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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Sa'kage said:
For the people who would be against the project it would be. Because we'd be hidding this from every single magical expert who could point out if we're doing something really illegally bad.

Waystones are vital to the way of life, the fact that someone is doing something Dhar releated there, and tried to hide it from all of the most loyal and knowledgeable of mages is suspicious(Which is what the patriarchs are suppose to be)
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Anyone who would be against the project already have enough reasons to blame Mathilde. Easiest to spot is the fact that we have not based our Project under WEB-MAT and Colleges authority.

Again, we are not trying to hide it. Outside view would be something like: Mathilde learn something about Waystones, went to the Emperor about it. He consulted whoever he wanted about it, then deemed it as a "need-to-know basis" thing and allowed Dispensation. The only one who can be offended is a Dragomas, and I'm pretty sure he will be okay with our actions. Explanation won't hurt though.
 
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picklepikkl said:
In unrelated news, I received an email from my power company with the following subject line:

Dig safely! Know what's below.
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Which I felt was probably authored by a traumatized dwarf.
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I used to work for a construction company, and I was talking to a colleague once about this. He was doing some work on a canal towpath, and by law any cables and pipes running beneath a towpath must be at least 1 metre deep. Well the digger he was driving had barely gone a few inches before snapping some internet cables.

Here's the kicker—because my colleague hadn't scanned the ground with a cable detector first, it was our company that got hit by the fine for breaking the cables, not the original idiots who placed them so shallowly.

So yeah, always look before you dig.
 
Boney said:
You'd probably need at least a working prototype to convince someone from Cathay that the four thousand mile journey to the Empire is worth the trip.
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...how long would it take to get there by Shadow Steed? If you're using the new Cathay canon we could probably convince Zhao Ming to join the project by paying him in AV, which as an alchemist who fucks around with warpstone he'd likely find interesting as hell.
 
One thing I am curious about is how does the Waystone know when it has to make Dhar to keep up the flow? That sounds like the kind of thing that would need some kind of magical machine logic and we hit a wall on that, the only way we know around it is to bind something to the mechanism. Is there some kind of spirit bound at the heart of every waystone? And if it is what kind.
 
DragonParadox said:
One thing I am curious about is how does the Waystone know when it has to make Dhar to keep up the flow? That sounds like the kind of thing that would need some kind of magical machine logic and we hit a wall on that, the only way we know around it is to bind something to the mechanism. Is there some kind of spirit bound at the heart of every waystone? And if it is what kind.
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I think it might just have one part do dispensing and another do metaphysical pumping, and if there's an empty click, it triggers a dormant third function to grab stuff from the Winds chambers and jam them together to make Dhar. And if there isn't enough stuff in the Winds chambers, then no need to pump at all.

Not really something that'd require spirits in particular.
 
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If we are worried about this project being cancled from college dispensation i do think that the imperial one is far worse, because like, if the Emperor is acting smart, he's gonna seek out advice on this, because he's not an trained expert in the matter.

One would be Dragomas, but the other? Would most likely be the order that is loyal to the empire, has reasons to be protecting waystones, and have millenium of fighting dark magics, and is one of the, if not the foremost expert on how Dhar works, the Grand theologan of the sigmarites.

And if the Grand Theologan finds out about this, from the Emperor on the idea that we wanted to hide this from our own collage people, instead of the proper channels who were made to deal with situations like this? In a matter regarding the waystones, which he'd be fully aware of is the sole reason why life can flourish on Mundus? When he's allready suspiscious of mages as it is?

He might fully advise against granting us permission to study, because like "Woah, this wizard is trying to hide the fact she's messing with dark magic on the ultra-important rocks from her own fellow members" And we'd be without the support of the Collages to back us on that, if that's what happenes, because again, by hidding this from the collages, we are also not reciving any support from them, because they wouldn't know.

In terms of information secrets about the Dhar, this might end up leaking far more then the Collages
 
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Sa'kage said:
If we are worried about this project being cancled from college dispensation i do think that the imperial one is far worse, because like, if the Emperor is acting smart, he's gonna seek out advice on this, because he's not an trained expert in the matter.

One would be Dragomas, but the other? Would most likely be the order that is loyal to the empire, has reasons to be protecting waystones, and have millenium of fighting dark magics, and is one of the, if not the foremost expert on how Dhar works, the Grand theologan of the sigmarites.

And if the Grand Theologan finds out about this, from the Emperor on the idea that we wanted to hide this from our own collage people, instead of the proper channels who were made to deal with situations like this? In a matter regarding the waystones, which he'd be fully aware of is the sole reason why life can flourish on Mundus? When he's allready suspiscious of mages as it is?

He might fully advise against granting us permission to study, because like "Woah, this wizard is trying to hide the fact she's messing with dark magic on the ultra-important rocks from her own fellow members" And we'd be without the support of the Collages to back us on that, if that's what happenes, because again, by hidding this from the collages, we are also not reciving any support from them, because they wouldn't know.

In terms of information secrets about the Dhar, this might end up leaking far more then the Collages
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I think the concern is less that the project will be blocked entirely and more a combination of three things:
  1. Individual Patriarchs pull their mages off the Project/refuse to cooperate
  2. The wheels of bureaucracy turn slow due to political headwinds and we are unable to work for months even years, annoying our non-college partners
  3. The information gets spread too far and is used as part of a misinformation campaign against the Project that leads to point 1 or 2
 
Boney said:
She could access them, but she couldn't throw an army of random hirelings at the Library of Mournings' most precious, ancient, and delicate scrolls. That's something having a staff of professional scribes on hand could make easier.
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Would non-Elven professional scribes be allowed into that particular section?
Boney said:
Not ones that speak Eltharin and are cleared for magical topics.
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I didn't quite understand this question-answer exchange. Are you saying that we can't possibly hire scribes that speak Eltharin and are cleared for magical topics en masse, or that the Eonir would only allow "clueless transcribers" who blindly copy whatever weird symbols they find without understanding them, or something else?
 
DragonParadox said:
I think the concern is less that the project will be blocked entirely and more a combination of three things:
  1. Individual Patriarchs pull their mages off the Project/refuse to cooperate
  2. The wheels of bureaucracy turn slow due to political headwinds and we are unable to work for months even years, annoying our non-college partners
  3. The information gets spread too far and is used as part of a misinformation campaign against the Project that leads to point 1 or 2
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1. Unlikely, if they can't trust their lord magisters in a grand patriarch approved project, then who can they?
2. Bureaucracy in this case being "Tell Dragomas who practically rubber stamps our dispensation and sends letters to relevant pattriarchs/mattriarcs".
3. College's are not stupid and know how to keep a goddamn secret.
 
TreP said:
We are not though. This is by no means a some kind of critical vote. We get problems either way, and it's up to voters to decide which way they think will be easier for us.
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Except several people are arguing that Alric is somehow gonna burst down the waystone project door, wave his hand and just cancel the entier project if he finds out from a memo. For several voters this is very much a factor in how they are voting
 
Sa'kage said:
Except several people are arguing that Alric is somehow gonna burst down the waystone project door, wave his hand and just cancel the entier project if he finds out from a memo. For several voters this is very much a factor in how they are voting
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Cancel project? Very unlikely. Has potential to directly or indirectly cause some sort of troubles? Probably.
Valmond said:
1. Unlikely, if they can't trust their lord magisters in a grand patriarch approved project, then who can they?
2. Bureaucracy in this case being "Tell Dragomas who practically rubber stamps our dispensation and sends letters to relevant pattriarchs/mattriarcs".
3. College's are not stupid and know how to keep a goddamn secret.
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1. Pretty sure there were no "Your mages will study dark magic" paragraph in the approved version. While I agree that it is unlikely that anyone will recall their mages, I would understand if they opinion of the Project changes becaus of new info.
2. Still requires more time throwing papers in each other faces than Emperor option. Certainly not critical though.
3. College is not a single entity. While I'm sure mages will keep a secret from outside world, arguable, people in Colleges are more cautios of connections to "dark magic" than any outsider.
 
Shane_357 said:
...how long would it take to get there by Shadow Steed? If you're using the new Cathay canon we could probably convince Zhao Ming to join the project by paying him in AV, which as an alchemist who fucks around with warpstone he'd likely find interesting as hell.
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Two weeks each way if we're talking about some sort of bizarrely safe alternate universe where Mathilde can make camp at random points in the Dark Lands for two weeks in a row and have absolutely nothing go wrong.

Rafin said:
Would non-Elven professional scribes be allowed into that particular section?
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If they're in Mathilde's employ and she's entirely responsible for anything bad that happens as a result, yes.

Rafin said:
I didn't quite understand this question-answer exchange. Are you saying that we can't possibly hire scribes that speak Eltharin and are cleared for magical topics en masse, or that the Eonir would only allow "clueless transcribers" who blindly copy whatever weird symbols they find without understanding them, or something else?
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I'm saying that large numbers of currently unemployed Eltharin-speaking professional scribes who are cleared for magical topics don't exist.
 
TreP said:
1. Pretty sure there were no "Your mages will study dark magic" paragraph in the approved version. While I agree that it is unlikely that anyone will recall their mages, I would understand if they opinion of the Project changes becaus of new info.
2. Still requires more time throwing papers in each other faces than Emperor option. Certainly not critical though.
3. College is not a single entity. While I'm sure mages will keep a secret from outside world, arguable, people in Colleges are more cautios of connections to "dark magic" than any outsider.
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1. Waystones will continue to be extremely important to the continued of existence of *checks notes* everyone.
Yes, attitudes might change, but that is not going to noticeably impede the project, and any further magisters we want to recruit will need to be brought in anyway, the knowledge will spread to Pattriarchs/Mattriarchs sooner or later, and sooner it does the less questions there will be of why we kept it from them.
2. It is not going to take long enough to be noticeable, at most we spend one turn doing theoretical studies, mapping leylines, or staring at waystones, instead of trying to build a prototype, which i would have assumed was a case anyway.
3. This is not going to be a colleges wide publication. Information goes from Dragomas to PAttriarchs, maybe one or two of the more trusted senior magisters.

The risks of college dispensation are vastly overstated, while the lack of risks from imperial dispensation are understated.
 
DragonParadox said:
  1. Individual Patriarchs pull their mages off the Project/refuse to cooperate
  2. The wheels of bureaucracy turn slow due to political headwinds and we are unable to work for months even years, annoying our non-college partners
  3. The information gets spread too far and is used as part of a misinformation campaign against the Proje
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None of these seem like reasonable arguments to me. Feldmanb and Algard are cool with their wizards researching dark magic, Paranoth is constantly out of office, and he secretly wants Tochter to fuck up anyway, so giving her more rope is a good thing in his eyes, and Alric doesn't have the influence he needs to order two lords magister to do something else.

As for bureaucracy, the process as far as I can tell is this: we speak to Algard. Algard speaks to Dragomas. Dragomas speaks to the emperor. Lutipold and Dragomas rubber stamp the forms. Dragomas fills in paperwork to inform the patriarchs that their wizards have permission to study the effects of dark magic as part of the Waystone project. We can probably get it done in a few days at most.

As for leaks—nobody leaked that Johann had permission to break the conspiracy of silence. Nobody leaked that Egrimm was travelling to the wastes to study the windfall. Just where exactly are these leaks going to come from? It's not like Dragomas will be handing out a newsletter to every intern. This is by its nature a secret, and if we can't trust any of the people involved we have bigger problems to deal with.
 
Boney said:
Two weeks each way if we're talking about some sort of bizarrely safe alternate universe where Mathilde can make camp at random points in the Dark Lands for two weeks in a row and have absolutely nothing go wrong.
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Has Dragomas ever actually detailed what his trip to the Far East looked like or is he keeping that stuff secret? I'm sure there's a lot of curiosity on how a Journeyman made that journey. Although he might prefer to keep silent about it.
 
mathymancer said:
Each nexus is connected to a spiderweb of Waystones, and each Waystone is fed by tributaries. Some appear to just be smaller Waystones, but others seem to be entirely seperate designs created by factions other than the elves and the dwarves.

Current information:
  • The lornalim trees are trees that require gold and/or silver to grow, and are tributaries used by the Eonir (source: Cadaeth)
  • The oghams are tributaries constructed by humans, probably the Belthani but possibly other groups (source: Tochter, Mathilde)
  • Kurgans are burial mounds which are apparently tributaries built by the Scythians or something? (source: Mathilde's creative interperation of some pictographs apparently)
  • Tributaries are probably easier to construct than Waystones because they handle small amounts of magic, and small amounts of winds do not retain the nature of the winds and instead have the same nature. This is sometimes called Earthbound Magic (source: Egrimm)
Avenues of further research:
Constructing tributaries:
If we need to get results fast due to political pressures this is probably our best shot at getting results in the short term. Doing this will obviously require us to first research the nature of the existing tributaries.
Existing tributaries:
Get the project members to tell us as much as they are willing on the way the tributaries they are aware of function. If they don't know, see if they have any idea where we might get more information.
-Ask Tochter about oghams
-Ask Niedzwenka and Zlata about kurgans
-Ask Cadaeth about the lornalim
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Do you think this section would be the right place to also mention other non-standard Waystones we've encountered? The first that comes to mind is the Lights immaterial one in Altdorf, but there's a whole list maintained by @Jyn Ryvia if I remember correctly.
Boney said:
I'm saying that large numbers of currently unemployed Eltharin-speaking professional scribes who are cleared for magical topics don't exist.
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Could we try to directly hire some of those unemployed Eonir into our army of scribes permanently? Or is the price for getting them to leave Tor Lithanel and potentially lose their Toriour status too high to be worth it, despite these being otherwise unemployed and sometimes even homeless people? Maybe there's Faniour willing to take the deal.
 
Rafin said:
Could we try to directly hire some of those unemployed Eonir into our army of scribes permanently? Or is the price for getting them to leave Tor Lithanel and potentially lose their Toriour status too high to be worth it, despite these being otherwise unemployed and sometimes even homeless people? Maybe there's Faniour willing to take the deal.
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You would need to train them as scribes first.
 
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