold Karak Web
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Even better, we could invest it in Karak Vlag, who need a lot of infrastructure rebuilding and are only slowly developing the connections to the outside world they need.
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On that note, I think we should get all the Bretonnian and Eonir books on Trade this turn. We may expand the EIC into Laurelorn, in which case the books would help enrich ourselves and avoid complications, but they'd also be good because we plan to partner with Karak Vlag. They'd benefit from access to more Trade books since it'd help them develop those connections to the outside world and build up their wealth.
 
mathymancer said:
I think Mathilde's relationship with the aspects or Ranald is a bit more nuanced than that. Protector and Deceiver are both "things I'm going to be doing anyway" but Protector is a goal and a cause while Deceiver is a tool. The goal was probably attractive to Mathilde because of her formative experience of almost being burned at the stake and also because of her Grey Wizard education, while the tool is attractive to her solely because of her being a Grey Wizard. Night Prowler has also been used by Mathilde as a tool - she doesn't steal stuff as a matter of principle because 'property is totally fake yo' as some Ranaldites do - but it's a tool that I don't think she would have used as heavily if not for her worship of Ranald, and I don't know that most Grey Wizards have as much of a connection with the Night Prowler as Mathilde (though the general sneakiness that is associated with that aspect is surely not uncommon).

That just leaves the Gambler. It has already been pointed out before that of all the aspects of Ranald it's the only one that doesn't really fall under the category of "thing's I'm going to be doing anyway", which I think is why she said

Since gambling is something she wouldn't be doing if not for her worship of Ranald it has a ritualistic significance that the other aspects don't, and if memory serves in the course of this quest whenever Mathilde wanted to "pray" to Ranald in a ritualistic fashion it was invariably through the use of gambling.

And of course, whenever the thread wants to pray to Ranald it is always done through the use of gambling rather than by, say, overthrowing corrupt governments.
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Mathilde gambles a lot with her life as a chip. The gambles are always calculated and stacked, but every capital g Gambler (as opposed to a gambling addict) knows very well that... this is how you gamble well. And I do not mean by cheating, I mean by calculating the cost-benefit of it and then choosing your ante.

Especially in card games.

Codex said:
n if we go our entire lifetime never cashing in our Great Deed, I'd be fine with it. Their wellbeing is more important than Mathilde's benefit.
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Normally, I would agree with you. Problem is, Dwarves feel a burning need to repay debts the same way they feel a need to avenge grudges. So finding something that won't hurt them would do them more good.
 
It's interesting that Mathilde's Ranaldian focus has shifted over time. At the start of the quest, we were explicitly a devotee of the Deceiver:
Boney said:
Ranald the Deceiver is the god of lies, illusions, luck and irony. He is a god of the common people, and most people in the Empire will invoke him when they need luck on their side. He's also the patron god of spies and Grey Wizards, and if that was all there was to Ranald it wouldn't just be acceptable but expected for you to venerate him. But Ranald has other guises.
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Boney said:
If you do enshrine Ranald the Protector as the patron god of the Watch, then you'd be doing is effectively attempting trying to force a fifth facet of Ranald in the public consciousness - that of Ranald the Revolutionary - and thus purge the Protector of the unsavory aspects. Normally this sort of thing would be very frowned upon by the God in question, but Ranald the Deceiver - your Patron - would find it hilarious. And who knows? Perhaps eventually it will be reflected in the God Himself.
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Boney said:
So are you a devotee of only Ranald the Deceiver? Or do you cleave to all of the faces of Ranald?
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But now, we're primarily Protector-aligned. It's obvious to see how this happened -- the K8P expedition and then Dum -- but I find it neat that it happened at all, and wonder to what degree Mathilde herself is aware of it (especially since her use of the Coin is Gambler >>> Deceiver = Night Prowler > Protector, and the temple she built in K8P is to the Gambler).
 
veekie said:
Its her Brave trait.
The part of Mathilde which weighs the odds and decides to commit or cash out.
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storryeater said:
Mathilde gambles a lot with her life as a chip. The gambles are always calculated and stacked, but every capital g Gambler (as opposed to a gambling addict) knows very well that... this is how you gamble well. And I do not mean by cheating, I mean by calculating the cost-benefit of it and then choosing your ante.

Especially in card games.
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I certainly agree that Mathilde does a lot of Gambling. What I'm saying is that I think a hypothetical secular Mathilde would still be Protector and Deciever and Night Prowler, but she would be much less of a Gambler.

Regarding the boon discussion, I'm fine with leaving Vlag alone for now. Let them rebuild, and if we have something to ask them that wouldn't hurt too much for them to give we can ask but there's now need to force it. There's been some talk of maybe using their Rhunkit to provide lighting fixtures that aren't fire hazards to our library, but I don't think we need a boon for that, just ask Belegar to pay them for their work.
 
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I also wanna bring up that doing magic Wizard stuff is sort of innately gambling with your soul.

Also I'm on board with leaving the Vlag boon be for now.
 
Orbmorb said:
And let some of the We move in
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It'd be an interesting logistical challenge getting We to Vlag.

Travel basically has to be by boat (better wait until the canal is finished), you need to bring an adult Egglayer to get the benefit of the socializing the We have gotten which means you need other We as well to protect and provide for it, food has to be live or at least fresh (Mookery of Death would definitely come in handy there).

It'd definitely be a trip.
 
Ideally the Favour should be something the Dawi of Vlag do but the funding comes from outside so the money goes into their economy via the workforce.

It's OK if we can't think of something now. They'll approve of giving it a few years careful consideration. They're still Dawi.
 
noliar said:
Ideally the Favour should be something the Dawi of Vlag do but the funding comes from outside so the money goes into their economy via the workforce.

It's OK if we can't think of something now. They'll approve of giving it a few years careful consideration. They're still Dawi.
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Even more ideally, the bulk of the manpower would be provided by humans with dwarves providing direction.

So something like an education uplift programme, or dwarves providing something like architectural design and constructing key pieces of equipment while humans do the lower skill bit for a large scale fortification project.

I suspect the dwarves of Karak Vlag have learned to value the Minimum Viable product in a way most other dwarves don't.

A real stretch goal would be to use the favour a bit down the line to get them to contribute to a joint Eonir-Empire-Karak Vlag infrastructure project. No real idea what that would be though. If the Eonir say, decided they wanted a defended port on the Sea of Claws while also cutting a canal from the Great North Road through the Schadensumpf to the Demst I could see Middenheim being interested in helping. Not sure why we would want to call on Vlag though.
 
Boney said:
People without the clearance to get at the juicy stuff and who don't pay attention to foreign affairs probably have a very strange impression of her - some kind of wandering academic with a very short attention span?
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How is that "very strange" when it's a completely accurate description? I mean, it's incomplete, but it's not inaccurate. Mathilde's ADHD vibes are very powerful.
Boney said:
Depends who you ask. A lot of Verenans say that Clio and Scripsisti are aspects of Verena, a lot of Cultists of Clio and Scripsisti say that they're separate Gods entirely, and then they each say that the other is encroaching on their God's territory and then everyone starts yelling at each other and pretty quick everyone learns not to ask that question at all.
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WE! DO NOT! TALK ABOUT THE ORANGUTANG DIVINE PORTFOLIO OVERLAP!
 
IronFist said:
Theoretically (if we manage it), the first proto waystones will be made for Kislev. Maybe the boon could be used to hire labour from Vlag?
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I don't think we have any solid idea about any of that?

At the very least, the stated ambitions of the project on the Eonir's side is "get more power out of their network".

Repairing damaged Waystones, let alone building new ones of our own design, remain stretch goals that we have no idea if we can manage.

And we don't have any kind of permission to do that in Kislev.
 
We don't even know what Kislev are using their Waystone energy for, since it's clearly not pouring into the Vortex. We have some theories, but nothing confirmed, and I doubt Mathilde is coming up with the same theories that we do. We have meta information about the Widow/Arianka that she doesn't have.
 
Codex said:
I think that's more of a cultural thing than just a biological thing. We've already seen Vlag defy many of the Dwarf's cultural mores, I doubt they've inherited the Grudge/Debt stuff to nearly the same degree as their ancestors. They've never had the luxury of doing so when their primary concern was survival. I'm sure it would nag at them, but to nowhere near the same degree as it did Belegar.
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Eeehh dunno about that--look at the interlude when Thorgrim re-establishes contact. Buncha dwarfs breaking down into tears at the idea of their Grudges finally getting proper recording. I think while the Grudge/Debt system isn't necessarily some inherent biological or metaphysical property, it does seem the most wide-spread method of dealing with the stresses that comes with Dwarf's apparent greater "emotional memory." Since it's functionally a giant mental stress ball system, with an in-built set of achievable "rewards" (Oh look, we're stuck in hell, but shooting that Daemon lets us cross off these Grudges, go team!) I'd imagine if any bit of traditional Dwarf culture was kept, it's likely this. Especially since Grudge/Debt isn't as immediately "doing this actively fucks us over," as other bits of culture they did drop, such as limiting maintenance knowledge of the few runes you have, trying to keep a traditional diet when it's literally impossible, etc etc.
 
A_Somebody said:
Eeehh dunno about that--look at the interlude when Thorgrim re-establishes contact. Buncha dwarfs breaking down into tears at the idea of their Grudges finally getting proper recording. I think while the Grudge/Debt system isn't necessarily some inherent biological or metaphysical property, it does seem the most wide-spread method of dealing with the stresses that comes with Dwarf's apparent greater "emotional memory." Since it's functionally a giant mental stress ball system, with an in-built set of achievable "rewards" (Oh look, we're stuck in hell, but shooting that Daemon lets us cross off these Grudges, go team!) I'd imagine if any bit of traditional Dwarf culture was kept, it's likely this. Especially since Grudge/Debt isn't as immediately "doing this actively fucks us over," as other bits of culture they did drop, such as limiting maintenance knowledge of the few runes you have, trying to keep a traditional diet when it's literally impossible, etc etc.
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To be fair, all Dwarfs that were present for that were ones born before Vlag was dragged into the Realm of Chaos.
 
Talking of Kislev's Waystones, I wonder if they've been effected by the return of Vlag, meaning that energy from Kislev can flow through the part of the network that goes along the World's Edge Mountains.
 
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