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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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For runes, at this point I'm halfway throwing suggestions that might catch Boney's fancy, halfway just having fun at theorizing cool swords.

Redshirt Army said:
What I've been wondering is if it's possible to turn the "+1 Magic" enchantment into a Rune, or at least adjust it so it acts like a Rune - thus leaving 2 other Rune slots open on whatever we apply it to.
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Or, we just get an impotent for casting, that's very good at it, and another implement for stabbing, that's also very good at it, instead of a casty stabbing implement, or a stabby casting implement.
 
Andres110 said:
But unless we give him reason to think we're crazy or something, that fine detail doesn't really matter much.
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Only in a crack setting. Nobles often ignore the legitimate offers from the gods, but being told that you can loophole the thief god for infinite blessings if you just give him all your money is going to fly?
 
Andres110 said:
Might be possible to simplify it further. Turn the coin to the Deceiver side, go up to some rich noble who can stand to lose a bit of wealth. Tell him if he does the poverty-charity-receive donations chain, he'll get infinite protection and luck from Ranald while not really losing anything. Because of the coin he'll believe us, we take his cash, then properly donate it.

No violence, humiliates the rich, helps out the poor, and is right proper tricky. Ranald would love it.
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As @chocolote12 said, he'll only think we believe it. But even if that worked, it doesn't feel proper. The whole complicated con thing is because that's pleasing to Ranald (otherwise just rob them), but using his artifact for the actual con part of it seems like cheating, and in a bad way. It's foisting the hard part up on Ranald, and then trying to take credit anyway.

Now, if we did that for some other goal, I think that would work, but then the act wouldn't be a devotional act.
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
"With three easy steps, you will get literally infinite power."

Yeah, no reason to believe we are crazy, at all.
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chocolote12 said:
Only in a crack setting. Nobles often ignore the legitimate offers from the gods, but being told that you can loophole the thief god for infinite blessings if you just give him all your money is going to fly?
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See, the trick is to get them to think they came up with it on their own.

In general, I heartily recommend "How to cheat at everything" by Simon Lowell fot some insight. Covers everything from Dice to Cards to Carnival Games and Cons. In WHFB, it would be the holy book of Ranald.
 
Reynal said:
Honestly I'm thinking the ideal weapon for Mathilde would be a weird-ass custom job.

We're a hybrid caster/melee build, and both are actually relevant to our close combat, as our armor scales off our magic stat as do our combat spells. However, focusing everything on magic is quite sub-optimal, as our wind is not particularly suited to pure combat and our weapon skill is pretty respectable.

Then there's also our Blessed Weapon mastery. Any sword we hold is going to be fed Ulgu passively. On a magic weapon like we'd be getting in RPG/tabletop terms it would have no effects, but I imagine someone clever could use that to empower effects of a weapon, charge runes, or even just store the power in a powerstone for later use.

While tabletop obviously doesn't have much to work with in playing off these effects, the Runes in our belt plus how Boney's handled other things pretty clearly indicate that just because tabletop doesn't do it doesn't mean the people here can't. A relatively radical/innovative Runelord might be able to make something work with this combination that would blow a sword that is merely exceptionally stabby away.
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I've been thinking about the "What item do we get to boost Magic +1" for a bit now and as I understand it the suggestions fall into: Get a dwarven forged blank sword and then enchant it ourself. Get a power staff from the colleges, though there isn't a Tuner in house last time we checked so we may well just have to learn how to do that ourself. Enchant our current sword as a Magic Stat +1 item.

With the first option its workable, you can carry a shortsword or maybe a hand and a half sword and not be completely silly looking. It means not using it for being killier, which for something that size is a bit of a waste of space. We're also not trained in short or hand and a half swords so that looses some Martial, which is another bit of waste. Its also making use of the dwarves in a way that is probably just not the best use of their time and skill, since we can find a good sword in Altdorf or Wurtbad if we really want.

Getting a staff is not really workable in my opinion because Mathilde owns and uses as sword that comes up to her chin if its five feet long, the usual length of a greatsword. Swinging that around with one hand while holding a glowing staff of doom does not look like Gandalf, it just looks silly and is in a practical sense unwieldy. With her height to practically fight Mathilde should basically be using two hands, especially with the description Boney made of Greatsword vs Greataxe differences in the Collection of Important Information threadmark. And carrying it on her back while she holds her sword and then switching is a nonstarter for the simple reason of it likely being taller than her and a bit of a pinch while infiltrating places and that very few people will be polite enough to let a wizard pull out their magical tools in battle.

Enchanting our current sword is also eh in my mind since it runs into the issue that that might be trading improved killiness for magical oomf. Which, to be fair if we get a new dwarven gromril greatsword, this is less of a problem but does trade out for the fact there is no practical way to carry two greatswords since you usually go into battle with them unsheathed and carry them on your shoulder given they were so large you couldn't draw them from a waist or back sheathe with anything resembling speed. So it is also largely, impractical.

So I propose an alternate solution, make an athame, which is a ritual dagger that is commonly referenced in occultic and pagan folklore and is probably a favorite tool of certain ritualists around the Warhammer World. This I think is a very nice option because a knife is a tool for skulldugery in the night, which makes it well associated with Ulgu, particularly if you carry it hidden which is quite possible to do. That means that we should have an easier time binding it to Ulgu and is generally in theme for the kind of stuff we like to do. Secondly Ranald has an interesting stricture:


(Thanks @Andres110 for finding this by the way)

The stricture about the dagger and stiletto tells me he'd likely be quite amused by such a Magical Knife, which sounds helpful for Ranaldic Theurgy/Sorcery. More so than a staff or a sword would. Finally since it is easily concealable it is easily carry-able and solves the unwieldiness issues. She can whip that out in a blink and stab a thing in the eye or whatever and pump its skull full of Mindrazor or Shadow Knives if she really needs to, but the point of it is to just be a casting assistant. Also feeds into the nifty Scary Witch imagery that surrounds Mathilde if she's got a Scary Knife.


E: the thing with all of these options of course is that to get this Magic Stat +1 effect we're almost certainly going to have to do it ourselves and learn how which is neat, but with how ubiquitous of an issue it is I don't figure its worth much commentary.
 
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BurnNote said:
Spend infinite money on charity, gain infinite favor.
On the meta level, tell Ranald about you Infinite Favor scam. He'll be amused, and you don't have to get scratched up for fucking around.
Then for the next level, go and convince some greedy noble that the infinite favor scam totally works, trust me, they just have to make a vow of poverty. When they do, distribute the money to actually poor people. Remember if someone offers to cut you in on a scam: There's only ever one non-professional in a con, and that's the mark.
For the final level, add pyramid scheme. If you're the first to be "poor", you'll get the money from everybody after you. Think how rich and lucky you'll be!

Fuck, that could actually work. I mean, the pyramid variant shouldn't be executed in any country you like stable, but I can see the base version working. You'd just need someone full enough of themselfs, but Chaos cultists and real life show that's not an issue.
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We're not poor. Like, at all. Payscale from WFRP 2nd ed says labourers (so, a fair chunk of people. Perhaps even most of them) earn 10 copper pennies a day. That's 15 gold crowns, 4 silver shillings and 2 copper pence a year. That money we have sitting around, the 250 odd gold? That's a decade and a half's pay. We earned it in about a year. We're not exactly super rich, but we're sure not poor.
 
WorldSlayer said:
I could also see us naming our weapon Wits, necessary violence, or something else amusing.
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Its both cutting wit and piercing wit!
Mopman43 said:
I'm just going to say what's been said before: Boney get's a lot more creative when you leave the details to him. If we had given Kragg exact details on what we wanted on the belt (which would also make no sense in universe, we know nothing about Rune Lore) we would have gotten a by the rules belt. We gave him "Protection" and got one that breaks rules. And is just generally more interesting.

When the time comes, I'm asking "Make me a really deadly greatsword" and I'll be satisfied with what we get.
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Naw, not just deadly, we use our sword for silent kills, so a greatsword suited for assassinating hard targets might be a better bet. Whether its a sneaky sword or one which prevents the target from protesting is another thing

We do use it fairly rarely in the ride down and mow through sense.
 
Alliterate said:
Excuse you. A five foot sword would come up to the brim of our hat, thankyou. :V
#Smol
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Yeah lol, I don't remember her specific height(if its been mentioned come to think of it). But she can basically plant it in the ground, lean on it and fall asleep standing up while looking very cute and fierce.
 
I mean, if we're going to run a con on nobles, we should probably play to their weaknesses. Nobles, especially in Warhammer, love secret societies. The mysticism and taboo are like catnip for them. Find a bunch of marks, pass yourself off as a different priest or even just be bold as brass with Ranald, and then fleece them for all they're worth while ideally exposing any corruption or loopholes for the Imperial Authorities to deal with.

Use the fact you are an Imperial Authority to steer the investigation into all the other troublesome conspiracies you took the time to uncover and infiltrate while you were making your own for shits and giggles. Laugh at your success+ ??? + somehow avoiding the other Grey Wizards = profit.
 
Looking at those dwarf runes, I am really surprised that Mathilde would be stuck using flint and lamp oil and such to start fires if she went on an arson spree. A rune of fire costs a measly 10 points and gives flaming attacks, so the dwarves are all but certain to be able to lend her a hammer or something that she can use to just smack things and light them up. Efficiency!


On more religious matters, a Karak Eight Peaks temple to Ranald would be a solid investment if any significant number of humans will be staying here for a bunch of reasons:
  • We have a location here where Ranald, the god himself, won a divine victory over Mork. That's a holy site without even needing to squint. Like the rest of Karag Nar, it is currently being cleaned of orc corpses and is still unclaimed, its future purpose uncertain; Mathilde could easily get it marked out for a use she desires. This is a huge religious opportunity for anyone who respects and cares about sacred sites, which is most people in Warhammer as I understand it.
  • There are no formal temples to human gods here whatsoever. This means that anyone setting up the first temples is likely to have a proportionately higher influence over the religion of the populace at large. This is also an argument for a Shallyan temple. Anything to avoid Sigmar, really.
  • Belegar and the dwarves as a whole have no idea who Ranald is or what he does aside from what Mathilde has told them. In many places he's a thief-god; in Marienburg he's a money-god; we could quite possibly make him a human ranger-god in Karak Eight Peaks just like Belegar's interpretation of him went if we have a strong hand in establishing local doctrine. We can get him publicly approved by the authorities, at any rate, which is rare.
  • If we build a temple Ranald will probably send by a priest for it at some point in the next couple years, and we could use another priest-friend.
  • Temples to Ranald do not need to be lavish, and generally serve practical purposes instead of being purely religious locations. This means that "tavern", "casino", or "soup kitchen" are all valid interpretations and we can design it to meet the anticipated needs of the people here and appeal to them.
  • As Ranald approves of charity, supporting his cult more prominently in a place it doesn't exist is essentially putting money toward establishing a charitable organization instead of simple donations. Lasting infrastructure has a lot of value in seeing that your goal is accomplished not merely today or tomorrow but for decades to come.
 
deathofrats0808 said:
We're not poor. Like, at all. Payscale from WFRP 2nd ed says labourers (so, a fair chunk of people. Perhaps even most of them) earn 10 copper pennies a day. That's 15 gold crowns, 4 silver shillings and 2 copper pence a year. That money we have sitting around, the 250 odd gold? That's a decade and a half's pay. We earned it in about a year. We're not exactly super rich, but we're sure not poor.
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Check the earlier discussion. That whole thing got kicked off when someone essentially said "We took a Vow of Poverty, so we're poor and can receive charity, wink wink"
 
[X] Fire

Burning Grobi-town, if it succeeds, greatly aids follow up campaigns to clear the Caldera. With a clear field for the Expedition Artillery, taking the Caldera after the Citadel with incoming reinforcements ought to be much easier, as opposed to the nightmare of taking the slums and stacked warrens of Grobi-town. No, better to raze it if possible.


Also, for some reason, the option reminds me of The Promised Neverland OP, Touch Off by UVERworld.

 
BurnNote said:
Check the earlier discussion. That whole thing got kicked off when someone essentially said "We took a Vow of Poverty, so we're poor and can receive charity, wink wink"
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My apologies, you're right. I should have quoted them and not you. Especially as they're saying we should give it to charity, who'll definitely give all back to us (they won't)

@Andres110
 
DarkLight140 said:
On more religious matters, a Karak Eight Peaks temple to Ranald would be a solid investment if any significant number of humans will be staying here for a bunch of reasons:
  • We have a location here where Ranald, the god himself, won a divine victory over Mork. That's a holy site without even needing to squint. Like the rest of Karag Nar, it is currently being cleaned of orc corpses and is still unclaimed, its future purpose uncertain; Mathilde could easily get it marked out for a use she desires. This is a huge religious opportunity for anyone who respects and cares about sacred sites, which is most people in Warhammer as I understand it.
  • There are no formal temples to human gods here whatsoever. This means that anyone setting up the first temples is likely to have a proportionately higher influence over the religion of the populace at large. This is also an argument for a Shallyan temple. Anything to avoid Sigmar, really.
  • Belegar and the dwarves as a whole have no idea who Ranald is or what he does aside from what Mathilde has told them. In many places he's a thief-god; in Marienburg he's a money-god; we could quite possibly make him a human ranger-god in Karak Eight Peaks just like Belegar's interpretation of him went if we have a strong hand in establishing local doctrine. We can get him publicly approved by the authorities, at any rate, which is rare.
  • If we build a temple Ranald will probably send by a priest for it at some point in the next couple years, and we could use another priest-friend.
  • Temples to Ranald do not need to be lavish, and generally serve practical purposes instead of being purely religious locations. This means that "tavern", "casino", or "soup kitchen" are all valid interpretations and we can design it to meet the anticipated needs of the people here and appeal to them.
  • As Ranald approves of charity, supporting his cult more prominently in a place it doesn't exist is essentially putting money toward establishing a charitable organization instead of simple donations. Lasting infrastructure has a lot of value in seeing that your goal is accomplished not merely today or tomorrow but for decades to come.
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This is cool and wise.

Establishing a Ranaldian temple here that functions as a tavern/waystation/inn/refuge/(gambling den) for any human wanderers, adventurers, merchants and their guards (you know, all people who rely on their luck a lot) who make their way to K8P sounds like a good thing.
 
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