Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Some comments about the new AV results.
On the primordial winds:
On enchanting with AV:
On the Orbs of Sorcery:
Clearly the correct way to go about this it to save 35 CF and then gift the Colleges eight Orbs of Sorcery along with our book on the AV. But we should consider what kind of things we want from the Colleges for this: just getting a pile of CF sounds cool and all but I think this would be more CF then we would know what to do with for a long, long time. I also don't think Mathilde will have much she could do with the Orbs herself - although there was some talk of making a Tower/Battle Altar of Rite of Way, maybe an Ulgu Orb of Sorcery could make it a viable idea?
Anyway, here are some ideas for big asks from the Colleges to avoid us having infinity CF:
-A library agreement with the Light Order's library.
-Enchantment expertise, either for the Waystone project or for our personal projects such as windherding.
-Pimp out our gyrocarriage: half a dozen Wings of Heaven enchanted parachutes, the best Bright enchanters favour can buy deciding how to best use Inextinguishable flame on the engine, and so on. This would otherwise take us a lot of time and CF to do.
-Pimp out our branch College. This was a reasonable request from the Golds when we turned in our Skaven tech, would this be a reasonable request from all of the Colleges when we turn in eight Orbs of Sorcery? My gut says yes.
-A firm handshake from each Magister Patriarch and Matriarch, at least a minute long (each)
On the primordial winds:
If the AV contains primordial winds, and power stone creation methods force the winds into a stable/solid form, applying power stone creation methods on the AV might allow us to have the primordial winds in a state that allows us to observe them.
On enchanting with AV:
This previously seemed like a dead end to me, since the AV is pretty unstable - if you have an enchantment nearby either the AV touches it and explodes, or it doesn't touch it in which case it's not really doing anything magical. This update suggests another possibilty, which is that the primordial Winds released when we touch the AV to an enchantment might be absorved by the enchantment making it...bigger? I think this is probably a bad idea and still a likely dead end, but it's something.
On the Orbs of Sorcery:
Clearly the correct way to go about this it to save 35 CF and then gift the Colleges eight Orbs of Sorcery along with our book on the AV. But we should consider what kind of things we want from the Colleges for this: just getting a pile of CF sounds cool and all but I think this would be more CF then we would know what to do with for a long, long time. I also don't think Mathilde will have much she could do with the Orbs herself - although there was some talk of making a Tower/Battle Altar of Rite of Way, maybe an Ulgu Orb of Sorcery could make it a viable idea?
Anyway, here are some ideas for big asks from the Colleges to avoid us having infinity CF:
-A library agreement with the Light Order's library.
-Enchantment expertise, either for the Waystone project or for our personal projects such as windherding.
-Pimp out our gyrocarriage: half a dozen Wings of Heaven enchanted parachutes, the best Bright enchanters favour can buy deciding how to best use Inextinguishable flame on the engine, and so on. This would otherwise take us a lot of time and CF to do.
-Pimp out our branch College. This was a reasonable request from the Golds when we turned in our Skaven tech, would this be a reasonable request from all of the Colleges when we turn in eight Orbs of Sorcery? My gut says yes.
-A firm handshake from each Magister Patriarch and Matriarch, at least a minute long (each)
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Well there goes my only qualm about voting for the We.
Honestly I want to just keep piling up ridiculous things and then use our Ulthuan trip to drag Teclis back to look at it all (usually the Dawi would be like 'hell no' about the stuff that's adjacent/around them, but we can likely convince them by framing it as showing off multiple Masterpieces to the Wizard Guildmaster).
[X] The We
Ericwinter
Definitely not a Skaven Infiltrator
- Location
- America
We could, apparently, try making a really kickass staff. Theoretically. It's worth a shot, right?
I mean, we've still got a piece of dragon bone, and I think two shots at the Drycha legs? I can't remember if Boney said we could do each leg separate or not. That would be three tries, or we could just make do with the Orb and normal wood. If we want to be boring.
King Arthur
The Once and Future King
There's nothing wrong with just ... having a lot of favors in the bank. We don't need to spend everything the second we get it. We can just chill and wait for a need to arise.
For example, I want to work on the radar thing at some point. It may be that to cover a large area we'd need a lot of enchanted items, too much for us to create on our own. We can then just ... College Favor that problem away.
This may be an overly specific example, but the point stands. Having too much College Favor isn't a problem. We'll find a use for it eventually, don't panic and try to spend it on nothing.
For example, I want to work on the radar thing at some point. It may be that to cover a large area we'd need a lot of enchanted items, too much for us to create on our own. We can then just ... College Favor that problem away.
This may be an overly specific example, but the point stands. Having too much College Favor isn't a problem. We'll find a use for it eventually, don't panic and try to spend it on nothing.
- Location
- USA
[X] Locals
[X] The We
[X] The We
Orbs and power stones don't actually produce any Winds unless they're expended. And a naturally mono-Wind environment isn't necessarily a bad thing. All of the Colleges are mono-Wind environments.
Somewhere in the ballpark of six to ten, with the caveat that that does not necessarily mean one Orb is worth six to ten power stones.
That's a separate matter, conservation of energy isn't necessarily a given when you're talking about magic.
Each one represents a month of work for a skilled Wizard, so nobody's actually tried whacking one with bigger and bigger hammers until it breaks. That they're used as part of weapons and amour indicates that they can stand up to at least some rough treatment.
Can you put runes on an orb of Sorcery?
1) make orb of Sorcery
2) find a runesmith crazy enough to try (a former runesmith slayer, maybe)
3) profit?
Good news: something of a precedent exists, as one rather prominent Runelord has tried carving Runes in Warpstone.
I wouldn't say that went absolutely fantastically for everyone involved, however.
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Ericwinter
Definitely not a Skaven Infiltrator
- Location
- America
You could probably power Runes with an Orb or several. Maybe. We should ask if it's ever been attempted.Can you put runes on an orb of Sorcery?
1) make orb of Sorcery
2) find a runesmith crazy enough to try (a former runesmith slayer, maybe)
3) profit?
…I'm assuming Orbs are the same durability as Powerstones then? Which makes sense.
Oh, of course. I figure there's probably a ton of different factors that would change their worth and whatnot—ease of use, replaceability, so on and so forth—I mostly was just curious about an absolute baseline and also to gain perspective on just how big they are, power wise. I was originally estimating somewhere from three to six. Thank you for answering.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
It's a skull, so there's a lot of empty spaces. An Orb is a big ball without any.
So does it means that wizards can't cast spells in the 7 Colleges they aren't a part of? Because there wouldn't be any of their Wind present.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Egrimm can be pretty glib when he wants to be. I think it's funny that for a person with such a silver tongue who can be so charming, Egrimm's flippant attitude can be pretty unattractive. I actually find that an endearing trait. I think I prefer a brutally honest Egrimm over the charming "looks like they're hiding something" Egrimm. It's preferable that he throws out the occasional insensitive one liner than feel like he's repressing a part of himself under another person who has him under their thumb. I suppose it'll take some getting used to for Tochter and Elrisse.
By Teclis and Magnus, but I suppose Elrisse is highlighting the Teclis part. It's not like Teclis would have told Magnus the inner workings of the Waystones. I imagine Magnus would have been slightly more understanding if he learnt Dhar was responsible for keeping the world alive.
Ah, the crux of the matter. Teclis was fully intent on keeping the humans from the Waystone network. As to be expected. I can't exactly predict what Teclis would have done if he had all the time in the world to shape the Colleges to his liking. Would he have gone in depth into the Waystones? Would he have allowed the humans greater freedom in messing with them under his supervision? Considering that he made the Articles as soon as the Colleges were made, I assume he never had the intention of teaching the humans much about the Waystones to keep them from meddling with them.
Something that I can't quite wrap my head around is that the RPG says that any Wizard can draw power from the Waystones to get extra casting dice (or was it a bonus to casting? I can't quite remember and I'm not going over the books to check). Here, only the Jades have the ability to do this. Does this happen in the future when the Colleges figure stuff out, or is this a case of DL canon overwriting canon? I suppose it does make sense that Teclis wouldn't teach most of the Colleges how to draw on the Waystones to enchance their casting.
I had absolutely no idea what Uti Possidetis meant until I looked it up. Apparently, it's a Roman saying for "As you possess, so shall you posess". I can't say I understand land possession laws in Rome so I have very little idea what is meant here. I rather agree with Mathilde's attitude on this matter, however.
Ah, the elaborate ways that the minds of Magisters operate. They're very well trained in twisting their brains to find all manners of loopholes, exceptions and understandings in which the Articles don't apply to their specific situation. I am very much under the impression that they teach this stuff to you in the Colleges.
I'm also not sure if the plumber thing is supposed to be taken as a subtle jab at the Elementalists. I understand that the Elementalists talk about the governing four humors theory and I believe human excretion is 100% a part of that, so I assume she's comparing the people shoveling human excrement to the Elementalists. This does bring to mind an image of Mario and Luigi being Elementalists...
They do jump way higher than the average person, and they can shoot fireballs. Hmm, this bears some contemplation.
I would make a joke about being stuffed inside a supply closet with a half naked man being a desirable conclusion for a bisexual person such as myself, but I feel that is too obvious. Let's get past that part shall we? I'm sure Dragomas wants to change things up since he's stuck in supply closets with the Emperor often enough.
Not exactly what I would use to refer to the Dragon. I would have used "Do they mind?", but I guess Mathilde is primed to think of Dragons as "it" first rather than "they". Cython certainly doesn't mind, and Deathfang is very prominently a "He".
I love the random tidbits of worldbuilding that Boney throws in to his updates whenever it suits the situation. I'm sure the thought process was "What room would Dragomas use for a secret meeting?" followed by "Probably the Dragon room, if that's the case, what does Mathilde see? Probably the Dragon on his hoard. What should be discussed as they enter? First, the Dragon, and considering the conversation, probably his hoard. This Dragon has a hoard in an Imperial institution. How does it make sense?". I certainly didn't think that the gold being used as a hoard would be effectively a security deposit guarded by a Dragon. I just thought it would his money.
Absolutely no surprise at Dragomas being incredibly well learned on Dragon development, despite the supposed lack of literature on Dragon rearing. I doubt many infant Dragons find themselves at the hand of "humans".
Leave it to Dragomas to be unfazed. It takes a lot to knock this guy's pants off, despite their seemingly loose status. Probably a requisite trait for a good Supreme Patriarch.
I mean, if the Eonir are the ones operating the Dhar mechanisms, then wouldn't it technically skirt the Articles? Or would it break the Articles even if we let the Eonir do it because the Colleges would be the ones authorising the use of an object enchanted with a sort of sorcery that "Utilises Dark Magic". The rules can get pretty finnicky here.
If even the Eonir can't do it without breaking the Articles, then we might have to find another method. The Dwarven method Thorek demonstrated comes to mind, but I feel like that might be a lot of work.
What's a little more responsibility added to this already existing clusterfuck? I think Mathilde might hold off on mentioning the Dhar stuff unless it's absolutely necessary for them to know. I doubt either of them will abuse the dispensation, but security precautions are sometimes necessary to follow.
That would certainly be preferable. If that's the case, Alric might not see his letter until it's too late to do anything about it. He is off on who knows where trying to find something to do and can't exactly come back to Altdorf without being covered in glory, so he might never see the letter if all goes well.
This is incredibly helpful, to know that the Colleges have a stockpile. I hope that the pre-Teclisean Alchemists weren't the type to attack Waystones and harvest the Gold directly from them because they looked shiny, and instead they were the type to acquire the gold from destroyed Waystones instead. The questions remains if there's another source that isn't made of Waystones out there.
The Project is already showing its worth at exposing national secrets to be exploited by each of the composite parties. Niedzwenka genuinely doesn't care about opsec, especially if it's Ice Witch info.
Eight years.... Man it's been a while. Our Ducklings have grown into full fledged Ducks, even if they haven't shed their old feathers quite yet. Hubert is understandable, he's admitted as much. Adela is still working on it. Gretel, I assume, doesn't give much of a shit.
This is very sweet. We don't hang out with Adela much, but it's obvious that Mathilde and Adela hold a fondness for each other.
It seems our friendly neighbourhood dork got married. Good for him. Pay no mind to the Karag Nar Gunnery School becoming the Burgstaller Gunnery School.
D'aaaw. Kid Adela was an aspiring Pyromaniac! A visualisation of our young aronist.
Mathilde you very much have the ability to blackmail Adela into shutting the whole operation down if it gets out of hand, considering that she used your influence as a subtle tool for furthering her schemes. I doubt it'll ever come to that, and I certainly hope it never does, but I'm pretty sure Adela full well knows the Sword of Damocles hovering over her if she messes up.
How she has gone up in the world. By carefully placing herself in the perfect position, Adela has naturally assumed a powerful position serving as a fulcrum between several organisations to place herself at maximum power, and a lot of this was achieved by flexing her influence from the aftermath of the K8P expedition and her position as Mathilde's duckling. Adela's appearance belies a delightfully devilish schemer that would make Mathilde proud, if she wasn't worried about her actions causing potential turmoil. We didn't really teach her these things, but I still reserve the right to be proud of our disciple. Hubert and Gretel were always the loud one and the outstanding one respectively, so attentions slip off the seemingly least remarkable individual, who secretely has the most strings running off of her.
I genuinely don't think she's malicious, but I think it's funny how carefully she's maneuvered herself.
Which, unless she goes back in time to ambush Leonardo de Miragliano, can only really be achieved through Dwarf education. How serendipitous that things turned out the way they did, such that her Masterpiece can be directly benefited from knowledge of piloting.
I noticed this immediately, but the speech pattern here is highly reminiscient of Dwarves. Especially the "Aye, big news." I guess not even Adela can escape the Dwarf infection. Or, and this is mostly for my own personal amusement, she's affecting some of Mathilde's speech patterns, since Mathilde has been known to occasionaly go "Aye" like a Dwarf.
Dwarfs are much better at justifying things to themselves with hard, tangible things. Dead Orcs makes them feel much better than transporting an important individual around for a Project that might succeed, which if it does might reduce the influence of Chaos across the world. Ephemeral, incorporeal concepts are kind of hard to grasp for a human, and it's certainly worse for a Dwarf.
Feels like a pre-prepared speech that Mathilde has been constructing and rehearsing for a little while. Mathilde has a tendency to do that when she has time to prepare, allowing her to use her learning instead of Diplomacy. Not that I think the DC was super high on this one. Despite all the hard work Adela put into positioning herself just right, she's still an adventurer at heart, and she did most of this for her family instead of pure personal benefit. Getting to adventure with her mentor by her side and learning Dwarf secrets has to be very attractive.
Or at least, I assume she might view Mathilde as mentor. I'd like to think that's the case, even if the Ducklings never outright say it.
Pretty simple and straightforward response. I know I spent quite a bit mentioning Adela scheming to place herself in the perfect position, but I honestly think that she's not that convoluted a person. She wanted to help her family gain a foothold in the Gunnery School, and she wanted to position herself in such a way as to gain as much engineering info as she could, and so she planned things in a way to maximise her benefits. But considering that Mathilde outright said that Adela was making specific inquiries that flexed her position without outright flexing her position makes me wonder if she did it deliberately or accidentally.
Talk about a complete natural if she did all that accidentally.
This piques my curiosity. Does Adela count as part of the Pilots' Guild or not? I'm not sure the Guild has any procedures whatsoever for inducting a non-Guild Member to recieve the official training and qualifications to become a Pilot, since this is a bit of an unprecedented situation. I would suspect her to swear many of the same Oaths either way, but I imagine her Guild status would be a tricky bit of legaliese.
I would say "Only Mathilde could find that stuff relaxing", but I imagine that there are many other eccentrics who find such things relaxing as well.
Little did Mathilde know that her experiment could revolutionise the Collegiate world. Not that she reacted in the manner that would indicate that. She's gotten quite used to earthshattering findings as of late.
Clearly, we've found the first application. A flashbang against magic sensitive people! Powerstone+small amount of AV and all magic sensitive people within the area will be disoriented! Totally worth it!
You know, for something as organic, chaotic and unpredictable as the Winds, there sure are a lot of predictable stuff about it. Mathilde measured the speed of conduction of the Winds through air as a general constant, and now she's mentioned that the length of each strand of the Winds is constant and all Powerstones are the same size. I assume that despite the Warp's best efforts, the material world imposes "reality" on the Winds, forcing them to follow specific rules and reactions. Still, Winds can often become unpredictable at times, such as when they approach another wind. They always repel each other, but they do so in an unpredictable fashion such that Mathilde cannot reliably entwine them together.
I assume the reason for this is that when Winds approach each other, the fabric of reality becomes thinner and Chaos starts to reign supreme. The same thing applies when large amounts of the Winds are present, which results in things like spells and miscasts as the barrier to the Warp becomes thinner.
If my theory that the Winds approaching each other thins the barrier to the Warp, making the Winds react unpredictably, then maybe Teclis could create an Orb of Sorcery by carefully bring eight strands of the Winds together. Doing so would render the whole "all strands of the Winds are the same length" rule null, and then Teclis could carefully weave the strands together into a gigantic ball of pure magic, completely defying the standard process of Powerstone creation.
Of course, this is pure speculation. We haven't even taken the lesson on Powerstone creations for this theory to have any grounds to stand on. I'm just spitballing a possibility that isn't Teclis going to a place where the Winds are super thin and creating a Powerstone. After all, Teclis didn't return to Ulthuan before giving the Colleges their Orbs of Sorcery, so I assume he made them on the spot. I doubt he was also carrying dozens of volatile magical orbs on his trip.
Poor Mathilde. She got so used to the books being conveniently close by, now she has to make a frequent commute to the next mountain over to simply consult her library. The sacrifices she makes for the greater good.
I find it funny that Mathilde has a "primordial library". What a fearsome name.
Let's ask our buddy Morghur for a little tour around Karag Dum. What could go wrong?
I don't know what fuel the Dwarves use, but it can't be infinite, so yes I assume it would be wasteful. You know what would be wasteful but equally cool? A teleportation tower in each of the Eight Peaks for quick travel purposes.
Mathilde has come such a long way. She casually constructs a mechanism for the creation of eight Orbs of Sorcery within a few weeks and even finds a way to make it automated. Her 29 Learning isn't just for show.
Ah, just like Mathilde. Despite the absolutely ridiculous result she's come by, she's still irritated that she hasn't solved all the mysteries and problems she's come by. I suppose this might boost the desire to create the Sevirscope if it allows us to see the winds in their moments of conception.
Incredibly important question. Did Mathilde take the opportunity to yoddle down these halls to test the acoustics? As a Dwarf and a Wizard, it is her duty to check the construction of her library.
I can't condone this because it seems to push this library towards a magic direction, pushing everyone else away.
Fascinating and highly useful direction to take this library, but it doesn't seem to be winning. I suppose we would be giving up a measure of loyalty to choose the Cult, and it would be very difficult to get the Printing Press here once it becomes movable because of the Scribes. On the other hand, choosing Verena gives us a ready access of trained librarians as well as scribes and even additional guards. It would also make it easy to bring the Altdorf Verenans along.
They would be useful, but they're used to Dwarf clients and the Dwarven way of doing things, which isn't very conducive for an open library for everyone.
This is my favorite option. I want this Library to be part of the local culture, not set apart from it. What better way to integrate it then to hire locally? A library that is a reflection of the Karak as a whole is my favored option.
I like the Halflings but I don't think they're the most optimal choice here. For several reasons.
I'm not sure if people have pointed this out, but Mathilde clearly says in the bolded part something that I first missed.
Mathilde is an orphan. Of course she full well knows what a child without hope being granted some would feel. I didn't realise until I started this analysis that she was referring to herself.
While this looks somewhat appealing, it rules out anyone else, so I don't like it.
I don't want this library to be Cython's hoard. I'm not interested in that. I'm also pretty sure that it could result in conflicts of interest. Anything we decided, we have to run by Cython to get their approval. I don't like that.
And here it is. Almost 3000 words. I told you guys I liked the update.
Ericwinter
Definitely not a Skaven Infiltrator
- Location
- America
I vaguely recall something about personal reserves? Is that a thing?
- Location
- Washington
I THINK it's mostly a analogy of "just because plumbers and elementalists can both control/'control' water doesn't mean plumbers are elementalists."
NuclearConsensus
Herald of the Thorned One
- Location
- the Philippines
Related is the common saying "Possession is nine-tenths of the law." It's a lot easier to say you're the rightful owner of something if you have that thing in your keeping. Mathilde is saying that since the Waystones are in Imperial territory, not elven, the Empire has a right to them. I think.
- Location
- USA
I don't think "orphan" is the right word here, but she cut ties with her family as soon as they basically disowned her and condemned her to the pyre, so I can't say there's much of a difference.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Plumbers don't control water, at least not in this time period I don't think. They usually clear clogs in the pipes and drainage. I think it would be more accurate to say Engineers if she was talking about water.
Yeah, the technical use of the word doesn't work, but my meaning was essentially that.
When two parents give their child to an orphanage, that child is an orphan, even though the partents are still alive. Same princible here.
You could argue that her master counts as an father.
- Location
- Germany
From what I can get from a look through the internet it means the right to keep the land that you claim, that you de facto control, by the end of a war.
Basically the opposite of todays international laws, where the territorial integrity of states usually supercedes a right of conquest.
So in this context, because the Empire controls and defends the Waystones and the lands they are in, they own the Waystones, as opposed to the assumption that the belong to Ulthuan as the makers and original owners.
...that is what a Waystone does with Dhar though?
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ahah! So that's what was meant. Dhar is the ultimate plumber!
