Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[pucflek]

Sufficient anti-magic.

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I know what i said. Magic. Any knock off we make will be magic made, so counterspell and gimicky behaviour when interacting with enemy magic is stuff that has to be accounted for.

Not in the case of Branulhune, but again. Thats the most powerful sword anyone this era can make. Any imitation will be orders of magnitude weaker/less versatile/capable whatever.

I was trying to illustrate that even that itself could fail.

So that imitation? Best hope that you are not facing... basically any enemy of man to be honest. The style is just not much of a coup when its not backed by the literal Kragg the Grim made weapon.

And just by the way, while i still consider Branulhune style to be cool i think its important to remember that we are beginning to fight the 1% fairly frequently and meaningful enemies who could feasibly employ antimagic of that calibre are only going to become more common the more high tier shit we stick our nose into.

 

[Boney]

The straightforward solution to reproducing the Rune of the Unknown is to have Step 1 be "go commission a sword with Rune of the Unknown on it". It's not a superrune that only Kragg the Grimm is capable of, nor is it a masterwork that is the culmination of his career, it's an oddball Rune that he filed under 'useless' because Dwarves are deeply suspicious of not being able to point to exactly where your axe is at any given time, and if they really want to be able to call their weapon to their hand like Thor's hammer in the Marvelverse, the Master Rune of Flight exists, comes with extra perks, and doesn't come with an unwanted side of existential angst. He'd be able to be convinced to teach it to other Runelords if demand for it was greater than he was able or willing to meet.

 

[Mopman43]

The other problem would be replacing Kragg's personal Rune, because I doubt he's spreading that one around.

Without it, you can definitely be tricky with the RotU, but you can't generate cutting power with an inch of movement.

But I think that'd be much easier to deal with- there's a whole load of effects bent towards cutting.

 

[Glau]

And here I though the problem to be solved was "we can't practice anything we come up with, except in live combat and solo drill and neither is good for working out a style".

 

[Mopman43]

And here I though the problem to be solved was "we can't practice anything we come up with, except in live combat and solo drill and neither is good for working out a style".

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Practice sword with only the RotU?

The danger is that you can't turn off Kragg's Rune while you're constantly flickering it.

 

[Glau]

Was supposed to have been a reference to my earlier substance of shadows suggestion.

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

Kragg: Here's a weird rune that lets you sneak your weapon into places because you are a sneaky person, but your magic is unreliable and sometimes you just need to hit somebody with a lump of metal.

Mathilde: I'm going to turn this into the foundation of my entire combat style.

Kragg: what

 

[StormySky]

@Boney Does an object with the Rune of the Unknown only switch owners when the current owner consensually entrusts the object to someone else, or can anyone who manages to get their hands on it activate the Rune? If the latter, is just skin contact enough, or do they need to be the only one touching it and holding it "properly"? (This is concerning potential cases where the weapon is knocked out of its wielder's hands during combat, and whether someone else running over and grabbing it allows them to steal the weapon)

 

[Andres]

We should write a paper on it once we've finished Branarhune.

 

[Mopman43]

@Boney Does an object with the Rune of the Unknown only switch owners when the current owner consensually entrusts the object to someone else, or can anyone who manages to get their hands on it activate the Rune? If the latter, is just skin contact enough, or do they need to be the only one touching it and holding it "properly"? (This is concerning potential cases where the weapon is knocked out of its wielder's hands during combat, and whether someone else running over and grabbing it allows them to steal the weapon)

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Previous WoB:

The Rune of the Unknown is keyed to her, and it can be rekeyed by any suitably skilled Runesmith.

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[Nerdasaurus Rex]

We should write a paper on it once we've finished Branarhune.

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I'm going to be honest, I'm not super comfortable writing a paper describing how our weapon works or our sword style, because it's very much the thing that works best as a surprise, and I'd rather not have a written document floating around that exposes our secret techniques (even if it ends up in the depths of the Grey College archives, it's still "out there").

That said, if it turns out our sword style is compatible with, say, a codified shadow sword, I wouldn't be opposed to a training manual along with it so that other Grey Wizards can do the same crazy stuff we do.

 

[Andres]

I'm going to be honest, I'm not super comfortable writing a paper describing how our weapon works or our sword style, because it's very much the thing that works best as a surprise, and I'd rather not have a written document floating around that exposes our secret techniques (even if it ends up in the depths of the Grey College archives, it's still "out there").

That said, if it turns out our sword style is compatible with, say, a codified shadow sword, I wouldn't be opposed to a training manual along with it so that other Grey Wizards can do the same crazy stuff we do.

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I should elaborate. I think we should write a paper on the use of the Rune of the Unknown so that dwarves have greater knowledge of what they can do with the rune, as there's evidently no information on it at all. While the rune is currently quite unpopular, if they're aware of what it can do, more dwarves may choose to get it for their own weapons.

As the Empire cannot make dwarven runes, publishing copies for Imperial institutions would serve no purpose.

 

[Boney]

I should elaborate. I think we should write a paper on the use of the Rune of the Unknown so that dwarves have greater knowledge of what they can do with the rune, as there's evidently no information on it at all. While the rune is currently quite unpopular, if they're aware of what it can do, more dwarves may choose to get it for their own weapons.

As the Empire cannot make dwarven runes, publishing copies for Imperial institutions would serve no purpose.

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The greatest living expert on Runes is also the one who would stand to gain the most if the Rune of the Unknown became popular. If he thinks there's no market to be found for it among Dwarves, then that probably isn't something that can be overcome with a sales brochure.

 

[StormySky]

Yeah, Dwarves are too uncomfortable with vanishing weapons to use the Rune of the Unknown, even with the advantages of a developed style. This is probably going to end up being a human niche.

 

[Glau]

Well, wizard chic was a thing. Maybe part of the hopefully large next generation of beardlings, there will be a bunch who think Mathilde is worth emulating.

Oh! Oh! It's totally going to be a Vlag specialty in like 200 years!

 

[MooseHowl]

I am still kind of trying to wrap my head around WEB-MAT, so I have a question for anyone with the answer (it was on basically all the plans).

You have five action points (AP) you can apply without engaging in overwork. For every two AP spent across all members of WEB-MAT, including recruiting new members, you can spend one 'free' additional AP with any member of WEB-MAT. WEB-MAT actions are performed by Mathilde alongside that person when possible, such as studying something alongside that person, cowriting a paper together, one teaching the other, both of them learning something new, et cetera.

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-[X] WEB-MAT: Hire someone as a full-time Gyrocopter pilot (Adela)

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Does this mean Mathilde will be attempting to learn Gyrocoptering alongside Adela? Or does something else about the process occupy all Mathilde's time?

The plans don't specify, and I thought the point of hiring someone else in the first place was that it wouldn't cost AP to do.

(The redundancy of having two trained pilots does sound like a good investment to me, if that's what this is.)

 

[picklepikkl]

Does this mean Mathilde will be attempting to learn Gyrocoptering alongside Adela? Or does something else about the process occupy all Mathilde's time?

The plans don't specify, and I thought the point of hiring someone else in the first place was that it wouldn't cost AP to do.

(The redundancy of having two trained pilots does sound like a good investment to me, if that's what this is.)

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Adela is being hired purely as a pilot rather than as an extra responsibility of a research assistant. So, she will not take AP for us to manage, which is nice, but we don't get to learn the skill alongside her.

If she's being recruited solely as a pilot then she wouldn't require managing, only if you also want to do other things like enchanting or research or whatnot with her.

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The point of recruiting Adela is that it wouldn't take away from Mathilde's AP pool or add to the WEB-MAT employee juggling, and if you're not spending AP on it you're not going to learn to fly from it.

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If you're asking "why does hiring someone to be a pilot occupy a full AP of Mathilde's time," something something paperwork something logistics something something. The fuzziness about how much time an AP represents has worked in our favor often enough (including last turn where our two adventures covered much more time than would fit into 2 AP "by the book") that we shouldn't begrudge the abstraction when it tilts the other way.

 

[Boney]

Does this mean Mathilde will be attempting to learn Gyrocoptering alongside Adela?

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No.

Or does something else about the process occupy all Mathilde's time?

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Some actions take more than exactly one sixth of Mathilde's time for that turn, some take less. Believe me when I say that it works out in the thread's favour for me to round them all to one AP instead of auditing individual hours and having some tasks run out of time at 95% completion. Trying to pry fractional AP loose of individual parts of the abstraction will not have positive results for anybody.

 

[Prime 2.0]

The straightforward solution to reproducing the Rune of the Unknown is to have Step 1 be "go commission a sword with Rune of the Unknown on it".

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Honestly this sounds like a fantastic idea if only so we can get some swords that can be sparred with using the style. That's always going to hold our skill back if we don't do it.

 

[consequences]

The greatest living expert on Runes is also the one who would stand to gain the most if the Rune of the Unknown became popular. If he thinks there's no market to be found for it among Dwarves, then that probably isn't something that can be overcome with a sales brochure.

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What if we make the copies of the sales brochure out of 100% Rune of the Unknown harvested recycled Drycha Butt?

Honestly this sounds like a fantastic idea if only so we can get some swords that can be sparred with using the style. That's always going to hold our skill back if we don't do it.

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Also our apprentice's skill in the not too distant future.

 

[Codex]

You know, last time we brought up the idea of Adela being our pilot, I don't think we knew of Okri yet. Now we do. It's probably an even bigger deal for Adela to ditch a position close to Karak Nar's budding Gunery School as well as Okri and Gotri's side. Having two radical Master Dwarf Engineers, both with different specialties, close by is just too good to pass up.

I'm guessing if she accepts our offer, it's likely because she values the adventure more than engineering knowledge.

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

You know, last time we brought up the idea of Adela being our pilot, I don't think we knew of Okri yet. Now we do. It's probably an even bigger deal for Adela to ditch a position close to Karak Nar's budding Gunery School as well as Okri and Gotri's side. Having two radical Master Dwarf Engineers, both with different specialties, close by is just too good to pass up.

I'm guessing if she accepts our offer, it's likely because she values the adventure more than engineering knowledge.

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Well, there's also the allure of being the only human trained as a gyrocopter pilot, which will probably involve guild secrets from the Dwarven engineering guild, and it's not like the gunnery school or Okri and Gotri are going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[Codex]

Well, there's also the allure of being the only human trained as a gyrocopter pilot, which will probably involve guild secrets from the Dwarven engineering guild, and it's not like the gunnery school or Okri and Gotri are going anywhere anytime soon.

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Dedicating herself as the personal pilot for Mathilde is a full time job involving her staying by Mathilde's side for the forseeable future. Unless we're putting a deadline on the contract, it ends when she's dead or retires. That means she's staying with us until we decide to return to K8P fulltime, if we ever do that. I suppose if Gotri and Okri are nice they'll give her homework to do when she's abroad.

 

[Boney]

Adela would still have a huge amount of free time to do with as she pleases, just not a lot of freedom in where that free time will be spent. Whether it's a perk or a downside that Adela will be spending most of that free time in random exotic corners of the Old World is down to perspective. Plus with Law of Form and Stoke the Forge she can set up a smithy just about anywhere.

 

[dinomannitro6]

And its not like she still won't spend a fair bit of time at K8P. Being able to vist there frequently while still hanging out in the north is why we got the copter in the first place.