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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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ReImagined said:
Speaking of Rite of Way, I'd like it very much if we could attempt to codify it some point in the near future turns. We get CF for spell creation, which would help the Orbs flex along, and it also has some potential in dealing with the Laurelorn-Middenland trade route through the swamp.
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I don't think CF is a major barrier to the Orbs flex, at least not if we're aiming to do AV simultaneously. If we are, then I think the AV research actions are the primary barrier, and we'll probably have enough CF by the time we're done with that.

Even if we don't, it'd be really easy to use a WEB-MAT action or something to get that last bit of CF.
 
Gonna be honest, even if we just manage to get "how to make your own tributaries" up and running for all involved, that's going to do a great deal to reinforce the network.
 
Tobtorp said:
Generally my thinking is that a) enchanting battle magic is hard. B) having a caster continuously on hand that can cast BM is a waste of that caster.
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Mopman43 said:
If you can get it to a giant enchantment, then maybe, but I don't believe it's viable to run a trade route exclusively through Battle Magic casters.

Even beyond the risk to the caster from continuously casting Battle Magic (and for the sake of profit and trade rather than dealing mass-death to the enemies of the Empire), one bit of wisdom Abelhelm advised on is to never create a system that relies on always having Wizards if you want it to be useful.
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Mathilde doesn't know how to enchant BM, and human BM level casters are rare, yes. Those are two problems that would prevent the Colleges from implementing such a solution. The assumption is that there exists at least one group of trade-inclined magically-adept elves, who would be interested in a theoretically codified RoW. Basically, the idea is that while BM-capable elves are still not common, they are less rare than what the Colleges are to the Empire.

To be very clear, it's all speculation at this point, since the spell is not codified and how well it is codified would affect the viability of the idea.
 
Also uh random question, but out of curiosity how often has the Rune of Superior Skill been the standout? I remember the seemingly most needed situation vs Khorney Boi had him shutting down even the Runes, though u guess Drycha probably had some enchantments that would've let her tank a cannonball that were shut off even if Mathy couldn't specifically see them.
 
I always figure that the colleges have way more spells codified then those listed in their spellbooks. It's just that the spells in the spellbooks are broadly teachable, learnable, or usable to the majority of wizards of their Wind. Like the Ulgu battle magic listed in the spellbook are spells that any wizard of Ulgu could fit towards their view of Ulgu. So even if Mathilde where to codify Rite of Way it would get added to the Grey Colleges spellbook but not the general Grey College spellbook.
 
A_Somebody said:
Also uh random question, but out of curiosity how often has the Rune of Superior Skill been the standout? I remember the seemingly most needed situation vs Khorney Boi had him shutting down even the Runes, though u guess Drycha probably had some enchantments that would've let her tank a cannonball that were shut off even if Mathy couldn't specifically see them.
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For all we know Al-Kharid might have had some magic items or active effects on him.

Certainly be rare for a Necrarch to go entirely without, though it was his personal study.
 
Imugi said:
I always figure that the colleges have way more spells codified then those listed in their spellbooks. It's just that the spells in the spellbooks are broadly teachable, learnable, or usable to the majority of wizards of their Wind. Like the Ulgu battle magic listed in the spellbook are spells that any wizard of Ulgu could fit towards their view of Ulgu. So even if Mathilde where to codify Rite of Way it would get added to the Grey Colleges spellbook but not the general Grey College spellbook.
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If Mathilde codifies RoW, then anybody who has access to the codified spell (and can wield Ulgu) is able to learn it. Source:
Boney said:
If Mathilde codifies a spell, then anyone can cast it without having to replicate her mental state and understanding of Ulgu. That's what codifying it means.
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Boney said:
Rafin said:
If we were to codify the spell and it ends up being as easy to learn as usual battle magic of that caliber, could Elves learn it too? Or are Elves usually incapable of learning higher level Human designed spells as is?
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Yes, that's what codifying does. It means anyone capable of wielding the Wind can cast that spell.
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What you're describing would affect who has access to the spell via the Grey College's internal mechanisms, but wizards generally have control over their own inventions and discoveries, as Feldmann mentioned when we sold him the skaven tech.

Edit: Or to put it another way, not being generally sharable would be a failure state of the codifying action.
 
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ReImagined said:
Speaking of Rite of Way, I'd like it very much if we could attempt to codify it some point in the near future turns. We get CF for spell creation, which would help the Orbs flex along, and it also has some potential in dealing with the Laurelorn-Middenland trade route through the swamp.
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Even without codifying RoW we can proooobably get enough favor for the Orbs sometime around Turn 43 at our current pace, I did a breakdown of it a while ago. As LadyLynn says, the actions required are really the main bottleneck - even if we absolutely wanted to try and finish it ASAP, completely disregarding the Waystone project, it couldn't be done in a single turn. That's why people have been pushing more towards doing it slowly.

If we feel like we need to do that faster, we can always have Max write up a few papers for us because he's 100% more efficient at it than we are. But even then it'd likely only speed it up to turn 42.
 
If we don't decide to just let everyone try with the tributaries, we should probably start thinking of the political implications of allowing them/dissalowing them. Most obviously if we only approve Aksel's one it will look like we are only favouring our own polity, and will give the impression that we care about benefiting the empire more than making the project successful. That probably impeeds things going forwards, as it would make people more reluctant to reveal their own secrets if they feel us likely to just take them and give nothing back. Approving just Cadaeth's stone would probably increase the confidence of the elves, and - if successful - would be a political coup for the pro-empire faction, as the silver-trees would no longer be the weak link in their forest should things go badly in the future. Though would probably annoy all of the non-elven factions given it could easily be seen as the typical elves looking down on humans behaviour if they take all the benefits too. Approving only kislev would probably not annoy anyone too much, though it might be looked at with confusion, as neither of the factions strongly aligned with us benefit. Though it might be justifiable as Niedzwenka is probably the oldest and most experienced of tributary crew - unless Cadaeth is older than I would suspect.

For the 2-option ones, leaving out kislev wouldn't upset anyone aside from probably Niedzwenka herself - though that's not nothing - especially if the worship of Kalita is similar enough to Aksel's worship of Halétha that Kislev might be able to benefit from his style of tributary (though that's far from certain). Leaving out cadeath would probably be a slap in the face to our hosts, given that a non-prescious-metal replacement for their trees was the stated reason they needed this project, so that's probably a really bad idea. And leaving out the only current imperially available tributary is probably a no-go for the imperial factions if we are already including kislev's version.
 
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Assuming the Gambler would help out with the Rituals that are going the worst, would doing all 3 in the same action really be that much riskier compared to doing them in separate actions?

Like, unless all three roll badly simultaneously, the ones that roll badly will have the Gambler to help. Unless one ritual going badly might eat up both Gambler boosts, anyway.
 
LadyLynn said:
Assuming the Gambler would help out with the Rituals that are going the worst, would doing all 3 in the same action really be that much riskier compared to doing them in separate actions?

Like, unless all three roll badly simultaneously, the ones that roll badly will have the Gambler to help. Unless one ritual going badly might eat up both Gambler boosts, anyway.
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I can't see Niedzwenka fucking up too badly—I think her ritual will either work or not work, and any blowback mitigated by her own skills and experience.

I also trust in Cadaeth, but at the same time her ritual is mucking around with the Dreaming Wood, so that could be an issue... if it weren't for the fact that Laurelorn has tamed their Dreaming Wood and the Grey Lords will probably intervene if something goes really wrong.

We don't really know Aksel's abilities, or if it'll work with Halétha instead of the Earth Mother, so that's the big uncertainty there.

So we've got one "safe" option (Bereginya tributary), one "probably safe" option (Dreaming Wood tributary) and one "not enough data" option (Haléthan tributary).

Personally, I'm confident to try all of them, with or without the Gambler. I actually think we should do the leylines action next turn with the Gambler rather than this turn, and do the rivers action right now.
 
Tobtorp said:
As for the waystone project being some sort of secret sharing, that the hope but not yet the reality. The elf's don't even give us full access to the library of mourning. The only big secret that has shown up is that the ice witches made their own loop and we assumed that already.
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The biggest secret shared so far is from the Empire to the rest—the Belthani ritual for making tributaries. Which makes sense; someone's gotta be the first to put cards on the table, and Mathilde (and through her the Empire) are the ones in the driving seat.

Imugi said:
It's just that the spells in the spellbooks are broadly teachable, learnable, or usable to the majority of wizards of their Wind.
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Shadowsteed was noted as needing a bizarre, almost unique paradigm to create; the idea of Ulgu as being tied to speed because of the way dawn/dusk falls across the land. That it got codified at all is impressive. It seems pretty hard to impart to others. That they manage to learn it is probably a good demonstration of the Grays' inculcated flexibility of mind.
 
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Gavin Prince said:
The biggest secret shared so far is from the Empire to the rest—the Belthani ritual for making tributaries. Which makes sense; someone's gotta be the first to put cards on the table, and Mathilde (and through her the Empire) are the ones in the driving seat.


Shadowsteed was noted as needing a bizarre, almost unique paradigm to create; the idea of Ulgu as being tied to speed because of the way dawn/dusk falls across the land. That it got codified at all is impressive. It seems pretty hard to impart to others. That they manage to learn it is probably a good demonstration of the Grays' inculcated flexibility of mind.
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I'm not sure that's actually the case. The Elf that escorted Mathilde into the swamps could cast Shadowsteed. It might have been an Elf spell.
 
Gavin Prince said:
The biggest secret shared so far is from the Empire to the rest—the Belthani ritual for making tributaries. Which makes sense; someone's gotta be the first to put cards on the table, and Mathilde (and through her the Empire) are the ones in the driving seat
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That wasn't a secret, that was literally us starting to translate old stones that some dude stole from somewhere. Nothing secret about it.
Mopman43 said:
I'm not sure that's actually the case. The Elf that escorted Mathilde into the swamps could cast Shadowsteed. It might have been an Elf spell.
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It's even better then that. The elf didn't know shadowsteed, he saw us cast it and recreated it on the spot.

Edit: he literally went "nifty." And was on a horse a few lines later.
 
Tobtorp said:
That wasn't a secret, that was literally us starting to translate old stones that some dude stole from somewhere. Nothing secret about it.

It's even better then that. The elf didn't know shadowsteed, he saw us cast it and recreated it on the spot.

Edit: he literally went "nifty." And was on a horse a few lines later.
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Pretty confident he already knew the spell.

Elves learn spells slower than humans (lack of mutability into single wind and all that), not "instantly after seeing it cast once".
 
Tobtorp said:
It's even better then that. The elf didn't know shadowsteed, he saw us cast it and recreated it on the spot.

Edit: he literally went "nifty." And was on a horse a few lines later.
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I'm not sure about that. His version of the shadowsteed was "textbook". Mathilde's very much isn't a textbook example, and if he was casting based on Mathilde's version, his would look like ours.
 
Mopman43 said:
Pretty confident he already knew the spell.

Elves learn spells slower than humans (lack of mutability into single wind and all that), not "instantly after seeing it cast once".
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Nerdasaurus Rex said:
I'm not sure about that. His version of the shadowsteed was "textbook". Mathilde's very much isn't a textbook example, and if he was casting based on Mathilde's version, his would look like ours.
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This is the part in question.
Boney said:
He runs his eyes over you, and he cannot conceal his surprise as his gaze meets your Shadowsteed. After a moment he tears his gaze away and goes still as he focuses, and over a few seconds he draws in and shapes Ulgu into a textbook-perfect example of Shadowsteed, bearing none of the tweaks, shortcuts, adaptations or personalizations that every human Wizard develops. He mounts his conjured horse with practiced ease.
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And to me that sounds like he saw our steed and copied the basic framework of it.
 
Tobtorp said:
This is the part in question.

And to me that sounds like he saw our steed and copied the basic framework of it.
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The fact that it was textbook and had no modifications makes me think he already knew it and Teclis taught that textbook version to the College. If he copied ours, it would probably be closer to Mathilde´s.
 
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