IIRC Damsels have their souls edited by the Lady, so yeah, direct divine intervention.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
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Boney has implied that Kurtis defies Teclisean teachings and we can infer he's capable of Hedge Magic:
He can probably do Hedge Magic and Grey Magic, but that doesn't matter for Mathilde. Unless she can somehow reverse fate so she can be born into a Hedgefolk family she probably won't get any instruction on how to attempt Hedge Lore.
My stance on this is that whether or not Mathilde could ever cast Hedge magic - and she probably won't in my opinion - the Hedgewise probably have insights that are useful to an Ulgu caster. Haléthan Hedgewise in particular, as while Hedge magic in general is about boundaries Halétha is also connected to shadows (and if she really is Ladrielle, to mists). I guess we'll have to wait and see. The Hedgewise are on the project, if there's something to be gained from their Lore we will likely figure that out as we work alongside them.
We might be able to be adopted by the Middenlander Hedgewise—we share the same god, after all.
It would probably be something we'd have to earn, however, and we'd still have the problem of trying to cast non-ulgu magic with an Ulgu soul.
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Ranald gives us a lot of credit, but the problem I see is that there's no way the Hedgewise would teach a Grey Wizard, no matter who that Grey Wizard is. The College has destroyed their place in society even more than it already was by their persecution, and giving away their secrets to someone beholden to an Imperial institution that wants them gone (metaphorically, by absorbing them or killing them) is a bad idea all around.
Kurtis was a Hedgewise before he was a Grey Wizard. I can't see a Grey Wizard learning Hedge lore unless they gave up the Colleges.
Aliya
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Which is why the Father is good, as long as we never intend to share the secrets and commit to that - it will get us a referral from Ranald that we are a homie and won't betray their secrets. And I imagine that betraying them would legit damage our relationship with a friend who fought Khorne for us, so we won't do that.
Notice how Askel clammed up when we talked about sisters of Haletha? The coin is not a carte blanche for trusting us with holy secrets.
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It's kinda like how despite being a huge dwarf friend and ally, most likely biggest there is, Cult of Thunngi isn't sharing with us the hottest and latest in runesmithing secrets.
While trust allows us to use their services or receive aid from them, it won't make them subservient to them.
Most likely very similar situation with hedgewise.
While trust allows us to use their services or receive aid from them, it won't make them subservient to them.
Most likely very similar situation with hedgewise.
Yeah, the Nordland Hedgewise trust us, but we're still an outsider.
Sort of like how we're a dwarf friend, but we can't learn specific clan or guild secrets.
Pre-emptive edit: dang, Mathilde'd
Sort of like how we're a dwarf friend, but we can't learn specific clan or guild secrets.
Pre-emptive edit: dang, Mathilde'd
So far we have exactly two examples of the Father working: our recruitment of Aksel and our social with Aksel. In the first, Aksel freely told us exactly how much he knew about Waystones, and the Father was very explicitly strong enough to overwhelm his distrust of the Colleges. Look at what he says:
In the second example Aksel didn't disclose the secret of the sister, yes. But he did tell us about Haleth and Kalita - he actually relaxed when he found out we were "only" asking about Halétha's secrets. And it is definitely a secret, according to Aksel the whole point of those aspects is that people don't know they are Halétha which allows their worshippers to avoid scrutiny, and yet he had no trouble at all telling us about it.
It is impossible to say exactly how much the Hedgewise will be willing to tell us at this stage, and I really do think we should just wait and see. But there isn't enough to say that they won't share some secrets related to Hedge magic with us. Since some have compared this to the dwarves, note that Thorek wasn't willing to share Thunngi's secrets, but Gunnars was willing to share some of Gazul's secrets so long as we took the proper oaths. The dwarves aren't a monolith, and neither are the Hedgefolk. The Ostermark Hedgewise might be more like the Cult of Thungi, but in my opinion Aksel seems more Gunnars than Thorek so far.
To paraphrase: "yes, the Colleges are kind of driving us to extinction, but if you really think about it isn't the Grey College good actually? Also you in particular are clearly trustworthy."
In the second example Aksel didn't disclose the secret of the sister, yes. But he did tell us about Haleth and Kalita - he actually relaxed when he found out we were "only" asking about Halétha's secrets. And it is definitely a secret, according to Aksel the whole point of those aspects is that people don't know they are Halétha which allows their worshippers to avoid scrutiny, and yet he had no trouble at all telling us about it.
It is impossible to say exactly how much the Hedgewise will be willing to tell us at this stage, and I really do think we should just wait and see. But there isn't enough to say that they won't share some secrets related to Hedge magic with us. Since some have compared this to the dwarves, note that Thorek wasn't willing to share Thunngi's secrets, but Gunnars was willing to share some of Gazul's secrets so long as we took the proper oaths. The dwarves aren't a monolith, and neither are the Hedgefolk. The Ostermark Hedgewise might be more like the Cult of Thungi, but in my opinion Aksel seems more Gunnars than Thorek so far.
Damsels may be sorcerers, analogous to the Nekahran Liche Priests, potentially using the divine lore of the Lady as tongs to manipulate multiple Winds without directly touching them, just as Nagash developed the use of Shyish as tongs to manipulate Dhar in dead things from the Mortuary Cult's techniques, and Teclis taught the Gold College to use Chamon to manipulate other Winds absorbed into matter.
What we're told in the canon material is that the Hedgewise manipulate reagents to produce effects from the Earthbound magic absorbed in those reagents and transformed in the process. They use a form of witchcraft, the magic of things of in the material world, rather than arcane magic, which is the magic of the Winds, or divine magic, which is the magic directly from the gods of the Aethyr.
I think you can look at them as multiple degree of separation from the Aethyr
1) Lores of Divine Magic: energy sourced directly from a god in the Aethyr channeled by the priests soul
2) Lores of Arcane Magic: energy sourced from the Aethyr that has reacted with physical reality to form the Winds
3) Lores of Witchcraft: energy sourced from the Aethyr, that has first reacted with physical reality to form the Winds, and then been absorbed by either physical matter or a spirit living in the physical world and transformed into Earthbound magic in the process.
I think that under this classification, Hedgewise, Hag Witches, Ice Witches, and Arabyan Magicians would be using a Lore of Witchcraft, as may Elementalists.
Now, I suppose it's possible that some Hedgewise traditions are actually the equivalent of sorcerers but using divine energy to manipulate Earthbound magic rather than the Winds, but that seems unnecessarily complicated.
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Given that both earthbound magic and divine magic seem to be less powerful than arcane magic, hence most sorcerers using to to manipulate the winds it would seem like a bad strategy to use it to manipulate the already accessible and quite limited earthbound magic. That feels like doubling down on a limitation.
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I also would really like to fit in the Thurible before bookmining, but I think good points have been made that the Thurible is a bit too beyond Mathilde's capabilities at this point, so I think we'd have to delay bookmining for 1-2 turns if we want to get the Thurible first.
A plan for something like that would probably involve getting scribes and Windherding something simple this turn, and then bookmining and Windherding the Thurible on t40 or t41. (depends on whether we're going to/need to use a library action to copy the University of Nuln on t40 after getting scribes on t39)
I reckon I'll try and figure out a plan of that sort too, because options are good.
I want to do a Diplo action on t40, because then Eike will be here. Powerstone creation lessons aren't something we can do with Eike, but a Diplo action with Eike could be useful to her and also just be fun to read.
I think this is a good point and would like to do it sometime in the near future. I've been analyzing that option purely through the direct practical applications of "see through Pall of Darkness", but it is also kind of a mystery box option, isn't it? If we learn to see through it, then we're learning more about Windsight in general, too - and that could lead to more research actions, as you mentioned.
For AV, specifically, I think it's plausible that there might be shared principles behind seeing through Pall of Darkness and being able to observe the AV "flash".
For Waystones as well - if seeing through Pall of Darkness involves learning to see through a Wind or something, that sounds like it could be helpful for getting a better look at the process and anything that might be behind it.
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Pall of Darkness is more complicated than just a Wind. It is an application of the Wind of Ulgu to alter reality to perform a specific function, the function therein being "cover this area in darkness, both literally and metaphorically, such that nothing is visible both physically and metaphysically".
I'm not sure how Mathilde could realistically see through the Pall unless she creates a caveat/condition in the spell itself that allows her, and only her, to see through it. I imagine that requires modification because the standard spell probably couldn't key itself to the user. I've always been interested in the concept of "editing" spells to change their parameters, but things are not that simple because humans are way too intuitive to have a complete understanding of all the processes that go into their spells, so editing a spell would often cause it to crumble.
That reminds me of Und-Uzgar, where Mathilde tried to edit Dread Aspect on the fly so she could rapidly cast it, something that Mathilde admonished herself for:
I'm not sure how Mathilde could realistically see through the Pall unless she creates a caveat/condition in the spell itself that allows her, and only her, to see through it. I imagine that requires modification because the standard spell probably couldn't key itself to the user. I've always been interested in the concept of "editing" spells to change their parameters, but things are not that simple because humans are way too intuitive to have a complete understanding of all the processes that go into their spells, so editing a spell would often cause it to crumble.
That reminds me of Und-Uzgar, where Mathilde tried to edit Dread Aspect on the fly so she could rapidly cast it, something that Mathilde admonished herself for:
That gave us the Mastery of Dread Aspect that turned our shadow into that, but I can guarantee that Mathilde probably doesn't know how that even worked. It's like her slamming two rocks together and creating a spark but not understanding how that spark was formed, but she keeps doing it because it's second nature to her now.
Voikirium
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1. Most of the spells he casts (As both Gandalf the Gray and Gandalf the White for that matter) involve burning shit
2. He is all about stirring courage and hope in the hearts of men that they might do their duty, which is also a thing Aqshy can do as much as burning shit. Healing Theoden is also a thing that can be done with the right Aqshy spell, though yes, that is also a thing Hysh can do.
3. For all he has patience he does have a temper and willingness to umbrage people when they're being dipshits
While they act much the same, the Gray Magisters draw on the more Odinic portions of Gandalf--the arrogance, the wandering, the appearing whenever and wherever they will, the plotting--while the Bright Magisters are him as, bluntly, a Messiah figure.
(Honestly more shocked nobody argued about Fate)
I am against putting book mining off just to make a item Mathilde will only use once than give to the colleges or Roswita. We are getting a Celestial with divination options so we can find out where danger is and kill it or deal with it. These will not just be Mathilde but a dawi expedition too. If we want something undead let's get Engrimm or higher a light wizard.
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The action says "Try to see through Pall of Darkness with your improved magical senses" and not "Change Pall of Darkness so you can see through it with your improved magical senses", so it seems to me that Mathilde at least thinks there's a chance to work it with the baseline version. Maybe we'll wind up having to edit the spell to do it in the end, but I'd call that an unfortunate result(probably of a bad roll) rather than any kind of guarantee.
...Also, I wonder if "see through Pall of Darkness" could be a WEBMAT action. (probably with Johann) It's an action that could probably benefit from having multiple types of Windsight around, and it's a potential lead into more research-stuff, depending on the solution we come up with.
The Phoenixian
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On this plan, I'll admit I'm not super enthused about book mining. Part of it is the possibility that we'll have the We's instruction to babysit or otherwise see to, since that does sound like the primary cost of hiring them, but that's mostly something that we'll just have to deal with if it comes up.
Even beyond that, though...
It's been 11 years since Castle Drakenhof fell. While there's a possibility that someone else might get to it, there's equally a possibility that has already happened and that the books Mathilde might seek to recover from the castle were, ironically, burned by her own hand in the College of Necromancy years ago. Especially as vampires and necromancers who would know are getting rarer in Sylvania as time goes on.
On it's own, that would still be worth doing, but I'm also pretty partial to Karak Vlag option, and the unique possibility of carefully recovered and preserved knowledge they might have. Both on magical traditions and on other things beside. They're less certain to have had really juicy stuff to begin with, but it's knowledge that we not only wouldn't be playing keep away with, but instead actively seeking to spread in future negotiations with both Kislev and other powers besides. Plus a bunch of other "foot in the door" factors that make the place an ideal stepping stone, IMO.
The last thought on the matter is mostly just a joke. We just hired a library full of spiders; We need a few turns of normalcy to get Belegar wondering when the next shoe drops.
EDIT: because I completely forgot about this... >.>
Yeah, even before that chimed in I'm very accepting of the note that the common idea of the colleges was "it's mostly likely outcome is to fail. Spectacularly." Still worth exploring, IMO, but I'll also admit it's why one of the other options in my head for "A thing that can be called the Height of Magic" is investigating just how much human influence is able to alter the nature of the winds away from what is seen as their "default" state by the Teclisian paradigm.
To take a point from an old post, dwarves are turned to stone by the winds of magic and dwarven Rune Lore calcifies it right back. Thus, if humans are made mutable by magic, do they mutate magic right back.
Like I said, twisting concepts like water, where the closest result the thing you set out to achieve initially is seen as the same end as what you set out for originally. Any human Lore that fits naturally within the themes of Qhaysh, whatever they may be, would be acceptable to me even if it does not wield Qhaysh itself. If even that fails, take all that has been learned.
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I hope you appreciate the amount of Pickling I've had to do, but I dived into the thread's history to prove a point:
This is Boney's first response to the idea of Pall of Darkness being percievable through other means, but it's very old and then followed up by this sometime later:
In this section, Boney denies the possibility of seeing through the Pall. Then, when we get Windsage, someone, specifically DiceofStupidity, proposes an action to see through Pall with Windsage, which Boney takes into consideration and includes in the turn plan:
This is his response and confirmation to Dice. Following this is the first iteration of the Pall of Darkness/Windsage option:
Notice how the wording here is distinctly different then the way it eventually turned out, and I'm not sure how it happened:
Now, I'm not @picklepikkl. I'm not as strongly against user generated options as he is, particularly as the trading option with Mardil was suggested by myself and I'm a firm supporter of the Kadoh/Johann action, which was also user generated and I think turned out wonderfully. However, it has to be kept in mind that the initial wording is very different than how it eventually turned out, and that Boney made the action in response to a request he found reasonable, rather than something he thought up. Pickle can tell you how user generated ideas are often hit or miss.
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Your efforts are indeed appreciated!
This is good... investigative? work. It definitely helps with making an educated decision, and again, I appreciate it a lot!
Maybe it was a clarification of what Mathilde would exactly be trying to do with the action? The newer wording is more specific, and I'm inclined to think that the newer wording is going to be more accurate than the older, even if the older does provide some additional context.
I think the extra context of the wording change actually has increased my confidence that the action is about advancing Mathilde's Windsight, rather than about anything like tweaking Pall of Darkness. But you do raise a good point about user generated ideas being potentially hit or miss.
Overall, I'm still quite interested in the action, even if not as much as if it came from Boney.
EDIT: Oh, and - the fact that it was an idea that was rejected at first, but accepted after we got Windsage, suggests to me that there is legitimate reason to believe that there was some barrier to the "see through Pall of Darkness with really good Windsight" idea that Windsage may now let us cross. Doesn't necessarily mean it's true, but it is at least far from out of the question.
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Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
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While I absolutely would vote for most of this (likely focusing on Waystone stuff for Web-Mat), I'm gonna have to second what The Phoenixian said: bookmining isn't really what I consider a huge priority and there's a good chance that those books are gone; and if they're not gone, then I don't think they will be in the next six months just because.
I'd prefer getting scribes so we can start copying books - we talked a bit the other week about possibly spending that Great Deed in our pocket to copy the many, many books of the University of Nuln. Or we could use that Karaz-a-Karak Moderate Boon we have for a more favorable bargaining position with them, and their books - I can't think of anything that would justify instead getting the Metalsmithing Major Boon. That's my reasoning on that.
Also, I have to ask, where's Sulzenland?
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But also, with Boney's style of storytelling, even if the action is a bust, it's not going to be a "you try to look into a pall of darkness. blackness overwhelms you," and leave it at that.
There's probably going to be some interesting tidbits on how Mathilde's windsight works, which might become useful when we're teaching Eike.
But if it goes well we figure out how to cast a pall of darkness we can see through, making us even more of a murderblender when fighting alone.
And if it goes perfectly, we might get a slightly improved windsight: and we know there's a better level.
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I... think I might have used the wrong name there? I thought I heard that name mentioned in the thread as something in Nordland that was relevant to the conflict, but looking at the wiki has me confused.
I have no idea what the name is of what I was actually going for.
...I'll reply to the bookmining thing later, for now I guess I gotta do some investigative work.
EDIT: IT WAS SALZENMUND
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I'm not saying it's a useless action. I think even the actions that ended up falling through like the coin inspection and Tongs still had value. The question is if it's worth it to spend the AP on this particular action over the dozen other things we could be doing. We're not looking at its value from a vacuum, we're looking at its value comparative to everything else we can spend AP on.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
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Salzenmund, capital of Nordland.