- Location
- Utrecht
I've been wanting to do that action for a long time now, so yes.
This is my fief/organ vat/skaventech.
If it has any momentum, I'm all for it.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
This is my fief/organ vat/skaventech.
If it has any momentum, I'm all for it.
Wiadi
Uncompromising Radical Leftist
- Location
- Something Clever
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Would you like to pitch those of us who aren't so dedicated on why it's a worthwhile use of our time specifically in comparison to other options? 'cause like, as someone who isn't a devotee of any of the comparisons you listed, they mostly bring to mind "despite it seeming largely like a waste of an action a subset of the thread is really into this, often due to having some pretty out-there ideas of the benefits it might bring" which is less than promising.
- Location
- Utrecht
It's the only choice we have that could logically lead to an improved windsight, or ideas about how to improve it. I don't think needs further explaining how useful that is. When we worked out a program for Johann to improve his sense, he got a pretty good upgrade (which is also thematic for Chamon). In my mind, this is the first step of such a program for Mathilde.
Our windsight is fantastic, but it doesn't have Ulgu twists to it. One potential ulgu themed improvement is seeing through the pall of darkness. Another could be even better sensitivity to liminal spaces.
Secondly: Getting another trick to stack the deck in combat: seeing through the pall of darkness is a niche ability, but we got so far by stacking the deck as much as possible. If we are fighting alone, we can cast a pall of darkness, and fight effectively blind opponents. The trick is so niche that it's unlikely there are many who could do anything about it on short notice.
And lastly: I like windsight scenes. It's Trippy and i want more. But that's just me
It's the only choice we have that could logically lead to an improved windsight, or ideas about how to improve it. I don't think needs further explaining how useful that is. When we worked out a program for Johann to improve his sense, he got a pretty good upgrade (which is also thematic for Chamon). In my mind, this is the first step of such a program for Mathilde.
Our windsight is fantastic, but it doesn't have Ulgu twists to it. One potential ulgu themed improvement is seeing through the pall of darkness. Another could be even better sensitivity to liminal spaces.
Secondly: Getting another trick to stack the deck in combat: seeing through the pall of darkness is a niche ability, but we got so far by stacking the deck as much as possible. If we are fighting alone, we can cast a pall of darkness, and fight effectively blind opponents. The trick is so niche that it's unlikely there are many who could do anything about it on short notice.
And lastly: I like windsight scenes. It's Trippy and i want more. But that's just me
Seeing though pal of darkness is only as good as the pall of darkness spell. If we had used that on say Drycha it would have been only one dispel away from her rendering it moot. A sufficiently foe could also just get out of dodge. It is not that large a area. Last though definitely not least, it takes up our casting for the turn. If we are casting that we are not casting say Miasma to weaken the foe or smoke and mirrors to reposition. I can think of ways it could be useful, but they are all quite circumstantial against most singular foes we would actually need the advantage against
That said the ability would have been very useful when routing skaven in K8P and will doubtless be as useful against similarly poorly trained but numerous foes.
- Location
- Utrecht
The Area of Effect of Pall of Darkness is boosted by our staff, so anyone able to get out of that area is probably mounted or flying... or another Ulgu user.
If we incorporate it into our combat style we could use it more.
- Location
- Earth
I really do not support doing the Thurible for the Drakenhof expedition. Sure, we could do it later when we have a better grasp of Windherding, but that's its own thing. Ward Against Abomination is a spell that works best on large masses of lesser undead, which the throng of dwarves we're bringing with us can also take care of (there's no way Belegar would send incompetent warriors to Drakenhof of all places). The real problem is going to be higher-level and intelligent undead, like some vampire who wasn't fully knocked out, which both the dwarves and the Thurible would have trouble handling, requiring Mathilde to deal with it herself. Besides, enchanting the thing in the first place requires CF and we're trying to not spend too much of it right now.
I just want to get to bookmining already. Maybe the books and artifacts are already gone, maybe another six months won't change anything if they're still there, but until we go check we won't know about the former and the latter may still come back and bite us. Besides, if there's anything significant in there, that can help us get better deals when we set up exchange agreements with other libraries.
I just want to get to bookmining already. Maybe the books and artifacts are already gone, maybe another six months won't change anything if they're still there, but until we go check we won't know about the former and the latter may still come back and bite us. Besides, if there's anything significant in there, that can help us get better deals when we set up exchange agreements with other libraries.
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Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
I don't think we can include Dhar books in the library exchange.
We'll see what untainted materials are included.
- Location
- Netherlands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Okay, so while I think it is plausible that a lot of Castle Drakenhof's books might have been lost to damage, I don't think the "Alkharad might've looted most of the books already" argument is particularly plausible. Castle Drakenhof is rubble- it'd be very hard to loot a sizeable number of those books without a workforce, and that would have been noticeable, and we'd likely know about it by now.
More importantly, there's also the Black Library underneath Castle Drakenhof, which we'd also be gunning for with the bookmining action. And those books are far less likely to be damaged, and just as if not more difficult to loot en masse. Maybe Alkharad or someone else could've figured out a way to get in with some kind of esoteric Vampire magic, but I think its very unlikely that someone could've moved in and moved out the manpower needed to move a large amount of the books.
If someone did find a way to get in the Black Library, maybe they grabbed some things they liked and could carry out by themselves, and that would be unfortunate but ultimately not a disaster. There would still be a lot of other things left for us to loot...
Plus, if someone was/is sneaking into the Black Library and looting important books, then that'd be valuable intel for us to learn about, so I don't think that actually takes away from the value of bookmining as an action.
Aliya
Someone I might become
- Location
- Kazakhstan
- Pronouns
- They/She/It
Thinking about our apprentice and Drakenhoff, I suddenly remembered that a math related trait was an option afterwards. We didn't take it, but it does mean that knowing math at high level is probably useful. So... Who is for absolutely trolling our apprentice by spending one of the actions on just learning math in the elven library? They have probably already reached a state of "ah fuck, foundations of math and logic are not a neat and tidy stuff of Hysh, it's actually full of fuzzy stuff like "arithmetical truth cannot be defined in arithmetic" and "a statement can be unprovably true", which honestly might resonate with Ulgu abit.
He could turn into mist, so he probably had the capability to sneak in and grab a few choice tomes, if he wanted to
As far as I am aware, I think the Third Division is still garrisoned at Drakenhof Town, so I doubt Alka-whatever could have taken a bunch without notice—although he did have a very big smuggling ring funnelling goods towards Teufelheim, but even then I doubt they could have looted much from the ruins of Drakenhof castle.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There were two smuggling operations in Stirland. One in Southern Stirland affiliated with Alkhan and providing resources to him, and one in Central Stirland affiliated with the Lahmians that were smuggling peat into Talabecland to provide resources for them:
Neither are in prime position to exploit Drakenhof's collapse, although the southern smuggling ring would have had to have a route that led to Teufelheim all the way east of their position.
Queen of Silver Depths
- Location
- France
Omake
You'd always known it was going to work. You just hadn't quite realized how easy it would be.
The Skaven patrols had barely even been a speed-bump, even with Eshin leading the coalition. The Skryre guard-posts were more trouble, but they were overextended after yesterday's disaster and hadn't quite managed to properly equip their new front line. The undisciplined fools the Skaven called leaders must have been too busy squabbling over Belegar's crown to properly capitalize on their unexpected gains.
The sheer size of Vala-Azril-Ungol was a silver lining. You'd have groaned at the pun if it hadn't been Eike's last words.
The Queen of Silver Depths was a joke of a name, now. The Under-Empire had turned those depths into a tide of black-furred death, the Bad Old Days come again. You'd turned them into green flames and rubble, a jumble of warpstone and granite as the Underway finally collapsed.
Skryre still couldn't kill Cython, but they could still be made to destroy themselves with a little help.
A little help from the Second Secret of Dhar.
You'd always known it would come to this.
Oh, you'd told Belegar it wasn't ready for deployment. You'd told the Colleges you'd never use it. But all the while, deep down, you'd known. You'd studied it, in all its forms - warpstone-powered technosorcery, Dhar itself, necromancy, and even the ways in which Dhar could be used to wield other winds.
You'd known that if you wanted to, you could do better.
In good times, you'd thought you could do better than touch Dhar. You'd improved on its spells, found its weaknesses, and killed its users.
But when truly challenged, you'd known that you could use it better, too. You'd sensed petty necromancers fumble their way through basic spells and threaten whole armies. You'd seen petty apprentices shackle the so-called "uncontrollable" magic to their will. You'd spied on Eshin's Dhar-sorcery, and understood it. You'd learned the eons-old secrets of the elves, and seen Dhar used to save the world.
You'd known that if you wanted to, you could do terrible things with it.
The First Secret of Dhar let a petty Magicker like Frederick van Hal hold back the Skaven hordes. In your hands, with proper Dawi at your back, they would reconquer the Karak and storm Skavenblight itself!
Finally, daylight. It had been months since you'd had a proper path to the surface. Your phase-rats reported the place was clear. The Karak's surface valley had been home some interesting Moulder-beasts, and their corpses would be good raw materials for your testing. Worst case, their skins could be made into parchment for your experiements.
"It's only an experiment if you take notes," you tell the Apparition bound to your soul. It doesn't answer, of course - it can't understand you. You knew that. "I'm better than them! I'm a Lady Magister, and I have skill and discipline !"
That was almost a shout, compared to your customary whispers. It's enough to activate your customary warpstone-cloud, and you watch as it billows across what was once Panoramia's Magisterial project. You'll make a dubious megaweapon out of it, and she'll laugh when she sees it! Once you tame your Apparitions enough to fetch souls from the Aethyr, you'll get her back. All you need is a few more Ghyran-souled test subjects, and you'll give it a try.
The desperate gurgle of flooded lungs brings you back to reality. Your warpstone-cloud cleared out an Eshin, who must have been good enough to sneak past your creations and stupid enough to try to assassinate you.
They'd give up on revenge when they were all dead. Until then, he'd make a useful addition to the phase-rat team.
You stepped towards his corpse, reflexively pulling his soul towards you before it could escape. The unreliable liar no longer shielded you from divine attention, but the Horned Rat had learned not to contest your ownership of your kills. You laughed as you felt it squirm, reflexively trying to stab you despite no longer having a body.
Somehow, it hurt.
A burst of poisoned warpstone, and you vanished. Invisibility, teleportation, a cloud of soul-warping poison.
None of them made the pain stop.
You dove underground, rushing through tunnels the traitorous Dawi hadn't managed to collapse as they fled. Broken runes lined the walls, residue from failed experiments that served as ad-hoc defenses. Your own magics didn't fear a Rune of Spellbreaking, but perhaps they would disrupt whatever was attacking you. A new Eshin-poison? A blessed blade?
Once you're back in the darkness, you feasted on your newest tool. You tore him apart, feeding on his useless memories, and knew he had nothing to do with the pain. It started when you stepped out towards him, not when his soul tried to strike you.
Hysh!
You snarled upwards, knowing whatever Sun-Gods did this are surely watching. If the midday sun carries enough Hysh to penetrate your warpstone shroud and destabilize your containment spells, you're going to have to change your travel plans... But first, you focused and wrestled the warpstone-poison out of your bloodsteam. The We never made good corpses, but their bodies did teach some useful lessons. If you can't purge something from your flesh, you just have to concentrate the taint in a single spot and isolate that spot. Then Ulgu makes your body more of a suggestion than a necessity, and as long as the Dhar cooperates even Eshin cannot kill you.
Your manical laughter was completely silent.
You're a Lady Magister, after all, not some two-bit Magicker fumbling the Winds in a Sylvanian hovel. Dhar serves you, never the opposite!
You'd always known it was going to work. You just hadn't quite realized how easy it would be.
The Skaven patrols had barely even been a speed-bump, even with Eshin leading the coalition. The Skryre guard-posts were more trouble, but they were overextended after yesterday's disaster and hadn't quite managed to properly equip their new front line. The undisciplined fools the Skaven called leaders must have been too busy squabbling over Belegar's crown to properly capitalize on their unexpected gains.
The sheer size of Vala-Azril-Ungol was a silver lining. You'd have groaned at the pun if it hadn't been Eike's last words.
The Queen of Silver Depths was a joke of a name, now. The Under-Empire had turned those depths into a tide of black-furred death, the Bad Old Days come again. You'd turned them into green flames and rubble, a jumble of warpstone and granite as the Underway finally collapsed.
Skryre still couldn't kill Cython, but they could still be made to destroy themselves with a little help.
A little help from the Second Secret of Dhar.
You'd always known it would come to this.
Oh, you'd told Belegar it wasn't ready for deployment. You'd told the Colleges you'd never use it. But all the while, deep down, you'd known. You'd studied it, in all its forms - warpstone-powered technosorcery, Dhar itself, necromancy, and even the ways in which Dhar could be used to wield other winds.
You'd known that if you wanted to, you could do better.
In good times, you'd thought you could do better than touch Dhar. You'd improved on its spells, found its weaknesses, and killed its users.
But when truly challenged, you'd known that you could use it better, too. You'd sensed petty necromancers fumble their way through basic spells and threaten whole armies. You'd seen petty apprentices shackle the so-called "uncontrollable" magic to their will. You'd spied on Eshin's Dhar-sorcery, and understood it. You'd learned the eons-old secrets of the elves, and seen Dhar used to save the world.
You'd known that if you wanted to, you could do terrible things with it.
The First Secret of Dhar let a petty Magicker like Frederick van Hal hold back the Skaven hordes. In your hands, with proper Dawi at your back, they would reconquer the Karak and storm Skavenblight itself!
Finally, daylight. It had been months since you'd had a proper path to the surface. Your phase-rats reported the place was clear. The Karak's surface valley had been home some interesting Moulder-beasts, and their corpses would be good raw materials for your testing. Worst case, their skins could be made into parchment for your experiements.
"It's only an experiment if you take notes," you tell the Apparition bound to your soul. It doesn't answer, of course - it can't understand you. You knew that. "I'm better than them! I'm a Lady Magister, and I have skill and discipline !"
That was almost a shout, compared to your customary whispers. It's enough to activate your customary warpstone-cloud, and you watch as it billows across what was once Panoramia's Magisterial project. You'll make a dubious megaweapon out of it, and she'll laugh when she sees it! Once you tame your Apparitions enough to fetch souls from the Aethyr, you'll get her back. All you need is a few more Ghyran-souled test subjects, and you'll give it a try.
The desperate gurgle of flooded lungs brings you back to reality. Your warpstone-cloud cleared out an Eshin, who must have been good enough to sneak past your creations and stupid enough to try to assassinate you.
They'd give up on revenge when they were all dead. Until then, he'd make a useful addition to the phase-rat team.
You stepped towards his corpse, reflexively pulling his soul towards you before it could escape. The unreliable liar no longer shielded you from divine attention, but the Horned Rat had learned not to contest your ownership of your kills. You laughed as you felt it squirm, reflexively trying to stab you despite no longer having a body.
Somehow, it hurt.
A burst of poisoned warpstone, and you vanished. Invisibility, teleportation, a cloud of soul-warping poison.
None of them made the pain stop.
You dove underground, rushing through tunnels the traitorous Dawi hadn't managed to collapse as they fled. Broken runes lined the walls, residue from failed experiments that served as ad-hoc defenses. Your own magics didn't fear a Rune of Spellbreaking, but perhaps they would disrupt whatever was attacking you. A new Eshin-poison? A blessed blade?
Once you're back in the darkness, you feasted on your newest tool. You tore him apart, feeding on his useless memories, and knew he had nothing to do with the pain. It started when you stepped out towards him, not when his soul tried to strike you.
Hysh!
You snarled upwards, knowing whatever Sun-Gods did this are surely watching. If the midday sun carries enough Hysh to penetrate your warpstone shroud and destabilize your containment spells, you're going to have to change your travel plans... But first, you focused and wrestled the warpstone-poison out of your bloodsteam. The We never made good corpses, but their bodies did teach some useful lessons. If you can't purge something from your flesh, you just have to concentrate the taint in a single spot and isolate that spot. Then Ulgu makes your body more of a suggestion than a necessity, and as long as the Dhar cooperates even Eshin cannot kill you.
Your manical laughter was completely silent.
You're a Lady Magister, after all, not some two-bit Magicker fumbling the Winds in a Sylvanian hovel. Dhar serves you, never the opposite!
This is pretty much the only scenario in which I can see Mathilde using Dhar. It'd be amazing, and she'd do great and terrible things with it, but it wouldn't end well for her.
I expect she'd become a pitiable figure, lost in delusional ambitions to somehow fix things even as she only makes them worse and blames everyone else for it throughout.
C&C welcome. Please point out any typoes in PMs instead of cluttering this thread.
I expect she'd become a pitiable figure, lost in delusional ambitions to somehow fix things even as she only makes them worse and blames everyone else for it throughout.
C&C welcome. Please point out any typoes in PMs instead of cluttering this thread.
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- Location
- Netherlands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Also, on using the Gambler for book-mining... I suspect the Gambler's luck may be subjectively linear rather than chronologically linear, which means that using the Gambler might actually retroactively result in more bookloot still remaining.
After all, that's just how the human conception of luck works. If someone inherits a grandparents house and discovers a painting worth tens of thousands in the attic, they would often consider their luck to be something that happened in the now, despite the fact that all the events that led them to getting that painting having happened a long time ago.
Similarly, people will pray to Ranald for luck even if all the events deciding the outcome of their situation happened a long time ago.
And moreover, we have an in-quest example...
After all, that's just how the human conception of luck works. If someone inherits a grandparents house and discovers a painting worth tens of thousands in the attic, they would often consider their luck to be something that happened in the now, despite the fact that all the events that led them to getting that painting having happened a long time ago.
Similarly, people will pray to Ranald for luck even if all the events deciding the outcome of their situation happened a long time ago.
And moreover, we have an in-quest example...
It's possible of course that Heidi did a Luck Thing prior to picking out her place to stay and picked the right landlady as a result, and is just describing her luck in a retroactive manner because it makes for better storytelling, but I don't think that's the case.
Ranald is the dude personally responsible for choosing if the cat is alive or dead (he likes cats so it lives).
- Pronouns
- They
This is a belated response, but it's explicitly stated that Hedgecraft is compatible with the Grey Order's ulgu-based magic. Kurtis Krammovitch was stated to wield Hedgecraft before he joined the Colleges, and he didn't have issues with Dhar or turning crazy.
So yes, there are clear examples of humans casting from multiple Lores like the Nehekharans, the Damsels/Prophetess, etc.
The teclisian model the Colleges operate under does not cover all the varieties and limitations od magic.
As long as no Skaven got bright ideas upon hearing that Drakenhof got razed, this logic is pretty sound. Otherwise quickfast tunnel to dead-thing warren to steal-snatch their treasures, yes-yes.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Assuming he no longer casts Hedgemagic, that'd be easily explainable by the fact that he didn't have Arcane Marks.
Mathilde could have switched to another College if she wanted to with a detox period, but not after gaining her first Mark.
I'm also not sure the Nehekharans are an example. They have a Lore that isn't one of the standard 8, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with a human using multiple Lores.
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- Location
- Netherlands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
As was quoted on the previous page:
Boney specifically cites Kurtis as doing things impossible under Teclisean theory.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
And my point is purely that "he could cast Hedgemagic, now he casts Ulgu" isn't a counter in-of itself.
Correction, it's actually the First who are stationed at Drakenhof:
After Mathilde destroyed the castle, the Third stayed behind to garrison the town, but Roswita must have shuffled the regiments around at some point.
- Location
- Netherlands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
If you're not actually trying to argue that Kurtis might fit into Teclisean theory, that just seems like a pointless nitpick.
- Pronouns
- They
The Nehekharans were able to cast both arcane magic and the divine spells of their pantheon. Regarding Hedgecraft, there's another prominent example: Teclis recruited some of the most powerful and influential Hedgewise as the founders of the Grey Order. How likely would it be for those old/powerful Hedgewise not to be influenced by their brand of magic?
On another note, I would like to point out that while Mathilde cannot wield divine magic herself, Ranald can still perform divine miracles through our connection to some extent. Mathilde was apparently "buzzing with divine energies" according to Deathfang's magesight after the Kul raid.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
Were they the same Nehekharans casting each, though? Or was the Lore of Nehekhara in use by some and Shyish or Hysh by others without overlap?
If somebody is going to make an argument, I'm going to make sure that they're using the right facts to do it.
...this is not an attitude that has endeared me to anyone online, but still.
- Location
- USA
She also accidentally turned herself into an Avatar of Mork when disrupting the ritual for Only Gork, which was how Ranald, through her, was able to steal some power for himself.