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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Codex said:
It's in a relatively secure location. That being buried under tons of rubble. It would require a major mining expedition with significant resources to unearth said library. An expedition that would be hard to miss, considering Sylvania is still considered a hotspot that Roswita's forces are keeping an eye on. I won't deny the possibility of someone sneaking a book or two, but it's not a monumental risk.
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A major mining expedition should be caught, but a single person might be able to sneak in. I mean, the obvious way of doing that is being an Ulgu user, but it's still possible.
 
deathofrats0808 said:
A major mining expedition should be caught, but a single person might be able to sneak in. I mean, the obvious way of doing that is being an Ulgu user, but it's still possible.
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I considered the possibility, but just imagine for a moment, a single person trying to dig away at tons of rubble. I said it's possible they might get a book or two, but hauling away any significant amount of books without being notice after the castle has collapsed from the weight of being struck by almost a hundred artillery pieces for almost a week? Very difficult. This person can summon a horde of undead to do the dirty work, but do you think that a horde of undead in Castle Drakenhof's ruins would go unnoticed? One of the first things I would imagine Roswita doing is posting a rotating guard post over the ruins to check if anyone is distubring the place. Countess Von Carstein's body was never recovered. It's very possible she might come back if someone digs down deep enough.
 
[-] Plan Lay foundations and writing 'The adventures of the three journeymen' V0.3
-[-] One Overwork Action
-[-] WEB-MAT: Hire someone as a full-time Gyrocopter pilot (Adela)
-[-] EGRIMM: Attempt a Windherder enchantment with Egrimm (Ring of Sudden Dawn, Take No Heed/Radiant Gaze)
-[-] Lay the foundations: work with the current members of WEB-MAT and the Waystone Project to build a single unified framework for understanding the Waystones.
--[-] COIN: The Gambler
-[-] Attempt to bring a Major House or Ward into the Waystone Project (Tindomiel)
-[-] Branulhune's ability to disappear and reappear at a thought allows entirely new forms of combat. Continue to work on them.
-[-] EIC: Have the Hochlander set up a shadow headquarters for the EIC in the Sunken Palace.
-[-] Experiment with integrating the Vitae into enchantments.
-[-] EIC: Investigate what trade goods the Eonir might be willing to import from the Empire.
-[-] KAU: Decide who your library staff will consist of, and go about recruiting them.
-[-] SERENITY: Write something else: Penny Dreadful: The adventures of the three journeymen book 1: The mystery hidden in the dwarven tunnels. (a yellow-backed Penny dreadful adventure mystery in the style of the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew)


[-] Plan Lay foundations and writing 'Love and Fur' V0.3
-[-] One Overwork Action
-[-] WEB-MAT: Hire someone as a full-time Gyrocopter pilot (Adela)
-[-] EGRIMM: Attempt a Windherder enchantment with Egrimm (Ring of Sudden Dawn, Take No Heed/Radiant Gaze)
-[-] Lay the foundations: work with the current members of WEB-MAT and the Waystone Project to build a single unified framework for understanding the Waystones.
--[-] COIN: The Gambler
-[-] Attempt to bring a Major House or Ward into the Waystone Project (Tindomiel)
-[-] Branulhune's ability to disappear and reappear at a thought allows entirely new forms of combat. Continue to work on them.
-[-] EIC: Have the Hochlander set up a shadow headquarters for the EIC in the Sunken Palace.
-[-] Experiment with integrating the Vitae into enchantments.
-[-] EIC: Investigate what trade goods the Eonir might be willing to import from the Empire.
-[-] KAU: Decide who your library staff will consist of, and go about recruiting them.
-[-] SERENITY: Write something else: Penny Dreadful: Love and Fur Book 1: Battle of the Black Forest (a yellow-backed Penny dreadful War Romance)


[-] Plan Lay foundations and Mushrooms' V0.3
-[-] One Overwork Action
-[-] WEB-MAT: Hire someone as a full-time Gyrocopter pilot (Adela)
-[-] EGRIMM: Attempt a Windherder enchantment with Egrimm (Ring of Sudden Dawn, Take No Heed/Radiant Gaze)
-[-] Lay the foundations: work with the current members of WEB-MAT and the Waystone Project to build a single unified framework for understanding the Waystones.
--[-] COIN: The Gambler
-[-] Attempt to bring a Major House or Ward into the Waystone Project (Tindomiel)
-[-] Branulhune's ability to disappear and reappear at a thought allows entirely new forms of combat. Continue to work on them.
-[-] EIC: Have the Hochlander set up a shadow headquarters for the EIC in the Sunken Palace.
-[-] Experiment with integrating the Vitae into enchantments.
-[-] EIC: Investigate what trade goods the Eonir might be willing to import from the Empire.
-[-] KAU: Decide who your library staff will consist of, and go about recruiting them.
-[-] SERENITY: Write something: Windsoak Mushrooms Book 1/2

The last one is for boring people.
 
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Codex said:
I applaud your resolve, so I will say that this is my preferred option:

[ ] Penny Dreadful: Love and Fur Book 1: Battle of the Black Forest

Simply because it seems to be the only one detached from Mathilde's friends and personal life. I think it would be a bit embarrasing to write about Hubert and Soizic, even if they're fictionalised and under different names, and the same applies to most other options.
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The thought of the story is bringing up that incredibly classic meme video.

"Oh shit I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what."
 
Codex said:
I considered the possibility, but just imagine for a moment, a single person trying to dig away at tons of rubble. I said it's possible they might get a book or two, but hauling away any significant amount of books without being notice after the castle has collapsed from the weight of being struck by almost a hundred artillery pieces for almost a week? Very difficult. This person can summon a horde of undead to do the dirty work, but do you think that a horde of undead in Castle Drakenhof's ruins would go unnoticed? One of the first things I would imagine Roswita doing is posting a rotating guard post over the ruins to check if anyone is distubring the place. Countess Von Carstein's body was never recovered. It's very possible she might come back if someone digs down deep enough.
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Oh I absiolutely agree it will be guarded (apart from anything else, it's hugely symbollically important if any von Carsteins turn up). If it's not someone needs to be given a swift kick to make it so. I was mostly thinking of a single individual finding an intact route in (and not digging) and smuggling the books out bit by bit. We know there was at least one underground way ina nd out, so it wouldn't surprise me of there were more. Such an operation might not steal much of the library, but if you're worried about what secrets are contained inside then any amount is too much.
 
Codex said:
I applaud your resolve, so I will say that this is my preferred option:

[ ] Penny Dreadful: Love and Fur Book 1: Battle of the Black Forest

Simply because it seems to be the only one detached from Mathilde's friends and personal life. I think it would be a bit embarrasing to write about Hubert and Soizic, even if they're fictionalised and under different names, and the same applies to most other options.
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Part of that for me is that a theme of inexperienced writers is using the places and people around them as templates, but I guess that's to much cringe for some people.
 
I've circled back around to trying to recruit the Hedgewise again. First off, The Gambler is best used on dangerous or risky actions, like dangerous infiltration or spell/enchantment creation. Even though I think the thread consensus is very strongly towards using it on the (not dangerous or risky at all) Lay the Foundations action, I still think it's an outright mistake, and I shouldn't concede on that point. Secondly, we're likely to circle around and recruit the Hedgewise in the future anyways, so it saves us an AP to just get it done right now instead.

On a more esoteric point, Mathilde's contribution to the project has never been her own knowledge, but instead her ability to recruit so many people from so many different traditions. She doesn't need to pretend to have some Waystone secrets of her own; her contribution is the existence of the project itself. She doesn't have anything to prove. Just by being the one who organized and recruited everyone she's already more worthy of being part of the project than any one other individual contributor. The Gambler would likely help Mathilde herself look more knowledgeable than she is, but that's just not needed to keep the project going or gain anyone's respect. Instead, let's have Mathilde do what she does best and kick this off with a more diverse magical research group than the entire world has ever seen!
 
Okay, let me be as explicit as possible about this. If you want to see something as godawfully terrible as Mathilde writing a barely-veiled account of her twentysomething self's fantasies about the dead father of someone she regularly sees and work with, or writing smut about her employees and underlings without their consent, or anything of that manner whatsoever, and then publishing it for the entire goddamn world to see: write it yourself, because I sure as fuck won't.

I don't care if it automatically attracts a bajillion haha funny meme votes, I will not hesitate for even a second to absolutely ignore that and let you waste your Serenity slot.
 
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Boney said:
Okay, let me be as explicit as possible about this. If you want to see something as godawfully terrible as Mathilde writing a barely-veiled account of her twentysomething self's fantasies about the dead father of someone she regularly sees and work with, or writing smut about her employees and underlings without their consent, or anything of that manner whatsoever, and then publishing it for the entire goddamn world to see: write it yourself, because I sure as fuck won't.
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This basically if she ever wrote something it sure as FUCK wouldn't be that.
 
Boney said:
Okay, let me be as explicit as possible about this. If you want to see something as godawfully terrible as Mathilde writing a barely-veiled account of her twentysomething self's fantasies about the dead father of someone she regularly sees and work with, or writing smut about her employees and underlings without their consent, or anything of that manner whatsoever, and then publishing it for the entire goddamn world to see: write it yourself, because I sure as fuck won't.

I don't care if it automatically attracts a bajillion haha funny meme votes, I will not hesitate for even a second to absolutely ignore that and let you waste your Serenity slot.
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..... I thought I moved away from those?

the two I pick are the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys and War Romance story? I thought that was clear?

sorry if it wasn't.
 
Rafin said:
May I interrogate you on your priorities a bit?

Actually a dumb question, because I'm just going to start now and leave it up to you whether or not you answer.

Is the Gambler on foundation an essential to you or could you live without it?

What elevates sword style development to essential instead of very nice to have?

Do you have any order regarding which recruitments you want to see more or less?

Do you have any actions you don't want to see.
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Keeping in mind that they're just my personal preferences and very much not objective, sure.

I laid out one mechanical and one non-mechanical reason to put Gambler on Foundation here. I could be convinced to support putting the coin on something else, but only in the case that both of those reasons are outweighed by that something else. Namely, that whatever it is has to weigh more than +20% to putting crits on the Waystone Foundation action and making it more likely to succeed.

Branarhune is our best self-improvement action at this stage in terms of getting the most bang for your buck. It has a more or less static AP cost, no risk of miscast, and grants us our first Master tier martial skill. Our other self-improvement actions either have uncertain AP costs, miscast chances, or won't pack as much punch. GIven that Mathilde's going to go on more adventures, I view this as a must-have. Plus, we spent 1 AP on turn 32, and 1 AP on turn 34. It's now turn 38, so I feel it's a little overdue. And I may or may not have an incomplete omake that I've been procrastinating on.
I don't have any solid preferences in recruiting order, beyond wanting the Father candidates to be done on the same turn.

I'm not a big fan of doing other combat self-improvement or spell creation projects before Branarhune, with the possible exception of codifying Rite of Way, because of how much better I think Branarhune is compared to everything else in its category.
 
Seeing as my "adventure" plan has attracted no interest (as I expected), I'm going in a different direction: I think we really need a major house as a backer on the project. Not only will they have a lot of resources to contribute, but they'll also protect us politically from the isolationists and prove to the moderates that there is benefit in working with humans. That's why I want to propose a plan that attempts to recruit two houses: Tindomiel and Miriel.

Tindomiel are both keepers of the temple of Hekarti, the eight headed goddess of magic, and open to collaboration. A lot of arguments have been made as to why to recruit them, and I think most of the thread agrees. I recommend using either the gambler on this recruitment, or the father. I'm not sure I'm convinced Hekarti is a daughter, but I'm willing to test it.

House Miriel, on the other hand, are much more cautious about collaboration—but thanks to our prior investigation, we know why. They are worried that their monopoly of magical elven items will be threatened by Ulthuan's markets—but with trade between Laurelorn and Middenland still some time away, and the fact that elven goods are funnelled through Marienburg and there's a new trade route that bypasses them opening soon, means that their monopoly is relatively protected. We can probably throw an EIC action at them to help as well. They also keep the temple of Vaul and have access to his Smith-Priests, and getting their cooperation would be a massive boon. It would also greatly secure the project if a moderate house like Miriel joins us.

The following plan is a variation of pickle's AP plan. It sacrifices the nut research for a second recruitment action:

[-] Plan two houses (gambler)
-[-] One Overwork Action
-[-] WEB-MAT: Hire someone as a full-time Gyrocopter pilot (Adela)
-[-] Lay the foundations: work with the current members of WEB-MAT and the Waystone Project to build a single unified framework for understanding the Waystones.
-[-] Attempt to bring a Major House or Ward into the Waystone Project (Tindomiel)
--[-] COIN: The Gambler
-[-] Attempt to bring a Major House or Ward into the Waystone Project (Miriel)
-[-] Branulhune's ability to disappear and reappear at a thought allows entirely new forms of combat. Continue to work on them.
-[-] Investigate how the Vitae reacts to a power stone.
-[-] EIC: Investigate what trade goods the Eonir might be willing to import from the Empire.
-[-] KAU: Decide who your library staff will consist of, and go about recruiting them.
-[-] SERENITY: Write a book: Windsoak Mushrooms (1/2)


[-] Plan two houses (father)
-[-] One Overwork Action
-[-] WEB-MAT: Hire someone as a full-time Gyrocopter pilot (Adela)
-[-] Lay the foundations: work with the current members of WEB-MAT and the Waystone Project to build a single unified framework for understanding the Waystones.
-[-] Attempt to bring a Major House or Ward into the Waystone Project (Tindomiel)
--[-] COIN: The Father
-[-] Attempt to bring a Major House or Ward into the Waystone Project (Miriel)
-[-] Branulhune's ability to disappear and reappear at a thought allows entirely new forms of combat. Continue to work on them.
-[-] Investigate how the Vitae reacts to a power stone.
-[-] EIC: Investigate what trade goods the Eonir might be willing to import from the Empire.
-[-] KAU: Decide who your library staff will consist of, and go about recruiting them.
-[-] SERENITY: Write a book: Windsoak Mushrooms (1/2)
 
Right, I'm off to bed so I wont be up when the vote opens, I'm going to leave two versions of my plan for anyone who likes them to vote for when voting opens:

[] Plan: No Recruitment
-[] One Overwork
-[ ] WEB-MAT: Hire someone as a full-time Gyrocopter pilot (Adela)
-[ ] WEB-MAT: Hunt an apparition with a member of WEB-MAT (Johann, Red Rider)
-[ ] EGRIMM: Attempt a Windherder enchantment with Egrimm (Ring of Sudden Dawn, Take No Heed/Radiant Gaze)
-[ ] Lay the foundations: work with the current members of WEB-MAT and the Waystone Project to build a single unified framework for understanding the Waystones.
--[] Coin: The Gambler
-[ ] Branulhune's ability to disappear and reappear at a thought allows entirely new forms of combat. Continue to work on them.
-[ ] Investigate how the Vitae reacts to a power stone.
-[ ] Attempt to codify Rite of Way so that others can learn it.
-[ ] EIC: Investigate what trade goods the Eonir might be willing to import from the Empire.
-[ ] The many legends about the amount of books contained within and under Castle Drakenhof still haunt you. Organize an expedition to mine the ruins for books
-[] Serenity: Windsoak Mushrooms Book

[] Plan: No Recruitment, with organizational setup.
-[] One Overwork
-[ ] WEB-MAT: Hire someone as a full-time Gyrocopter pilot (Adela)
-[ ] WEB-MAT: Hunt an apparition with a member of WEB-MAT (Johann, Red Rider)
-[ ] EGRIMM: Attempt a Windherder enchantment with Egrimm (Ring of Sudden Dawn, Take No Heed/Radiant Gaze)
-[ ] Lay the foundations: work with the current members of WEB-MAT and the Waystone Project to build a single unified framework for understanding the Waystones.
--[] Coin: The Gambler
-[ ] Branulhune's ability to disappear and reappear at a thought allows entirely new forms of combat. Continue to work on them.
-[ ] Investigate how the Vitae reacts to a power stone.
-[ ] Attempt to codify Rite of Way so that others can learn it.
-[ ] EIC: Have the Hochlander set up a shadow headquarters for the EIC in the Sunken Palace.
-[ ] Decide who your library staff will consist of, and go about recruiting them.
-[] Serenity: Windsoak Mushrooms Book

The alternate version swaps out the eic action for setting up a headquarters and book mining for setting up the library staff as I think there have been some good arguments in thread for doing the headquarters/skipping book mining this turn.

To reiterate the reasoning behind this plan, I want to avoid laying the foundation on credit which is what we will have to do with any groups we recruit this turn. Furthmore I think we have a wide enough net cast with the groups we have recruited that the foundation we lay will be able to account for any later additions. So given that and given what I consider the very high likelyhood that we will be extremely busy in the coming turns on waystone stuff this plan aims to get a wide sampling of all the other stuff we have in the backlog done. I've deliberately avoided putting more than one action on any specific thing to try and create a comprise plan in the hopes it offers everyone a bit of what they want even if doesn't do everything they want and the items I chose were those that I remember being brought up the most in thread discussion.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
..... I thought I moved away from those?

the two I pick are the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys and War Romance story? I thought that was clear?

sorry if it wasn't.
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Just because you move on doesn't mean that the idea vanishes from the minds of everyone else. I'm being explicit about it now to try to minimize the chance of seeing it show up in other peoples' plans later.
 
I thought it was informative to know that there's a line that Boney will not cross. He so rarely ever says that he will not write something even if it's voted on.
 
I do think that with the final open vampire holdouts taken out at this point that there's going to be a drawdown in troop levels available, plus less wizards around. So while it's not like I think that means there's definitely going to be someone looting the place, I do think the odds of it go up some.

In regards to the idea that we have no magical buy-in from Laurelorn involved while being based there. That's what the Grey Lords are.

MonkeyTypewriter said:
Why though? Like, we're a Lady Magister, they aren't going to take our toys away from us.
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If we're going to do all the options anyway, might as well just write a book on it.
 
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Thomasfoolery said:
In regards to the idea that we have no magical buy-in from Laurelorn involved while being based there. That's what the Grey Lords are.
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It's not that we have no magical buy-in from Laurelorn, we have no magical buy-in from Tor Lithanel. There are three pillars of the Eonir: the Cityborn, the Forestborn, and the Grey Lords. We've got Grey Lords and Forestborn (Ward of Frost) on-side, but we've got nothing from the city. I think it's worth it for political peace of mind to not snub any of our hosts' major demographics (plus the practical value of having diverse outlooks on a complicated project: what the different groups of Eonir think about waystones is not necessarily monolithic, pun absolutely 100% intended).
 
Personally, I think that if we ever do vote to write fiction, the topic should be something that Mathilde chooses herself. It should flow organically from her own characterisation and experiences, and fit authentically into her world, rather than having the thread pick some IRL novels to insert directly into the quest.
 
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