Same with villain campaigns in D&D—it either fades because everyone gets bored of the concept, or you end up fighting something worse and end up just being an excessively violent good guy. Being capital-E Evil just isn't narratively satisfying for most people, unless you can twist that into being "bad for the sake of the greater good" (see Worm and A Practical Guide), at which point you're no longer evil, you're just a flawed person trying to help people.
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
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Same with villain campaigns in D&D—it either fades because everyone gets bored of the concept, or you end up fighting something worse and end up just being an excessively violent good guy. Being capital-E Evil just isn't narratively satisfying for most people, unless you can twist that into being "bad for the sake of the greater good" (see Worm and A Practical Guide), at which point you're no longer evil, you're just a flawed person trying to help people.
Tasoli
Life is for Living
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That is the site culture tough, try Fiction live or some other platform. There is a few.
Edit: Altough they do get softened somewhat I suppose.
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Best shot at it I've seen is Ork/Orc Quests, those have been successful.
I remember one WH-Fantasy Orc quest on SB, by CrossyCross that went pretty long. And on a civ-scale there's of course War of the Krork as one of the biggest ever.
But not really evil, just not giving a damn about the evil they do in pursuit of a good fight.
K von Carstein
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That, and I imagine that taking place in the 40k galaxy makes what is evil or not a bit relative.
Codex
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I did a small update to the College Rolodex:
Now I have to ponder whether I should make profiles for Adela's aunt and the Imperial Dragon.
The second paragraph is completely new. Adela got quite a bit of new stuff.
I added Screaming Lord Reichtard to "Former". He seems notable enough for me to do so.
This might seem like a random addition until you find out that he is a canon character and that Boney mentioned him once, albeit not by name:
I also found out in my research that apparently, the Celestial Magister Kereveld that we met is actually a canon character by the name of Bartolomi Kereveld, and I updated his name as such. I also found out that Klaus Solmann was a canon character and that Hugo Bann is mentioned in Vermintide. Just a couple of fun facts that I don't think were mentioned before. I also found out that there's a good number of "canon characters" that Boney can borrow from if he's ever in need, although considering how brief their descriptions are it's usually not that helpful.
Now I have to ponder whether I should make profiles for Adela's aunt and the Imperial Dragon.
- Location
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Wasn't that where the Azula's older sister story that got cross posted was written? Deep Red (Avatar: The Last Airbender)
As I understand that suffered a lot due to an internal civil war between Ozai-ists and people who wanted to minimise harm.
I've seen some villain quests work. But anyone actively selling themselves as a villain quest tends to fast track to implosion.
If you want a villain quest all you need to do is tap into tribalism.
People would do a great deal of things they normally wouldn't, for the sake of those they care about.
Of course, most questors are also meta-aware enough that they'd at least attempt diplomacy, but you frequently see simple stubbornness as being sufficient to drive players to hostility simply because theres irreconcilable differences.
Codex
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I was going through Night's Dark Masters and I came across this Necrarch by the name of Louis Cypher. He piqued my interest briefly because of minor relevance to our current situation:
"A Bretonnian Necrarch, Louis Cypher sought to increase his magical abilities by absorbing the stored power of the ancient standing stones that are scattered over the Old World. With each stone he uprooted, his power grew, as did his legion of the damned. Some say those stones were erected by the Elves before their war with the Dwarfs, and Louis Cypher evidently believed this because he took his army aboard a fleet of ghostly ships and sailed to the land of Ulthuan. He has not been heard of since, and whether he was eradicated by the High Elves or if he fights them still for the magic locked into their network of standing stones, none can say." Page 62
I was pretty sure people could use the Waystones to power their rituals, but I didn't think anyone would actually try to gobble up the energy for themselves. I suppose Louis was successful if he grew more powerful with each Waystone he toppled. Although he is a Necrarch Vampire to be fair.
If he really did sail to Ulthuan by this point, then I don't have high hopes he's still unalive.
"A Bretonnian Necrarch, Louis Cypher sought to increase his magical abilities by absorbing the stored power of the ancient standing stones that are scattered over the Old World. With each stone he uprooted, his power grew, as did his legion of the damned. Some say those stones were erected by the Elves before their war with the Dwarfs, and Louis Cypher evidently believed this because he took his army aboard a fleet of ghostly ships and sailed to the land of Ulthuan. He has not been heard of since, and whether he was eradicated by the High Elves or if he fights them still for the magic locked into their network of standing stones, none can say." Page 62
I was pretty sure people could use the Waystones to power their rituals, but I didn't think anyone would actually try to gobble up the energy for themselves. I suppose Louis was successful if he grew more powerful with each Waystone he toppled. Although he is a Necrarch Vampire to be fair.
If he really did sail to Ulthuan by this point, then I don't have high hopes he's still unalive.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
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Didn't something similar happened when Grom the Paunch invaded Ulthuan? I think his shaman secretly used the toppling of waystones to become more powerful.
deathofrats0808
Don’t think of it as dying; just as leaving early
- Location
- Earth
Yeah, Orcs get insulated from a lot of the dislike toward evil races, because while what they do is objectively evil, they're rarely presented as malicious. Compare them to Chaos, who all want to murder and slaughter for power, or the Druchii and Skaven's knock offs of facism and even though they are, as mentioned, objectively evil, they don't feel evil. They feel more like saturday morning cartoon villains, who are fun to have around, rather than people who want to hurt people.
Less secretly, and more accidentally I believe. IIRC it was implied that Gork and Mork were inspiring the shaman to knock down the Waystones, and he happened to become more powerful as a side-effect.
Codex
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I don't remember the 6th Edition wording, but I went back to 8th Edition and it doesn't exactly say that he did it accidentally or was inspired by Gork and Mork. He seemed to know what he was doing, toppling the stones to harness the magic for extra destruction. In fact, one could say that Blacktooth was arguably more dangerous than Grom in Ulthuan.
While Grom was the one who killed Eltharion's younger brother Argalen, Blacktooth killed Moranion and almost killed Eltharion before Eltharion's allies used one of Tor Yvresse's towers to cast the Invocation of Endings, calming the Winds of Magic enough for Eltharion to counterattack.
Grom's invasion was brutal. Even the High Elves book doesn't glorify it from the perspective of the Elves. It was a tragedy from start to finish.
I know this kind of slid under the radar, but we now have an IC reason to go look for Albion, what is 'whatever is west of Bretonia' on the ley line. Not that I want to get on a ship and brave the Mists, but it is nice to have a thread to pull on in that regard finally.
Thoughts on sending Qrech?
I wonder what everybody else thought of this exchange? Probably "Oh yeah, she's a Grey and Grey's know things like that."
Or maybe they're freaking out that the Grey College has secret precursor lore.
I mean why would be accept and who would take him, it's not like he can swim there?
Codex
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That's pretty low on the priority list IMO. There are so many threads to pull on at the moment that we don't really have the time to start picking apart the Albion mystery, especially since Hatalath doesn't seem to be forthcoming. Him not seeing us as a peer is one big roadblock there.
Personally, I think analysing the Waystone Gold is probably the easiest thing to start on. We have a stockpile of it ready for delivery so we can start on the analysis straight away, and we have a couple of people who are pretty good at metallurgical analysis. The Rune might be next, considering we have Thorek and Hatalath on our side.
I think we have a very solid base to work on the available research avenues though. If we want to start working on the Foundational Wheel, Sarvoi seems to have a clue on where to start. If we want to work on Tributaries, we have several threads to follow (Cadaeth, Elrisse, Tochter or the Kislevites). If we want to work on Leylines, we can get the Ambers involved and map out the Waystones in more detail.
Analysing the Networks in totality is probably the most difficult thing. No organisation is going to want to reveal its secrets that deeply.
I was just spitballing, but the thought was along the lines of a pirate send-off, a small boat (and a gun with one bullet) as a chance to make his own luck. Either he finds nothing and rests at the bottom of the ocean or he gets lost along with whatever is hiding out there. Anything else would be so hilariously unlikely and generate such commotion that our Friend would profit beyond reason, so it's win-win-win.
That seems pointlessly cruel.
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Agreed. I'm not sure how I want Qrech to die (I might prefer it if he never died), but I would like it to be a peaceful death.
While I'm on the subject, would Qrech be the first character to "age out" from the quest if he did die soon? Anton's Dad is still alive isn't he, just suffering from dementia.
In a world like this, being able to die in your sleep is perhaps the greatest victory.
Codex
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I was browsing the wiki on some Elf related stuff, like the names of mages and such, when I came across this interesting article from a likely non canonical source: Shadow Weavers.
It comes from a Town Cryer issue, which appears to be the White Dwarf equivalent for the Mordheim game set in the city with the same name. Supposedly, this is a form of specialised magic tradition from Nagarythe focused on manipulating shadows and darkness almost exclusively. It's a highly Elemental focus and pretty Ulgu-ish.
It's most likely non-canon, but I like the concept. With some tweaking, I think a spellcasting variant of the Shadow Warriors in Nagarythe is a possibility.
It comes from a Town Cryer issue, which appears to be the White Dwarf equivalent for the Mordheim game set in the city with the same name. Supposedly, this is a form of specialised magic tradition from Nagarythe focused on manipulating shadows and darkness almost exclusively. It's a highly Elemental focus and pretty Ulgu-ish.
It's most likely non-canon, but I like the concept. With some tweaking, I think a spellcasting variant of the Shadow Warriors in Nagarythe is a possibility.
- Location
- Utrecht
Mathilde: Can I have that Spellbook "to-go"?
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I mean, we do have that Nagarythe vacation to use at some point. Maybe we could... do some light studying in-between Dark Elf killing?
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- Utrecht
That's what I was referring to.
Although the spells in the wiki don't sound all that impressive, tbh.
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True. I think they would be interesting for Mathilde anyway. From what I remember, a lot of the spells Teclis taught the colleges were considered "cantrips" for High Magic. These Shadow Weaver magics are a type of High Magic, so it's likely Mathilde won't be able to cast them, but maybe she can gain some interesting observations anyway? Maybe another paper, hmmm?