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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Boney said:
"I see... wait, no I don't. Straight west of L'Anguille is nothing but ocean until Naggaroth."

Hatalath blinks. "I must be thinking of somewhere else, then," he says, and rather evasively, it seems to you.
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Given how he's acting I suspect this is in fact going directly to Naggaroth to be used by the dark elves in their large amounts of magic workings. It's probably left on the basis that changing that would be incredibly difficult and might get Malekith or Morathi off their asses to come deal with whoever changed it. The Eonir certainly have enough pressing other concerns.

Boney said:
Or you could just... accede to the law. Article 7 isn't really all that ambiguous, is it? You could just accept that you've hit an impermeable legal roadblock. It was set down by Magnus and Teclis, after all. Do you really think you know better than they do?
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Given that they were working of a very shortened training period to get as many battle wizards out as possible in a short time? Yes. I think they went with a blanket ban under the "this will cause the least problems" paradigm. Dhar is dangerous. If someone has a good case they can make it to the Supreme Patriarch or Emperor, who can override the articles.

I'm inclined to seek permission from either Dragomas or the Emperor, possibly combining it somewhat with "ignorance", and taking a "need to know" approach.

I'm slightly more inclined to go through the emperor. While I trust Dragomas to understand, going through the supreme patriarch seem much more likely to enable college politics to get involved. For example, Alric to stick his oar in.
 
NSMS said:
...ah. Algard and Paranoth already know about the project and are unlikely to raise a fuss, Feldmann probably wouldn't be a problem (he's pragmatic, if a touch slimy- worst case we have to bribe him), but Alric? If he doesn't take this as an opportunity to regain power I've horribly misread the guy.
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They know about the project, but "and then, suddenly, Dhar" rather changes the situation, because throwing black magic into the mix may well mean sudden onset cold feet. This potentially represents some fairly severe risks for the organizations they lead, after all.

As for Alric... he is a thorny situation. Although Mathilde's involvement in the cultist hunt was not publicized, it wasn't particularly hidden, either. He may not have found out, but given his ongoing focus into internal politics it is also possible that he has actually looked into whatever deal Mira made with a Gray LM to get his order involved with the Waystone Project. Him not knowing anything about Mathilde is a believable scenario, but so is him being heavily suspicious.

We are going to want to be careful with this one.
 
Humbaba said:
Given how he's acting I suspect this is in fact going directly to Naggaroth to be used by the dark elves in their large amounts of magic workings. It's probably left on the basis that changing that would be incredibly difficult and might get Malekith or Morathi off their asses to come deal with whoever changed it. The Eonir certainly have enough pressing other concerns.
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He's almost certainly talking about Albion.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
I'm a bit surprised that the "pack up the Waystone project" option is even offered. Not because Mathilde would refuse to give up on a truly impossible project, but because Mathilde simply following the Articles when they're inconvenient/ambiguous is uncharacteristic.
Or is this a vote to see where her limits are? I don't perceive this as any "worse" than previous Article-respecting votes, but I guess it is potentially more public...
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When Mathilde has skirted the edges of the Articles in the past, it's generally been because the thread has voted to, because Mathilde was covered by Johann's dispensation, or because it was minor and there was zero chance of any real backlash. But this is going on in front of a dozen other magic-users and involves the legal status of a network that criss-crosses the entire Empire, so I think it's important that the thread has the opportunity to back out, even if I don't think it's going to be taken.

Dark as Silver said:
Guy was getting impatient to condescend to humans. Like Dammit the younger races aren't making mistakes we can correct for them.
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Well, he did acknowledged that it was perfectly sensible for humans to make it a hard rule to never touch the bad magic, and so it makes sense that you wouldn't be that familiar with its useful properties.
 
@Boney Did Max and Johann sit in on this meeting?

Also, was there any kind of pre-meeting purely among College Wizards? Mathilde has told multiple of them that part of all this is a bluff that Humans know more than they actually do. And the best way to do that involves first carrying together all the knowledge that's actually there. Especially the knowledge that the Colleges in question are willing to share among each other, bit not quite yet with foreign polities.

Boney said:
[ ] Cult Dispensation
Cults are not under the authority of the Articles. Build a rickety framework of justification that this Project is under the authority of the Cults of Halétha, Tahoth Trisheros, and the Earth Mother, rather than the Colleges, and then have them grant you permission to study the Waystones.
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I dislike this option because it holds no water. The Articles of magic don't say that they bind Magisters except in special cases where they are also members of some clergy and their Cult's commandments supercede the Articles. A Magister who is also an official priest of Ranald or whoever is still fully a Magister and has still sworn to obey the laws that bind all Magisters.
Boney said:
[ ] Conspiracy
When there's no Witch Hunters around, anything's legal. Attempt to enter into an understanding with your fellow Wizards that what happens in Laurelorn, stays in Laurelorn.
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I don't trust Elrisse enough for this yet. And we haven't talked with Tochter at all, at least on screen.

Is it possible to choose "Ignorance" for now and then include one or more Magisters in the conspiracy on a case by case basis at a later date?

Also, again, in case of a less scrupulous choice here, how will Johann and Max be handled? They are definitely not members of any of those listed Cults for instance. And they might not be willing to be party to the breaching of the Articles without dispensation, especially since one of them has actual experience getting such a dispensation first.
Boney said:
If you go to the Emperor, only the Emperor needs to know. If you go to Dragomas, then you go via Algard, and Alric, Paranoth, and Feldmann would need to be looped in (or at least sent a memo, since at least two of them are out and about right now) because their Wizards would be involved.
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What stops us from directly going to Dragomas and asking him in person on the down low?

And conversely, how does the Emperor knowing stop the four Patriarchs from needing to be informed enough to be able to protect their charges?
Tobtorp said:
It's still Warhammer. Like, this feels like nothing new. I find it funnier that athel Loren could hold most of the continent hostage if they wanted to.
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Keep in mind that hostage keeping would involve disconnecting their central and important Waystone. Same goes for Marienburg. The practical result would be that all the magic of the equivalent part of the continent would start pooling there and polluting absolutely everything in that specific area with massive amounts of Dhar. A concern if any of those places fall to the forces of Destruction, but not something I expect anyone still belonging to Order to be doing on purpose outside of being attacked by everyone else in an extinction war.
 
Murazor said:
They know about the project, but "and then, suddenly, Dhar" rather changes the situation, because throwing black magic into the mix may well mean sudden onset cold feet. This potentially represents some fairly severe risks for the organizations they lead, after all.
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I agree, especially since the last time the Colleges were shut down is still within living memory, and pursuing this course without care for the consequences of running afoul of the Articles could well lead to another closure, maybe even a permanent one.
 
Tobtorp said:
Tbf no human order wizard would think about using dhar to transport the mass of magic it's just not a thing one would consider when the entire reason for it is the removel of dhar.
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given what we know about Dhar, this is the first secret, you can turn the thing on itself
 
Boney said:
Well, he did acknowledged that it was perfectly sensible for humans to make it a hard rule to never touch the bad magic, and so it makes sense that you wouldn't be that familiar with its useful properties.
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poor poor humans, if only you had the life span to learn how to do it the proper way. Oh well, you're doing the best you can with what you've got and its really quite impressive when you look at it like that. :V:p:V
 
Wait a minute. Dhar is used in Waystones, because it sucks in the Winds. Does this explain some of Karag Dum? That expanding circle of sand in the Chaos Waste, could it be the result of Dhar being drained out of the very land itself? The Beastmen treating the mountain as a herdstone, because of the massive amounts of Dhar the mountain has accumulated in its efforts to suck in and destroy the Dhar that surrounds it?
 
I think we should go the the emperor generally speaking, fewer break points, but we should keep one thing in mind: the emperor is old and we do not know who will succeed him. Even if we get it in writing the word of a dead man is only worth so much as his successor thinks it is.
 
Boney said:
Well, he did acknowledged that it was perfectly sensible for humans to make it a hard rule to never touch the bad magic, and so it makes sense that you wouldn't be that familiar with its useful properties.
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Boy will he be surprised when Mathilde shows up her Dhar understanding later on.
 
Humbaba said:
Given how he's acting I suspect this is in fact going directly to Naggaroth to be used by the dark elves in their large amounts of magic workings. It's probably left on the basis that changing that would be incredibly difficult and might get Malekith or Morathi off their asses to come deal with whoever changed it. The Eonir certainly have enough pressing other concerns.
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Albion is directly to the west of L'anguille.
 
Ok so going by the reactions of the grey lord he knows Albion is a thing. I don't know how he knows that but he knows. Now how do we get him to tell us...
 
@Boney Excellent update. Thank you for all the hard work. The update is exceedingly full of depth, worldbuilding, character, information and literally every nook and cranny is full of something to explore. Can't wait to fully dissect it.
 
mastigos said:
Personally, I rather suspect that if there isn't ambient Dhar to absorb and use, we've already gotten much much farther with this project than I expected to in Mathilde's lifetime. Considering the green moon splashes it around everywhere (ir)regularly.
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No, most of what the waystones do is take the winds coming from the polar gates and shunting it off. That's actually more important then the dhar removal. These excessive winds need to go or daemon armies can match south without disintegrating.
 
JOJOBRN said:
I'm not really worried about unwanted attention here. Our patriarch and Dragomas don't seem like an issue, and the worst the others could do is withdraw their wizards or day something to other people, which doesn't seem disastrous to me.
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Remember that the wider spread this gets, the greater the risk of leaks.

People hate magic. They really hate magic. Mathilde was almost burned at the stake for making a toy horse neigh. It was not so long ago that the colleges were banned by the Empire.

Now imagine this scenario. Alric get's involved. He tries to use the situation to put pressure on Mira, he either deliberately leaks it or tells the wrong person when trying to apply pressure and the situation leaks to the colleges at large.

A lot of the colleges do actually support the strict reading of the articles (for various reasons, such as seeing necromancers upclose, hating dark magic or not wanting to get banned and besieged for another three decades). This makes securing any dispensation 10 times harder.

Or worse, imagine this leaking this to the population at large. "Waystones are made of dark magic!" becomes a battlecry. Imagine mobs pulling down every waystone they can find, not for gold, but because they are made of dark magic.

Edit: Lest I be accused of doomsaying, I don't think the second scenario is at all likely to happen. But it is a plausible worst case scenario if this got out to the population at large.
 
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DragonParadox said:
I think we should go the the emperor generally speaking, fewer break points, but we should keep one thing in mind: the emperor is old and we do not know who will succeed him. Even if we get it in writing the word of a dead man is only worth so much as his successor thinks it is.
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So then we campaign for a suitable replacement once the time comes. And/or involve a couple of ECs enough in the project that they don't want to see it shut down in the meantime. Both the EC of Stirland and of Middenland are good candidates for this. And the EC of Stirland should be able to gather quite a few votes if she plays things right at the time.
 
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