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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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picklepikkl said:
Yeah; over the course of my proofreading efforts, I've hit cases where Boney falls on the other side of a usage position from me in ambiguous both-sides-have-support things, and I try to avoid flagging them as mistakes the same way I try to avoid flagging Commonwealth spellings (not always successfully). You want to catch things that the author would think are errors that they'd want to fix.

(In one case, with someone I know, they absolutely refuse to accept "free rein" as the spelling and use "free reign" instead because it makes more sense to them, and rather than keep arguing the point I just don't flag it anymore when I proofread for them.)

With regard to the apprentice thing, there was a thread contingent fairly early on after Mathilde became a Magister that wanted an Apprentice, but this was not a majority position by any means: folks wanted our time for our own and didn't want to introduce a new character with no ties to anything. There was some buzz that maybe if one of the kids in Karag Nar manifested magic, either ones born there or ones who immigrated there after the reclamation was done, that would feel sufficiently integrated to the story that it would be worth picking up rather than swooping in on Altdorf and asking for a lineup of the local urchins, but it didn't have, like, a lot of support from the people in the middle of the debate. Then Eike rolled a 100, and between her pre-existing role in the story and the specifics about that role (i.e. "in a position to inherit the EIC"), a lot of the apprentice-doubtful-but-swayable people (like me) changed their minds, though the apprentice-opposed people still exist and may yet win the vote when it comes time to decide.

That tends to be how it happens with major shifts of opinion in the thread: some argument has been had a bunch of times, the lines are well-established, then a development happens that undermines a key issue on one side or another, and then a bunch of people go "well there you go, then" and voice their support for a different approach now that things are different. I'm reminded of Battle Magic: the conservative "not gonna fuck with that" faction was ascendant until we acquired the Staff of Mistery, at which point one of the chief objections people had was no longer a problem and we proceeded to go hungry hungry hippo on mist-based Battle Magic in the time we had left.
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Or Boney writes something that really moves people. Pan in the romance vote is a good example of this.
 
13th Bee said:
Or Boney writes something that really moves people. Pan in the romance vote is a good example of this.
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I'm not sure it is? Pan was tied for first place in the initial vote, after all -- her winning in the end wasn't really a surprise, she had a giant pool of supporters from the get-go. Like, the zeroth date was quite cute and undoubtedly swayed a few people, but I don't think it changed her popularity a lot. She was already mega-popular!
 
Re:Eike, I will vote for her to become Apprentice, but I'm sure that if she doesn't win, Mathilde will likely find a good Master for her - maybe Regimand, if he's not too busy?

It's just... clearly, a vocal part of the voters want Mathilde to leave behind a legacy, which is why every so often people talk about developing a Shadow Sword spell to pass down Branulhune's style, or swords with Rune of the Unknown on it. It's why we have apocrypha of Eike as an apprentice or of a future K8P university. But that's counting your chickens before they hatch given how we indeed don't have an apprentice to teach things to.

Like, regardless of how you feel about that, it's something you have to keep in mind.
 
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Parabola said:
Re:Eike, I will vote for her to become Apprentice, but I'm sure that if she doesn't win, Mathilde will likely find a good Master for her - maybe Regimand, if he's not too busy?

It's just... clearly, a vocal part of the voters want Mathilde to leave behind a legacy, which is why every so often people talk about developing a Shadow Sword spell to pass down Branulhune's style, or swords with Rune of the Unknown on it. It's why we have apocrypha of Eike as an apprentice or of a future K8P university. But that's counting your chickens before they hatch given how we indeed don't have an apprentice to teach things.
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Narratively, Eike is also perfectly positioned.

She had a fan base big enough to win a social vote because her story intersected Mathilde's even before she became a potential apprentice. When the crowd that wanted Eike onscreen merged with the Apprentice crowd, her fate was sealed.

Ranald wills it!
 
I don't know if this is viable considering the EIC doesn't currently have a presence there, but how do people feel about getting the EIC to get us information from Nordland?

The Nordland/Laurelorn tensions do pose a threat to the Project, are the main thing keeping us from the magical section of the Library Of Mournings, and in general I think those tensions settling down will just make things better for everyone.

The Laurelorn side seems stable for now, and us being in Laurelorn a lot of the time and talking to people there will make it easier to learn if there are changes to that.

Nordland, however, we have much more limited knowledge on. We don't know as much whether there will be problems from that side, or whether there are ways to deescalate the tensions. Or if there will be changes in the Nordland status quo that would be of interest to us, good or bad.

I think it would be really valuable to get insight into say, the Nordland rumor mill.
 
picklepikkl said:
I'm not sure it is? Pan was tied for first place in the initial vote, after all -- her winning in the end wasn't really a surprise, she had a giant pool of supporters from the get-go. Like, the zeroth date was quite cute and undoubtedly swayed a few people, but I don't think it changed her popularity a lot. She was already mega-popular!
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The zeroth dates also reduced the popularity of Pan's close competition, IIRC (I know Johann suffered, at least). So she did come out a good way ahead, but it was partly due to her rivals losing ground.
 
LadyLynn said:
I don't know if this is viable considering the EIC doesn't currently have a presence there, but how do people feel about getting the EIC to get us information from Nordland?

The Nordland/Laurelorn tensions do pose a threat to the Project, are the main thing keeping us from the magical section of the Library Of Mournings, and in general I think those tensions settling down will just make things better for everyone.

The Laurelorn side seems stable for now, and us being in Laurelorn a lot of the time and talking to people there will make it easier to learn if there are changes to that.

Nordland, however, we have much more limited knowledge on. We don't know as much whether there will be problems from that side, or whether there are ways to deescalate the tensions. Or if there will be changes in the Nordland status quo that would be of interest to us, good or bad.

I think it would be really valuable to get insight into say, the Nordland rumor mill.
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I mean if nothing else we could send in the Hochlander himself on his own, we hired him as a manager, but that is not all he is trained to do. He's still a trained agent of the Grey College with a bit of petty and lesser magic to back him up.
 
LadyLynn said:
I don't know if this is viable considering the EIC doesn't currently have a presence there, but how do people feel about getting the EIC to get us information from Nordland?

The Nordland/Laurelorn tensions do pose a threat to the Project, are the main thing keeping us from the magical section of the Library Of Mournings, and in general I think those tensions settling down will just make things better for everyone.

The Laurelorn side seems stable for now, and us being in Laurelorn a lot of the time and talking to people there will make it easier to learn if there are changes to that.

Nordland, however, we have much more limited knowledge on. We don't know as much whether there will be problems from that side, or whether there are ways to deescalate the tensions. Or if there will be changes in the Nordland status quo that would be of interest to us, good or bad.

I think it would be really valuable to get insight into say, the Nordland rumor mill.
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We've kind of got a foot in the door with Nordland through the Cult of Halétha. I'm sure they have an ear to the ground in Nordland, and Aksel himself commented that more people in Nordland are treating the Forest of Shadows and its Goddess with a lot more respect and reverence these days, suggesting that the cult is beginning to grow amongst non-hedgewise communities.

That said, I agree we do need more perspectives on what's happening over there, and the EIC could get us information the Haléthan rumour mill wouldn't be able to access.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
We've kind of got a foot in the door with Nordland through the Cult of Halétha. I'm sure they have an ear to the ground in Nordland, and Aksel himself commented that more people in Nordland are treating the Forest of Shadows and its Goddess with a lot more respect and reverence these days, suggesting that the cult is beginning to grow amongst non-hedgewise communities.

That said, I agree we do need more perspectives on what's happening over there, and the EIC could get us information the Haléthan rumour mill wouldn't be able to access.
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I think you are over estimating the pull of the cult of Haletha: it's not even clear if they are legal or not, let along having 'respect and reverence' from any non-hedgewise communities.
 
Jyn Ryvia said:
I think you are over estimating the pull of the cult of Haletha: it's not even clear if they are legal or not, let along having 'respect and reverence' from any non-hedgewise communities.
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I do not think the cult of Haletha is remotely legal, in order to have a legal cult one needs recognized priests so they can define orthodoxy. That way if a funny man starts to use tentacles in cult rituals someone will be able to spot them. As far as we have seen so far all the priests of Haletha are the Blessed Few... who are recognized as illegal wizards
 
DragonParadox said:
I do not think giving them a hole in the ground to take tea in will be the equivalent of a dozen or so AP spent on infiltration, no matter how nice the hole in the ground is
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Oh i didn't think it will do that automatically, but right now our spy network is bound to the EIC, with actual trained agents we can somewhat change that. I do think that the hq will gives us more options to broaden our network.
 
DragonParadox said:
That is a very idealistic position. I would argue that the value of labor and its scarcity very much means the time of some people is more valuable than others. I am not arguing about fairness, but efficiency with the reasoning that someone with Eike's training would understand the calculus as well
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uhh.. that argument doesn't lead to "person A's time is more valuable than person B's", though. it leads to "person X doing an important thing is more important than person X doing a less important thing". like, if we had something important that needed to be done right now, putting off a commitment to someone else. we don't, though, so right now our time is not particularly valuable.
 
blub01 said:
uhh.. that argument doesn't lead to "person A's time is more valuable than person B's", though. it leads to "person X doing an important thing is more important than person X doing a less important thing". like, if we had something important that needed to be done right now, putting off a commitment to someone else. we don't, though, so right now our time is not particularly valuable.
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Everything on our action list is inherently more valuable than 'Eike is able to use relatively simple spells one month earlier'.
 
Tobtorp said:
But are any of our actions more urgent? Is there anything we need to do now? Anything at all? Because if not the the teaching training is the only thing that has any kind of timer.
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They at the least equally urgent to teaching Eike to cast relatively simple spells, because at least on a scale of months Eike's training is not urgent at all. Once she learns not to explode she could take a six month hiatus to go paint butterflies and it would make very little difference to anyone including herself in the long run.
 
DragonParadox said:
They at the least equally urgent to teaching Eike to cast relatively simple spells, because at least on a scale of months Eike's training is not urgent at all. Once she learns not to explode she could take a six month hiatus to go paint butterflies and it would make very little difference to anyone including herself in the long run.
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...ok so you just don't want Eike as a apprentice, that totally fair. But lead with that and not "our time is more valuable even if we don't have anything pressing going on" we literally don't have anything that takes precedent. nothing, nada, zero. The only thing that even remotely could be seen as urgent is going book mining and that's only because the longer we wait the higher the chance someone else gets the books. And that's a library action.
 
DragonParadox said:
Everything on our action list is inherently more valuable than 'Eike is able to use relatively simple spells one month earlier'.
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I'm still not really getting what your argument is- like, I could understand 'we don't need the class because I don't want an apprentice', or 'we don't need the class because we can teach fine without it'- I don't agree with those positions but they at least make sense.

But you seem to be arguing specifically that we should take the class, just not this turn specifically- which has absolutely no benefit that I can see and only serves to make Mathilde a worse teacher for one turn. Its just kicking the can down the road. If we had a bunch of immediately time sensitive stuff that needed to be done right this moment that could make sense, but as far as I can see we have none. Further, it just means Eike's apprenticeship in total will take longer, as we senselessly delayed actually starting it for a turn.
 
Tobtorp said:
...ok so you just don't want Eike as a apprentice, that totally fair. But lead with that and not "our time is more valuable even if we don't have anything pressing going on" we literally don't have anything that takes precedent. nothing, nada, zero. The only thing that even remotely could be seen as urgent is going book mining and that's only because the longer we wait the higher the chance someone else gets the books. And that's a library action.
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Note that I said on a scale of months. By contrast on a scale of years one more trained grey wizard with a well rounded education in Eike's position is valuable, but for the purposes of learning to teach a year or more in advance so as to save her one month of practical training that does not matter IMO

GrimTheMad said:
I'm still not really getting what your argument is- like, I could understand 'we don't need the class because I don't want an apprentice', or 'we don't need the class because we can teach fine without it'- I don't agree with those positions but they at least make sense.

But you seem to be arguing specifically that we should take the class, just not this turn specifically- which has absolutely no benefit that I can see and only serves to make Mathilde a worse teacher for one turn. Its just kicking the can down the road. If we had a bunch of immediately time sensitive stuff that needed to be done right this moment that could make sense, but as far as I can see we have none. Further, it just means Eike's apprenticeship in total will take longer, as we senselessly delayed actually starting it for a turn.
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It allows us to complete X action faster where X is anything else, just as an example we could use that AP to get CF faster and get those Orbs of Sorcery made and into the hands of Imperial Enchanters a full 6 months earlier.
 
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DragonParadox said:
Note that I said on a scale of months. By contrast on a scale of years one more trained grey wizard with a well rounded education in Eike's position is valuable, but for the purposes of learning to teach a year or more in advance so as to save her one month of practical training that does not matter IMO
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And that still doesn't explain your standpoint. There is no immediate urgent thing we need to do. (that we know of, but if that happens we reevaluate, no problem there) your argument is that everything is more important. Which yeah, maybe? But then the rest of your argument should be "so we should never take the action." And not, we should take it later.
 
DragonParadox said:
Note that I said on a scale of months. By contrast on a scale of years one more trained grey wizard with a well rounded education in Eike's position is valuable, but for the purposes of learning to teach a year or more in advance so as to save her one month of practical training that does not matter IMO



It allows us to complete X action faster where X is anything else, just as an example we could use that AP to get CF faster and get those Orbs of Sorcery made and into the hands of Imperial Enchanters a full 6 months earlier.
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But then we just take the teaching action the next turn, delaying something else by the same amount of time. Nothing is gained.
 
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