How would we even measure a minor reduction of what is already sparse coastal raids? I mean it's not like there is a perfect accounting of who raids what up in Norland or Ostland. Often villages get killed and the perpetrators vanish into the night. If your objective was 'no raids' than at least you could prove them broke it when you find one corsair. But if your objective is 'slightly less raids' what do you do, statistical analyses compared to the records we don't have from past years?
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
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How would we even measure a minor reduction of what is already sparse coastal raids? I mean it's not like there is a perfect accounting of who raids what up in Norland or Ostland. Often villages get killed and the perpetrators vanish into the night. If your objective was 'no raids' than at least you could prove them broke it when you find one corsair. But if your objective is 'slightly less raids' what do you do, statistical analyses compared to the records we don't have from past years?
AzrielIlluminare
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Also for the Roman comparison, you do know how Non-Romans were treated right? We, the MC, the Empire etc. are the Non-Romans, the 'barbarians.' So yeah... don't get too excited just because the DE have been toned down, even toned down the DE are still bad news. Sure they aren't all pure evil, but their society, culture and religions are all still built on suffering whether it be fellow Dark Elves or everyone else.
You see a guy getting hunted down like an animal and murdered, they see it as a sport and part of their religion. So... yeah.
Plus we don't know if this is the cities actually reaching out to us, or ambitious underlings who might lose their heads later for going behind the bosses' backs. Which might just outright negate any deals we do try to make.
You see a guy getting hunted down like an animal and murdered, they see it as a sport and part of their religion. So... yeah.
Plus we don't know if this is the cities actually reaching out to us, or ambitious underlings who might lose their heads later for going behind the bosses' backs. Which might just outright negate any deals we do try to make.
The 'no raids' objective is literally impossible without an agreement with all of the DE cities. And not all of the DE cities are currently willing to negotiate, nor are cities who are willing to negotiate willing to enforce that on the other cities (above and beyond providing us information, or taking opportunistic pot-shots on their rivals). So that is not, and has never been, on the table.
So yes. There will have to be some method to determine whether the people that we are dealing with are upholding their end of that deal, and what penalties should be applied if they are not. Which will require time, additional negotiations, and a lot of smart people working to set up a system. All of which a sufficiently motivated Empire can do. So it's far from impossible. And reducing the number of cities sending raiders by 1/3, or even 1/6, might be sufficient motivation for them to do so.
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It's a sparsely inhabited preindustrial coast, there are no methods to deal magically adept raiders coming by stealth in an environment that is filled with other raiders anyway. I would argue that is would either be impossible or with the use of limited college magic to expensive as to be non-economical.
Again we do not know what the broad number of Druchi raids even is because many leave no survivors so there is no way to estimate if there is a reduction.
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We can't make a deal to reduce raids because we can't deal in good faith or successfully check the results of the deal. Fortunately that's not what was offered so it doesn't matter.
So let's create a hypothetical example here.
Dark Elf Faction A (Karond Kar) is going to attack a Brettonian settlement. Dark Elf Faction B (Clar Karond) gives the information about the raid to Mathilde. Mathilde passes that information on to Brettonia. Dark Elf Faction A's raid fails.
The results are that Brettonia is happy they stopped the raid, The Empire is happy that they traded the information, Dark Elf Faction B is happy they screwed over Dark Elf Faction A, Dark Elf Faction A gets screwed but we don't care because they're pirates. The result is less raids because the raiders are dead or acting cautious.
Basically in this example it costs us nothing and we can get some nice benefits by passing along information from Ylrishen to whoever is interested. Ylrishen gets the benefit of screwing over a rival and Mathilde gets the benefit of being the middleman for the information.
So let's create a hypothetical example here.
Dark Elf Faction A (Karond Kar) is going to attack a Brettonian settlement. Dark Elf Faction B (Clar Karond) gives the information about the raid to Mathilde. Mathilde passes that information on to Brettonia. Dark Elf Faction A's raid fails.
The results are that Brettonia is happy they stopped the raid, The Empire is happy that they traded the information, Dark Elf Faction B is happy they screwed over Dark Elf Faction A, Dark Elf Faction A gets screwed but we don't care because they're pirates. The result is less raids because the raiders are dead or acting cautious.
Basically in this example it costs us nothing and we can get some nice benefits by passing along information from Ylrishen to whoever is interested. Ylrishen gets the benefit of screwing over a rival and Mathilde gets the benefit of being the middleman for the information.
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More proof, if proof was needed, that the most effective interrogator isn't the sinister man in the blank-walled room (thumbscrews or no thumbscrews,) but the gregarious guy who builds a rapport with you out at the bar or the park.
How do we pass the information along? Will the Bretonians trust us if we show up in person? Er... probably. Are they going to trust a random messenger with a letter, especially given that the information is sourced from other Druchi? Probably not I would say. I mean think about it, if you move troops in response to an expected raid in place A you are weakening places B and C, so from the perspective of the Bretonians who do not know what kind of deal we have with the Druchi does this look like a plot to pull troops out of position? Yes quite a lot and keep in mind if they trust this and it turns out to be a trick their people will die or be consigned to fates worse than death.
There are ways around this of course, claim you are scrying or spaying in the dark elves for instance, but the more complexity you add the more time, which is our most precious resource, this will cost.
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These systems 100% are already in place.
Er... which one? Bretonians do not like Imperials and they are feudal with little contact from above, getting information to Sir Potato Head the Third is not that easy for his liege never mind for us and the same goes for places like Kislev.
While how little we got out of him is in fact kind of concerning, I do think it's also worth mentioning that the first half of what we told him was pretty heavily edited and presumably included a bunch of intentional misdirection and the second half of Mathilde's storytime was literally her making shit up about the times she fought the perfidious stone dwarves.
Basically, we did tell him a lot, yes, but a lot of what we told him was intentional lies told by an Intrigue 27 character to a person she is deeply suspicious and distrustful of and whom she doesn't want to have actionable intelligence on her.
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I'm obligated to inform you that Bretonnia has an embassy in Altdorf. There are indeed diplomats between the two polities. Same with Kislev. It takes a while for information to travel, but that's what couriers are for. Graf Otto von Bitternach is in charge of foreign diplomacy, not just internal diplomacy.
Hmm... that is true, but if we use those channels and get it wrong we have now embarrassed the Empire as a whole because the Embassy is to the king not random nobles.
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To be blunt, the whole 'Dark Elf magical information is wrong, and boobytrapped, and will 100% kill us instantly' is way way waaaay fucking overblown.
Let's start with the Waystone commands;
1. We're not entering direct code from Admin access - there's no risk of forgetting one curly bracket, resulting in the network exploding.
2. There are a limited amount of specific commands - we're not going to fumble the elvish for 'feed the baby' into 'defeat the baby', followed by all babies in range exploding, followed by ancient Elves going "Actually, why do we even have that button?"
3. The people who made the commands were competent, sane, and moral, with a justified assumption that no-one would subvert said codes in a way that required secret sabotage commands - so we may receive codes that don't do what we're told they do, but there's very little likelihood of a 'blow up Network' or 'subtly emit Dhar' command code existing.
4. There is an intelligent guiding consciousness in the Waystone Network - remember when we were giving the least-damaging commands of 'turning it on and off again', and after one or two tries said intelligence figured that we were just fucking around, and stopped accepting commands?
There are defences in place, to stop mere irritating use of codes, let alone harmful ones.
Next, the 'oh no, an apprentice of an apprentice of an apprentice of Spy-Satan from Backstabia, wasn't taught as well as she could be' issue.
Because that's what it is;
1. The Sorceress has not been (Physically, Mentally, Magically, etc) harmed by this misinformation - she did not explode upon using this technique. She's not going to explode from using it. It is not slowly poisoning her to death, it is not gradually reducing her Magic ability. It hasn't even reduced her theoretical and eventual maximum Magic score.
2. Receiving a technique considered sub-optimal by Spy-Satan is not a bad thing - sure, maybe the literal pinnacle of a Magic tradition has better ways of doing things, but do we? And sure, another lesser expert of literally multiple millennia in age considers it a waste of time in the long run, but our wizards are drastically unlikely to reach even a century, so does that negatively affect us?
3. We're not taking anything at face value - we're not going to regard what they give us as the One True Way that cannot be improved, and if it clashes with things we already know, then those things are automatically wrong. Cherry-picking useful flecks of gold from molten-hot magma is something we have experience in. And this time...
4. We have help - we have experts from multiple Magic traditions to check and improve on things, including said multiple millennia matrilinial-related mage engaged in a low-key shadow war with Morathi.
Sure, maybe that shadow war consists of the low-effort sending of relatively weak sorceress' and assassins every century or so, but it's still a question of "Are you cool enough to be related to me?" were 'no' means torturous death, and so far the answer has always been "Yes".
Also, what he said to the sorceress minion was basically "You're still using command codes? If you'd spent that time learning to actually code, maybe you could have been properly l33t, bitch."
A skillgate system is pretentious, sure, probably not the best most efficient idea, and in this case exists alongside systemic backstabbing evil, but its not the worst system.
Imagine if Dwarves did the same thing with runemasters, and gated knowledge behind skill and, I don't fucking know, koans. They'd have at least a 100 times as many at various levels of ability, instead of only teaching the literal 1% they think might eventually be capable of reaching the equivalent of Magic 10.
Let's start with the Waystone commands;
1. We're not entering direct code from Admin access - there's no risk of forgetting one curly bracket, resulting in the network exploding.
2. There are a limited amount of specific commands - we're not going to fumble the elvish for 'feed the baby' into 'defeat the baby', followed by all babies in range exploding, followed by ancient Elves going "Actually, why do we even have that button?"
3. The people who made the commands were competent, sane, and moral, with a justified assumption that no-one would subvert said codes in a way that required secret sabotage commands - so we may receive codes that don't do what we're told they do, but there's very little likelihood of a 'blow up Network' or 'subtly emit Dhar' command code existing.
4. There is an intelligent guiding consciousness in the Waystone Network - remember when we were giving the least-damaging commands of 'turning it on and off again', and after one or two tries said intelligence figured that we were just fucking around, and stopped accepting commands?
There are defences in place, to stop mere irritating use of codes, let alone harmful ones.
Next, the 'oh no, an apprentice of an apprentice of an apprentice of Spy-Satan from Backstabia, wasn't taught as well as she could be' issue.
Because that's what it is;
1. The Sorceress has not been (Physically, Mentally, Magically, etc) harmed by this misinformation - she did not explode upon using this technique. She's not going to explode from using it. It is not slowly poisoning her to death, it is not gradually reducing her Magic ability. It hasn't even reduced her theoretical and eventual maximum Magic score.
2. Receiving a technique considered sub-optimal by Spy-Satan is not a bad thing - sure, maybe the literal pinnacle of a Magic tradition has better ways of doing things, but do we? And sure, another lesser expert of literally multiple millennia in age considers it a waste of time in the long run, but our wizards are drastically unlikely to reach even a century, so does that negatively affect us?
3. We're not taking anything at face value - we're not going to regard what they give us as the One True Way that cannot be improved, and if it clashes with things we already know, then those things are automatically wrong. Cherry-picking useful flecks of gold from molten-hot magma is something we have experience in. And this time...
4. We have help - we have experts from multiple Magic traditions to check and improve on things, including said multiple millennia matrilinial-related mage engaged in a low-key shadow war with Morathi.
Sure, maybe that shadow war consists of the low-effort sending of relatively weak sorceress' and assassins every century or so, but it's still a question of "Are you cool enough to be related to me?" were 'no' means torturous death, and so far the answer has always been "Yes".
Also, what he said to the sorceress minion was basically "You're still using command codes? If you'd spent that time learning to actually code, maybe you could have been properly l33t, bitch."
A skillgate system is pretentious, sure, probably not the best most efficient idea, and in this case exists alongside systemic backstabbing evil, but its not the worst system.
Imagine if Dwarves did the same thing with runemasters, and gated knowledge behind skill and, I don't fucking know, koans. They'd have at least a 100 times as many at various levels of ability, instead of only teaching the literal 1% they think might eventually be capable of reaching the equivalent of Magic 10.
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I just realised it's been less than 2 days since the update. Since then there has been 42 pages of discussion. The secret to audience engagement is controversy. Nothing gets you talking like disagreeing with someone. If you agree you'll just stay quiet.
Come to think of it, I don't think I've made a reaction post to this update. I should probably get on that. I've been busy packing my things to go back home after a 3 month stay in London. You only realise how much you bought when you actually pack it in. Maybe I shouldn't have bought enough miniatures to field armies from six different factions...
Come to think of it, I don't think I've made a reaction post to this update. I should probably get on that. I've been busy packing my things to go back home after a 3 month stay in London. You only realise how much you bought when you actually pack it in. Maybe I shouldn't have bought enough miniatures to field armies from six different factions...
Nope, the Sorceress's use Dhar magic and all eight winds as part of their normal repertoire. We can request and obtain non-dark magic from them.
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Well sort of..
Not unless you feel the need to thank someone or think their point needs more boosting or elaboration or is confusing, none of which inherently require disagreement to draw out.
Sometimes purposefully mysterious posts can bring about even more engagement via speculation.
Although, it is true that you brought about my reply through disagreement that does not make it the only really good way to bring about engagement.
That said, again, further discussion of this is probably best suited to the creative writing sub-forum, heck I'd be surprised if there were not multiple threads about engagement there already.
- We have no idea what we are entering, no one speaks that language consistently outside the White Tower, or I don't know Morathi's bedroom if she is feeling adventurous
- We have no idea how many commands there are, we are like a nineteenth century civilization in the face of a nuclear reactor for the most part. 'Of course the memory of the system is limited, the Analytical Engine only has so balls' we would say as the supercomputer fires up.
- Sure I'll give you that
- That does not mean its attention span is limitless or that it can impact all aspects of the system, while it, or more precisely he if he's Calendor stopped when we introduced the same commands multiple times. We do not know if he would be able to catch a subtly flawed command or how much of the system might automated, a lot of unknown unknowns about
- Just because this one did not blow up does not mean Morathi never gave people lethally wrong information, it's just you know we have a sample size of one and she is alive. The important part to note is that handing out flawed information is a common enough tool that at a single encounter we found an instant. Like if you were looking into buying the plans to a car manufacture and the first car made in that factory you saw had a missing rearview mirror, your first thought would not be 'surely the engine cannot be cracked I only saw a missing mirror', it would be 'this is a flawed product, there may be more flaws'
- Again why are you assuming that this one instance is the only form of possible sabotage?
- Yes which means we are getting into an intrigue fight with what may well be an agent of Spy Satan as you put it and therefore with her by proxy. We have no way to check if this is the case or not
- Er... no. Laurelorn has not been in contact with the outside world, that Halarath has been engaged in a war against her, he just hates her from the old days
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On a very vaguely related note, I don't think the Druuchi literally have 6 cities only, which would be silly.
Barring their garrisons, outposts and Shade holdouts scattered about their sub-continent for military/ cultural reasons, they also have over a dozen other cities to live in, and they're called Black Arks.
This, although the dark elf land cities are likely the most prosperous and at the political apex, I strongly doubt that even half of all total Dark Elves actually live there, instead of a semi-nomadic life at sea or quietly huddled in the snow and the woods keeping an eye for Chaos raiders, what with the Druuchi are a military peer to Ulthuan, who can match them elf for elf, but is *much* bigger than even 6 Very Large Elven metropolises .
The question occasionally turns up here, and I figured it worth noting for posterity.
Barring their garrisons, outposts and Shade holdouts scattered about their sub-continent for military/ cultural reasons, they also have over a dozen other cities to live in, and they're called Black Arks.
This, although the dark elf land cities are likely the most prosperous and at the political apex, I strongly doubt that even half of all total Dark Elves actually live there, instead of a semi-nomadic life at sea or quietly huddled in the snow and the woods keeping an eye for Chaos raiders, what with the Druuchi are a military peer to Ulthuan, who can match them elf for elf, but is *much* bigger than even 6 Very Large Elven metropolises .
The question occasionally turns up here, and I figured it worth noting for posterity.
We have much better options with the Eonir who are both more trustworthy and know the better techniques.
The Empire is not in the same position as Nagash where getting magic info out of a small group of DEs was absolutely the only possible way forward; the Colleges have a solid basis of Asur magic and Mathilde has a special in with the Eonir who can double check the Asur teachings and also sell knowledge of higher magic.
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I'm 70% sure he is Mastermind Pirate.
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Each of their 6 major cities likely controls dozens of smaller cities and towns, and each of those dozens of villages. In pre industrial societies, the overwhelming majority (as in 90%) of the population lived in the countryside. Druchii don't farm themselves so the proportion is likely much lower, but they still need to guard the slave farmer so i think that a substantial part of their number live in the countryside with small towns.
.........That is not an example of a spell being sabotaged at all. The fundamental problem they had with the Matrix was stated in the update long ago here.
It was made by a Sylvanian vampire/necromancer/troublemaker who was unaware of the first secret meant to make Dhar spells not require frequent maintenance and be stable. It is not the fault of the spell for the Matrix but more the nature of Dhar to be unstable and corrode its bindings. Along with also the possibility of it being deliberate to ensure traitors do not survive their betrayal for long. Essentially its more the fault of Dhar's nature to being unstable and unreliable which is only countered by the first secret.
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I know Boney said it isn't canon for the purposes of this Quest, but I just wanted to note that according to Curse of the Phoenix Crown Malok is not an Ulthuani Dragon, but originally an Old World Dragon that was pressed into service during the War of Vengeance using the Grey Lord mind control artefact.
The elves and the dragons themselves consider there to be an important distinction between the dragons of Caledor and the dragons of the Old World, and they're only allied with the former.