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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Chopak said:
Sorry, I'm not arguing with you, but the idea of using Teclis as a center of collaborative distance. Should have quoted @Altom or @SakSak to avoid confusion. RL Erdos Number is a thing because that guy did ALOT of collaborations. Since I doubt Teclis has actually made any research papers with humans and we did collaborations with guys and gals from different colleges (different magic schools even), I think Weber Number is actually a better idea.
But there's probably some theoretical wizard somewhere that's pumping papers like crazy and has even more collaborators. Hasn't @Boney stated somewhere that we're actually pretty average on amount of papers written?
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I think it was something about there being people entirely dedicated to writing papers in the College. There are Academics whose job it is to research stuff, but I believe they're usually more cloistered people who tend to track down things that they're capable of exploring and extracting every morsel of information out of it. In game terms, they don't get a lot of points per paper, but they churn out a lot.

The difference between Mathilde and those people is that she's an incredibly active on the field Wizard who pumps out papers on a wide variety of extremely interesting and rare topics. Her range of experiences makes her papers individually more valuable even if they're pumped out at a lesser rate. Most researchers who dedicate themselves to Academia aren't as active or get into nearly as many wacky situations as Mathilde. Boney mentioned the general weirdness of how whenever someone tries to track down what Mathilde's "specialty" or "field of research" is about being constantly confused by the variety of topics. People can't pigeonhole her into anyone category.
 
Erdős number became a thing because Erdős wrote a truly bonkers number of papers. Mathilde wrote a little over 30 books and papers over a period of about 23 years, most of them with at least one collaborator, which is perfectly respectable. Paul Erdős wrote about 1500 papers. If the quest decided to drop the Waystone project and spend every single AP every turn writing papers, only taking breaks to do research for more paper topics, we still wouldn't be able to match that before Mathilde becomes 100 years old and/or the world ends.
 
For lack of more Information, I would put Gotthilf Pucht as the most likely equivalent of Erdős. (For imperials, their could be an elve that has written more or maybe the fay enchantress has a bi-monthly for the damsels.)

You don't write something like the big magic book of bigness without writing a lot of smaller papers on topics cover in the book.
 
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We can normally get books on human and dwarven religion only up to extensive, I believe because more than that is considered Cult secrets, but our bookseller contacts got us some Obscure books on Grungni, Valaya and Grimnir when we backfilled. So how does that work? Will our obscure books on Ancestor Gods be open to the general public, or just to dwarves, or what?
 
mathymancer said:
We can normally get books on human and dwarven religion only up to extensive, I believe because more than that is considered Cult secrets, but our bookseller contacts got us some Obscure books on Grungni, Valaya and Grimnir when we backfilled. So how does that work? Will our obscure books on Ancestor Gods be open to the general public, or just to dwarves, or what?
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I assume it would be 'by recommendation'. Have someone with a sufficiently good reputation write you a sufficiently persuasive letter and your membership will be updated to allow you to access a certain subset of the restricted section. Please be seated in a reading room and a spider will bring the volume you requested.

I mean it's not as if we let just anyone in even to browse the general collection. You need to be the right kind of person which can be proven either by knowing the right people or by making a suitable contribution.
 
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Erdos became a legend because he traveled a lot, and while he traveled, he had collaborations with the resident mathematicians, then went away a week later, to the next step on his eternal maths pilgrimage (also he gave away any cash prizes he didn't require for his frugal hotel life, and lived with a single suitcase).

So if you want a WHF equivalent, they'll be a odd person's odd person, and very very prepared for violence (because WHF travel is super dangerous). Think 'itinerant monk' more than 'paper machine on a office'.

Regardless, i don't think Mathilde of the important papers that are nonetheless, mostly secret, can be compared. Maybe a Verena priest somewhere pinballing around the empire and the rest of the accessible states (although, with what funding? No cash prizes here, although 'famous guest lecturer' one time lump sum can work i guess) or a priest of that elven god of knowledge doing the same elsewhere.
 
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SCO said:
although, with what funding?
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The benefit of living in the age of feudal patrons is patronage. If the wandering scholar is notable enough for their work to reflect well on a noble, it's not really that big of an expense to fill a purse for their wandering and hand them letters of introduction to get into private libraries.

It would give Baron von Hintertupfingen something to brag about at dinner parties, and that's reason enough.
 
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Math research also has some advantages to other fields. A lot of what Erdos wrote were the academic versions of those endless small 'How to solve [some issue] on your smartphone' articles. Some biologist thrice as brilliant as him would have never been able compete due to having collect data (and thus funds) and having to deal with a different/stupider standard for how much work needs to be done before something is 'worth' a publication.
Like, there is an anecdote of him randomly meeting a fellow mathematician on a train that ends with them having written most of a spontaneous paper by the time one of them reached their stop.
 
CeBrudras said:
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Like, there is an anecdote of him randomly meeting a fellow mathematician on a train that ends with them having written most of a spontaneous paper by the time one of them reached their stop.
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'Rages in the survey monkey, spss, GiS, and online database fee! Foams at the mouth in ethical practice reviews and permissions!'

This is why everyone hates the math departments: the only thing they pay for is the chalk. Everything else is pocketed.
 
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Actually why does Mathilde not start a scholarship program for people who want to be scholars but can not afford too. She is rich enough and frankly I think it would have some amazing long term effects.
 
Nurgle said:
Actually why does Mathilde not start a scholarship program for people who want to be scholars but can not afford too. She is rich enough and frankly I think it would have some amazing long term effects.
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It's not really Mathilde's wheelhouse, and the patronage system appears to be working just fine from an IC perspective.

There's plenty of things that could technically be done, but that just aren't the purview of a Wizard.
 
Nurgle said:
Actually why does Mathilde not start a scholarship program for people who want to be scholars but can not afford too. She is rich enough and frankly I think it would have some amazing long term effects.
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I think there are a few library options for that, actually. Or were, at least. The search for scribes will likely give us a choice to reach out across the empire for people willing to learn how to read and write, and then devote their lives to the practice. And there was the option to recruit and train orphans as librarians, but the We were chosen instead.

Personally, I think the next time Mathilde goes to her fief we should see about setting up a small school, possibly one run by the cult of Verena because they seem like they'd be into that. It's not large-scale, and would likely only teach basic reading, writing, and "numbering" skills, but it's a step in the right direction.
 
xamaplak said:
Personally, I think the next time Mathilde goes to her fief we should see about setting up a small school, possibly one run by the cult of Verena because they seem like they'd be into that. It's not large-scale, and would likely only teach basic reading, writing, and "numbering" skills, but it's a step in the right direction.
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It's already been discussed many times and we've been told that they would actively reject this as these aren't useful skills for them and it would consume child hours that could actually be used to learn actually valuable skills or do useful work.
 
xamaplak said:
Personally, I think the next time Mathilde goes to her fief we should see about setting up a small school, possibly one run by the cult of Verena because they seem like they'd be into that. It's not large-scale, and would likely only teach basic reading, writing, and "numbering" skills, but it's a step in the right direction.
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This has been proposed and discouraged before.
Boney said:
Why would they want their children stuck inside learning something only Rolf needs instead of being outside learning how to farm and herd, which everyone needs?
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Boney said:
Shepherds don't need schooling to learn how to count sheep. Some of them use methods you couldn't learn in any school. You can generally trust in the competence of peasants at being peasants, because the incompetent ones die.
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We, inhabitants of a post-industrial economy, automatically think of schooling as a path to prosperity and good life outcomes. But this is incredibly historically recent; for most inhabitants of an agrarian economy, food production is the all-encompassing need, and that's a trade one learns best by being immersed in it from childhood. In particular, our fief is on pretty marginal land: there isn't a lot of surplus with which to feed people not actively involved in food production, which is why that's what almost everyone does. We've got flint miners, who per the text tend to use the money they make above subsistence to buy their way into the herding life, and a couple of tradespeople. Creating a school that takes up their children's time and may divert them into leaving the town for opportunities elsewhere is not an act of benevolence (it may benefit specific children, but not the community as a whole), and won't be until agricultural advances tremendously increase the ratio of calories produced to person-hours worked and allow for the massive expansion of other forms of economic activity.
 
xamaplak said:
I think there are a few library options for that, actually. Or were, at least. The search for scribes will likely give us a choice to reach out across the empire for people willing to learn how to read and write, and then devote their lives to the practice. And there was the option to recruit and train orphans as librarians, but the We were chosen instead.
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Regarding scribes, I wonder if it might be possible to reach out to some of the larger Verenan's temples and see if they would be up for two things:

1. Help find and supply scribes
2. Accept money to support them looking after some orphans and teaching them relevant scribing skills.

I don't want the Scrivener's Guild, as they have a vested interest in supressing use of the printing press when the dwarves eventually invent it in the next... uh... few centuries? Whenever they get around to it.
 
BeepSmile said:
Regarding scribes, I wonder if it might be possible to reach out to some of the larger Verenan's temples and see if they would be up for two things:

1. Help find and supply scribes
2. Accept money to support them looking after some orphans and teaching them relevant scribing skills.

I don't want the Scrivener's Guild, as they have a vested interest in supressing use of the printing press when the dwarves eventually invent it in the next... uh... few centuries? Whenever they get around to it.
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Scriptisisi or whatever their name is is viewed as an aspect of Verena, and they're the patron of the Scribe's Guilds. Clio the Scrivener, delver of the past and also a god of history, also does scribing work. Both have a vested interest in not allowing the printing press to take hold. If you're a Verenan and want to be a Scribe, chances are you'll end up going to either one.

In fact, I would wager that almost anyone who's willing to become a scribe would be against the printing press on account of it taking their jobs.
 
I think empire already has printing press at some level so there is no chance that is going to go away because of a few prissy scribes.

But the issue is not limited to that! The reason why steam is not used to create weaving factories and like is guilds has discouraged any engineering that is not actively for warmaking.
 
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Codex said:
Scriptisisi or whatever their name is is viewed as an aspect of Verena, and they're the patron of the Scribe's Guilds. Clio the Scrivener, delver of the past and also a god of history, also does scribing work. Both have a vested interest in not allowing the printing press to take hold. If you're a Verenan and want to be a Scribe, chances are you'll end up going to either one.

In fact, I would wager that almost anyone who's willing to become a scribe would be against the printing press on account of it taking their jobs.
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The Laurent said:
Not yet. It'll be invented in two decades. Moveable type, that is.
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I think it's important to remember that the printing press is not really a thing yet, at least in levels needed to be a problem for the scribes.

and so Mathy is unlikely to have an opinion on it, or avoid people that will one day have a problem with a thing she has no idea will be a big deal in 20 years from now.

its going to be an issue in the future, but right now it's not something to think about.
 
Tasoli said:
I think empire already has printing press at some level so there is no chance that is going to go away because of a few prissy scribes.

But the issue is not limited to that! The reason why steam is not used to create weaving factories and like is guilds has discouraged any engineering that is not actively for warmaking.
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It's not just scribes. The Cult of Sigmar hate typos:
Boney said:
It was described as a new innovation in the 2520s. The Church of Sigmar is described as being really touchy about typos slipping into their holy books, directly ascribing it to the influence of Chaos and seeking the death of anyone responsible for it, so that's likely responsible for the delay in innovation. A letter falls off during a print run and the Witch Hunters start banging on your door.
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Tzeentch doesn't need to do much to get them on a Witch Hunt. Just cause a series of events that change the I in Sigmar to a U and you'll have Witch Hunts all over the Empire due to the proliferation of Sugmar jokes.
 
Thought people in the thread might be interested in this (going by past discussion)- it's a fic about a Dragon joining the Colleges incognito as an Amber Wizard. Not a Cathayan dragon, but still.

Just one chapter at the moment, but what's there is enjoyable.

forums.sufficientvelocity.com

Dragon Caught in Amber (Warhammer Fantasy)

No elf would ever consider it, and for dwarves or halflings it would have been pointless. As such, technically, nowhere in the laws of the Empire of Sigmar was it written that only humans could become members of the Colleges of Magic.
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