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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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CrimsonOddball said:
Of all the different unique spells Mathilde has developed (Masteries are in essence new spells based on old ones), exactly two are codified, the Matrix and MAP
And Mathilde didn't really do a whole lot when it came to actually codifying them, she just said "here's my notes" and let other people do the work of reverse engineering it

And one Bright Lord Magister took MAP casually tore it inside out and turned it into MAPP, which speaks to a far greater ability to scientifically tinker with spells and render them into digestible form than Mathilde possesses

Not to downplay how impressive Mathilde is, she's a heck of a rising star within the Grey College and the College's in general
But don't make the mistake of thinking that she's got the deepest/strongest/most knowledgeable grasp of magic out of all her peers because she doesn't
There's plenty of stuff other Wizards have that Mathilde doesn't understand, like Algard's pocket dimension space fuckery, or Melkoth breaking time

She might get there someday, but she isn't there yet
She probably isn't ever going to be without starting to take greater risks deepening her relationship with magic
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The only thing Mathilde is definitely the most knowledgeable about is Dhar, Dwarfs and Swording.

My other point was that Mathilde seems to be on a more academic/scholarly path than the typical Grey wizard (assassin/spy).

From what I can remember, the only other similarly inclined Grey wizard seems to be Algard, and he's occupied with running the college.
 
IronFist said:
The only thing Mathilde is definitely the most knowledgeable about is Dhar, Dwarfs and Swording.

My other point was that Mathilde seems to be on a more academic/scholarly path than the typical Grey wizard (assassin/spy).

From what I can remember, the only other similarly inclined Grey wizard seems to be Algard, and he's occupied with running the college.
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I wouldn't characterize her that way honestly
Sure she churns out new papers fairly regularly, but she's not very scholarly or academic about it, wildly swinging from one point of interest to another writing brief one off papers on the interesting stuff she sees and then not bothering to ever revisit or further argue that paper unless maybe she stumbles over something related but new that she can once again write a one off paper about
She's an academic in the same way that Indiana Jones is an archeologist

If anything Mathilde's more on the other end of the spectrum
Her approach to magic is deeply intuitive and by feel rather than iterative
Her approach to problem solving tends to be frontline combat and super spy infiltration
And she treats writing papers more as a mix between a trophy display for her interesting discoveries and a source of currency than anything

If you want a more academic and scholarly Grey than you probably aren't looking for named characters
Those would be the Perpetuals and few Magisters who feel more comfortable sticking around the College picking away at esoteric studies, managing the library and doing all the sedate everyday activities Mathilde finds insufferably boring
 
CrimsonOddball said:
If you want a more academic and scholarly Grey than you probably aren't looking for named characters
Those would be the Perpetuals and few Magisters who feel more comfortable sticking around the College picking away at esoteric studies, managing the library and doing all the sedate everyday activities Mathilde finds insufferably boring
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Mathilde is more of a field researcher than lab researcher that is true. But she is one hell field researcher at that, provided you have the right clearance. If not she just looks eccentric and scatter brained.
 
IronFist said:
The only thing Mathilde is definitely the most knowledgeable about is Dhar, Dwarfs and Swording
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Reminds me of an old comment of Boney that I've spent all afternoon trying to find that we can't buy Dwarf Diplo lessons from the college because we are the Designated Expert on Dwarves.

Also, there's probably a Bright Wizard out there who knows a lot about swords, and Hubert fights with one too, although he's obviously not on our level.

I'd be deeply concerned if there was anyone who could match our knowledge of Dhar. Considering that Tochter was recently compared to us, and in canon she made her name purifying tainted land in Sylvania, my concern-o-meter has inched up past "professionally paranoid" to "It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you".
 
Maybe one day that will be the locked-in social.
I personally would like to see this for world-building sake, such as seeing the reverse side of College favors.
 
Tasoli said:
Mathilde is more of a field researcher than lab researcher that is true. But she is one hell field researcher at that, provided you have the right clearance. If not she just looks eccentric and scatter brained.
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She is, but the point I'm making isn't that she doesn't contribute anything to her field, it's that she isn't very scholarly about it
And certainly not among the more archetypically scholarly and academic of the Greys
Her interaction with the academic field can largely be summed up as "Here's this interesting thing I found and here's my noted observations about it, I don't plan on sticking around to further unpack any of this so make of that what you will k bye"

If the academic field of the Colleges can be thought of as an ecosystem like a lake then Mathilde doesn't really live in that lake so much as she stands off to the side hurling bombs labelled "Sapient Hivemind Spiders", "How to Blow Up Orcs", "Check Out This Weird Thing I Saw a Necrarch Do" or "Queekish" into the water while laughing maniacally
 
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Being fair, the scientific method isn't really much of a thing in the Empire. People think the four humors are real and they don't know about germs. They can't even dissect bodies without the Cult of Morr raising a ruckus. The scientific method for them is literally make a couple observations and test it a couple times and move on.

I don't know if we should judge Mathilde by modern day scholarly standards. By all accounts, she's certainly far better than your average "researcher" back then. She isn't as dedicated as some sort of shut in scholar in the Colleges, but that's not the only standard for scholarship.
 
"Case Study: Flavors and Flexibility of a Jade Wizard through Multiple Turns of the Seasons, M.L. Weber, Grey, and M. Panoramia, Jade."

No college favor, though very popular among teenage apprentices....
 
CrimsonOddball said:
If the academic field of the Colleges can be thought of as an ecosystem like a lake then Mathilde doesn't really live in that lake so much as she stands off to the side hurling bombs labelled "Sapient Hivemind Spiders", "How to Blow Up Orcs", "Check Out This Weird Thing I Saw a Necrarch Do" or "Queekish" into the water while laughing maniacally
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She did talk about her papers as catapulting boulders into the landscape :D
Boney said:
"Well, if you're looking for ways to spend your time, I've got a few boulders to catapult into the academic landscape."
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IronFist said:
The only thing Mathilde is definitely the most knowledgeable about is Dhar, Dwarfs and Swording.
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Skaven. She's uniquely or almost uniquely knowledgeable about skaven. Also Eonir politics and culture. Also the We...

Dragomas probably has the most draconic lore overall but Mathilde is probably the best Grey College expert in that.

CrimsonOddball said:
She is, but the point I'm making isn't that she doesn't contribute anything to her field, it's that she isn't very scholarly about it
And certainly not among the more archtypically scholarly and academic of the Greys
Her interaction with the academic field can largely be summed up as "Here's this interesting thing I found and here's my noted observations about it, I don't plan on sticking around to further unpack any of this so make of that what you will k bye"
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Pre-modern scholarship was certainly a lot more eclectic - particularly in the case of revolutionary discoveries that Mathilde is making.
Hard to debate something when you're the first one filling that blank space on the map.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Mathilde is a 29 learning, 9 magic Lady Magister. I do not believe that any battle magic spell we create will be inferior by default. I concede that there is a risk of it turning out worse, simply because that's how dice rolls work, but there is a significant chance of it being equal or better.

We also get various situational bonuses to spell creation: +5 (Library: Ulgu), +20 (Room of Dusk and Dawn), +20*2 (Gambler). We're rolling with a minimum of 34 on most dice rolls, and potentially 50+ many others. Hell, we even got a +10 (leaning from mistakes) modifier at one point when making Rite of Way.

And since I've just reviewed our creation of Rite of Way, the hardest part of that was developing a way for the fog to act as a medium for the spell—something that Mathilde eventually developed. A fog based death spell would most likely use that same process. We would be repurposing a spell we already know, rather than starting from scratch. We'd pretty much just be gutting out the skywalk enchantment and replacing it with a burning shadows, or a throttling, or even a roiling shadows if we're feeling fancy.

And okay, maybe the dice go against us, or maybe the ulgu fog cloud doesn't like being paired with a destructive spell, or something else happens—but I still think we have damn good odds to make a battle magic spell that is not only effective, but also thematic and safe to cast.
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This reminded me of exactly how complex and smart we ended up making Rite of Way, how it was a complex construct made up of many smaller but far easier spells which acted in a coordinated manner, and thoughts on a more directly offensive mist based battle magic spell had an idea occur. Could we fuse a similar approach with basic mist creation, Marsh Lights and a single application of Burning Shadows to create a horrible burning mists zone Battle Magic spell?

For specifics what I'm picturing is layering an area with churning heavy mists and filling it with Marsh Lights. The result of this would mean anything in the mist is constantly being exposed to the alternating light and shadows cast by the many surrounding Marsh Lights against the heavy mists. Between Mathilde's knowledge of Rite of Way and Melkoths I imagine this wouldn't be overly difficult to create.

Next, and the significantly harder part I imagine in spell creation, is applying Burning Shadows to the mists/shadows themselves. Suddenly, the many shifting shadows cast from the Marsh Lights on the mists, which saturate the targeted area, are melting anyone in said mists from virtually all directions at once.

The spell description of Burning Shadows is as below:

K / Burning Shadows: Causes a shadow or set of touching shadows cast by a source as bright as a torch or brighter to burn like acid. You can specify who this will and will not effect.
- Can effect inanimate objects, but acid is a lot less effective on inanimate objects than it is on living flesh.
- Must specifically be a cast shadow, not merely being in darkness. Think shadow puppets.
- Mathilde must be casting or touching the shadow in question to cast the spell.

That it can be 'a shadow or set of touching shadows' makes me think this is viable, though how much the shadows move might complicate this, and these are specifically cast shadows (by the Marsh Lights). That Mathilde must be touching the shadow (as she is not casting it) may limit range, though as you can specify who this will and will not effect dropping the spell on Mathilde herself or indeed allies near shouldn't be an issue. Range might be an issue if we can't say stretch the mists outward in a line... though Mathilde does tend to get up close anyway.

The idea of students hating us forever for the creation of Mathilde's Melting/Murder/Malignant Mists because MMM is already taken as an acronym, ensuring they can't use it for either this spell or Melkoth's Miasma in the future, is also a nice thought :p

Edit: Yes, the name was a joke, I do not actually want to poke Melkoth and angry time travelling students, I want to dunk on the enemies of Order with hungry murder shadows.
 
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Some things are beyond the pale, not even the end of achieving Time Travel can justify this meathod
FallenPears said:
The idea of students hating us forever for the creation of Mathilde's Melting/Murder/Malignant Mists because MMM is already taken as an acronym, ensuring they can't use it for either this spell or Melkoth's Miasma in the future, is also a nice thought :p
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I am sorry, but I must speak against this.
 
FallenPears said:
This reminded me of exactly how complex and smart we ended up making Rite of Way, how it was a complex construct made up of many smaller but far easier spells which acted in a coordinated manner, and thoughts on a more directly offensive mist based battle magic spell had an idea occur. Could we fuse a similar approach with basic mist creation, Marsh Lights and a single application of Burning Shadows to create a horrible burning mists zone Battle Magic spell?

For specifics what I'm picturing is layering an area with churning heavy mists and filling it with Marsh Lights. The result of this would mean anything in the mist is constantly being exposed to the alternating light and shadows cast by the many surrounding Marsh Lights against the heavy mists. Between Mathilde's knowledge of Rite of Way and Melkoths I imagine this wouldn't be overly difficult to create.

Next, and the significantly harder part I imagine in spell creation, is applying Burning Shadows to the mists/shadows themselves. Suddenly, the many shifting shadows cast from the Marsh Lights on the mists, which saturate the targeted area, are melting anyone in said mists from virtually all directions at once.

The spell description of Burning Shadows is as below:

K / Burning Shadows: Causes a shadow or set of touching shadows cast by a source as bright as a torch or brighter to burn like acid. You can specify who this will and will not effect.
- Can effect inanimate objects, but acid is a lot less effective on inanimate objects than it is on living flesh.
- Must specifically be a cast shadow, not merely being in darkness. Think shadow puppets.
- Mathilde must be casting or touching the shadow in question to cast the spell.

That it can be 'a shadow or set of touching shadows' makes me think this is viable, though how much the shadows move might complicate this, and these are specifically cast shadows (by the Marsh Lights). That Mathilde must be touching the shadow (as she is not casting it) may limit range, though as you can specify who this will and will not effect dropping the spell on Mathilde herself or indeed allies near shouldn't be an issue. Range might be an issue if we can't say stretch the mists outward in a line... though Mathilde does tend to get up close anyway.

The idea of students hating us forever for the creation of Mathilde's Melting/Murder/Malignant Mists because MMM is already taken as an acronym, ensuring they can't use it for either this spell or Melkoth's Miasma in the future, is also a nice thought :p
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As amusing as this is, I'm pretty sure Melkoth would start using his own timey whimey powers to stop this
 
A_Somebody said:
As amusing as this is, I'm pretty sure Melkoth would start using his own timey whimey powers to stop this
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Who's to say he isn't going to have done this already?

Redshit Army said:
Melkoth Quest - Turn 314.15, Timeline Branch D, Revision 12.4.1b

It seems some enterprising young apprentice has yet again managed to determine your age, risking destabilizing the contained paradox that is your timestream. What do you do?

[ ] Retroactively increase the power on the masking effect until they didn't have already determined your age after all.
-[ ] Actually, you've got five other perfectly adequate timelines, make one of your alternate selves do it.
[ ] This "Mathilde Weber" has been unusually persistent about this, usually apprentices give it up after just a few weeks. Maybe go check on her?
-[ ] A nice simple Mindhole should get you some peace and quiet for a while, at least along one time axis.
-[ ] Perhaps you can convince her not to have done it after all.
--[ ] How? [Write-in]
-[ ] She's being a pain, go make her have joined one of the other Colleges instead.
--[ ] Which one?
[ ] This timeline destabilization might be an intentional ploy by your evil alternate future self to ensure you become him, not a mere accident. Take more drastic action.
-[ ] End this timeline immediately to contain the spread. [Destroys Timeline Branch D, will immediately jump to controlling Timeline Branch A]
-[ ] Ensure that Mathilde Weber is never born. [May cause major causal instability, especially near Stirland and Karak Eight Peaks]
-[ ] Contact your good alternate future self to coordinate actions. He's a sanctimonious windbag, but this is a crisis. [Have to deal with Infinite Melkoth, and listen to him lecture you.
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FallenPears said:
For specifics what I'm picturing is layering an area with churning heavy mists and filling it with Marsh Lights. The result of this would mean anything in the mist is constantly being exposed to the alternating light and shadows cast by the many surrounding Marsh Lights against the heavy mists. Between Mathilde's knowledge of Rite of Way and Melkoths I imagine this wouldn't be overly difficult to create.
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I'm not sure. In my (admittedly far from comprehensive) experience, you don't really get shadows in fog. Light gets too diffused and refracted and absorbed to really cast the kind of clear shadows that you seem to need for Burning Shadows.
 
The problem with germ theory in places like Warhhammer is that it is not actually universal. Sometimes it really is daemons and curses. That tends to rather take the wings out of the sails of anyone trying to make an experimental case and it makes the conclusion less than air-tight:
  • There is no such thing as spontaneous generation of life... er mostly, when magic and the warp is not involved
  • Illness is caused by invisible lifeforms that live off the hosts and can be killed by disinfectant. No not those invisible lifeforms, the other ones. What do you mean how do you tell the difference?
 
Andres said:
Fun fact: germ theory will become a thing circa 2512 IC.
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Now that I've got access to my files, here's the source: WFRP 4e: Death on the Reik Companion, page 49
Johanna Schnee
Doktor Schnee, just entering her middle years, and previously tenured in Hugeldal, is a travelling physician attempting to gather information for a grand thesis she hopes to present to the University of Altdorf. Fascinated by the spread of sicknesses, and determined to combat their pestilence wherever she goes, she has found great success and deep frustration in equal measure. Many in her field consider her a genius, whilst many more see her as an arrogant upstart, with wild theories about 'invisible poisons', 'germs', and other such poppycock.
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If we've got it that middle age starts at 35, she'd be about 12 years old in Divided Loyalties, canon tiers and butterflies notwithstanding.

Also just gonna take a moment to say I find Warhammer RPGs' costume design very charming. She has a candle holder strapped to her head! So many gems throughout the editions. The wargame has good costume design as well, but the lower-level units tend to be plainer in style than the heroes and monsters and such. The RPGs focus on the lower-level characters of Warhammer so they subsequently get a lot more attention to their designs, which I'm very happy for.
 
Andres said:
Now that I've got access to my files, here's the source: WFRP 4e: Death on the Reik Companion, page 49

If we've got it that middle age starts at 35, she'd be about 12 years old in Divided Loyalties, canon tiers and butterflies notwithstanding.

Also just gonna take a moment to say I find Warhammer RPGs' costume design very charming. She has a candle holder strapped to her head! So many gems throughout the editions. The wargame has good costume design as well, but the lower-level units tend to be plainer in style than the heroes and monsters and such. The RPGs focus on the lower-level characters of Warhammer so they subsequently get a lot more attention to their designs, which I'm very happy for.
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The nice thing about WFRP character designs is that everyone is at least a little dirty or a little wrinkled, or a little scared or a little worn or some combination of all of those things. Even the rich will have a little fading at the edge of the sleeves. Even the pretty have a mole in a bad spot.

They actually look like people living in the world, not supermodels trying to convince you they are 'rangers' in completely clean 'poor clothes' without a single frayed end or patch.
 
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