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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Getting the powerstones in secret for the research is already stretching the limits in terms of practicality, for the sake of doing something really impressive on the first go. We don't need to double up on that.

Like, yes, I want to keep Orbs too to keep them in the mantlepiece/use in enchanting/at least one to power the Eye of Gazul. But it's not like after the orbflex we wouldn't still have the opportunity to make more sets of orbs afterwards. They can't force us to dedicate all orbs for them. It's Mathilde's snake's juices, hers to use as she sees fit.

If anything, it would be easier with actual support from the Colleges to make more, with some negotiations here and there - they provide the stones, we create the orbs, we keep one or two and get something or other in return for the rest and also the expenditure of the AV.
 
Mopman43 said:
Lessons in what?
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In the liminal realms and how he built his towers. When I asked Boney about learning from him he said the only way to get them was to go back in time. I think being able to bribe the other lords magisters into covering for him would be good for him. Also I want to see Algard interactions with wizards, elves and dawi. The man is literally one of the best experts with only two known wizard better at him in his field.
 
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Parabola said:
Getting the powerstones in secret for the research is already stretching the limits in terms of practicality, for the sake of doing something really impressive on the first go. We don't need to double up on that.

Like, yes, I want to keep Orbs too to keep them in the mantlepiece/use in enchanting/at least one to power the Eye of Gazul. But it's not like after the orbflex we wouldn't still have the opportunity to make more sets of orbs afterwards. They can't force us to dedicate all orbs for them. It's Mathilde's snake's juices, hers to use as she sees fit.

If anything, it would be easier with actual support from the Colleges to make more, with some negotiations here and there - they provide the stones, we create the orbs, we keep one or two and get something or other in return for the rest and also the expenditure of the AV.
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Also, going to the colleges with "hey I think I've got a way to make orbs of sorcery, can I get some power stones" might be better than "hey I made orbs of sorcery for all 8 colleges, discovered a new miracle liquid, and found a way to make Runelords very happy" out of the blue. Remember when we did the Queekish flex and we're tested for Demon possession?

Yeah.
 
Nurgle said:
In the liminal realms and how he built his towers. When I asked Boney about learning from him he said the only way to get them was to go back in time. I think being able to bribe the other lords magisters into covering for him would be good for him. Also I want to see Algard interactions with wizards, elves and dawi.
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I think you want something that's not on the table.
 
xamaplak said:
Also, going to the colleges with "hey I think I've got a way to make orbs of sorcery, can I get some power stones" might be better than "hey I made orbs of sorcery for all 8 colleges, discovered a new miracle liquid, and found a way to make Runelords very happy" out of the blue. Remember when we did the Queekish flex and we're tested for Demon possession?

Yeah.
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It's true, we really need to moonwalk out of his office while he's looking over the submissions. That way we can get a full view of all the pocket dimensions on his desk and how the inevitable double barreled daemon check affects them.
 
Nurgle said:
Ok I think we should give the first set for free and trade the second set for lessons form Algard.
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My friend, I'm not sure how to tell you this, but you never give away something for free. You squeeze as much value out of your work as you can. And, as with all negotiations, what you can get depends on how you present it.

If we present a full set of orbs to Dragomas, he can probably offer a singular really big thing for them. He has the authority for that. If we present them to all eight Magister Patriarchs, we might be able to negotiate eight smaller yet still impressive things, one for each orb. I'm sure there's lots of ways this can be approached.

In order of personal preference, here's some things I hope we could get:
  1. Knowledge from the Ambers and the Jades on how their respective 'seemingly-intelligent-constructs-that-are-proooobably-Apparitions' work. We can improve upon what the Golds have, and there's few other things of similar magnitude
  2. Creation and supplying of the Seviroscope, to further examine AV.
  3. ALL the College books that we don't already have. Would save us a lot of time and let us focus the library budget on more mundane stuff.
  4. Outfitting WEB-MAT with state-of-the-art tools for studying things? This was one of the things offered when Feldmann came along knocking for the Skaven artefacts. But it might overlap with the facilities we already have in Laurelorn, so ehhh.
  5. I'm sure we could get the full collaboration of the remaining Orders for the Waystone project, but we're definitely near a "too many cooks" situation so it's not nearly as useful as the idea was back when we were only a Magister.
I get the feeling further orb sets, or individual ones, would probably be negotiated for less, but they would still be very valuable. Similarly, I'm sure there's interested Magisters or Lord Magisters that might wish to obtain AV for their own purposes, to see if we've overlooked anything or if they can weaponize them in their own ways.

Maybe we can get an arrangement similar to the one we currently have with Runelords - AV for Favors, or enchantments.

xamaplak said:
Also, going to the colleges with "hey I think I've got a way to make orbs of sorcery, can I get some power stones" might be better than "hey I made orbs of sorcery for all 8 colleges, discovered a new miracle liquid, and found a way to make Runelords very happy" out of the blue. Remember when we did the Queekish flex and we're tested for Demon possession?

Yeah.
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Mathilde was flattered that she got tested for demon possession because it demonstrated how impressive what she did was. Surprising the Sigmar out of the Colleges is not a bad thing.

...And, this is a long shot, but it's vaguely possible that this could end up making Lord Hatalath see Mathilde as someone to actually take seriously. Maybe unlock the mythical Elf Favor?
 
Parabola said:
...And, this is a long shot, but it's vaguely possible that this could end up making Lord Hatalath see Mathilde as someone to actually take seriously. Maybe unlock the mythical Elf Favor?
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"Oh, so you learned the elementary Wind-concentrating centering exercise Auntie Rathi used to assign first-decade students back in Saphethion? Did you spot the bottleneck in production her suggested Poleward axial tilt engenders?" :V

Unfortunately, that'd be Harathi, not Hatalath. Ah well.
 
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Parabola said:
My friend, I'm not sure how to tell you this, but you never give away something for free. You squeeze as much value out of your work as you can. And, as with all negotiations, what you can get depends on how you present it.

If we present a full set of orbs to Dragomas, he can probably offer a singular really big thing for them. He has the authority for that. If we present them to all eight Magister Patriarchs, we might be able to negotiate eight smaller yet still impressive things, one for each orb. I'm sure there's lots of ways this can be approached.

In order of personal preference, here's some things I hope we could get:
  1. Knowledge from the Ambers and the Jades on how their respective 'seemingly-intelligent-constructs-that-are-proooobably-Apparitions' work. We can improve upon what the Golds have, and there's few other things of similar magnitude
  2. Creation and supplying of the Seviroscope, to further examine AV.
  3. ALL the College books that we don't already have. Would save us a lot of time and let us focus the library budget on more mundane stuff.
  4. Outfitting WEB-MAT with state-of-the-art tools for studying things? This was one of the things offered when Feldmann came along knocking for the Skaven artefacts. But it might overlap with the facilities we already have in Laurelorn, so ehhh.
  5. I'm sure we could get the full collaboration of the remaining Orders for the Waystone project, but we're definitely near a "too many cooks" situation so it's not nearly as useful as the idea was back when we were only a Magister.
I get the feeling further orb sets, or individual ones, would probably be negotiated for less, but they would still be very valuable. Similarly, I'm sure there's interested Magisters or Lord Magisters that might wish to obtain AV for their own purposes, to see if we've overlooked anything or if they can weaponize them in their own ways.

Maybe we can get an arrangement similar to the one we currently have with Runelords - AV for Favors, or enchantments.


Mathilde was flattered that she got tested for demon possession because it demonstrated how impressive what she did was. Surprising the Sigmar out of the Colleges is not a bad thing.

...And, this is a long shot, but it's vaguely possible that this could end up making Lord Hatalath see Mathilde as someone to actually take seriously. Maybe unlock the mythical Elf Favor?
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No we give the first away to get the college hooked than we sell the second set. Not just to colleges but wizard we know who can do things for us or pay for it. The gold order is rich and has vast resources. Or we higher a college to build things or all the books. But I want lessons from Algard since he is the wizard with the second most experience studying the Liminal realm we know and he is the only one we have a chance of actually learning from.
 
The first set of Morbs doesn't sound like the sort of thing we're going to be selling like a particularly well-sprinkled cupcake or whatever, I think.

The Morbs themselves are probably going to end up in their respective colleges, with us probably holding on to our own, but the overall value of the set of them feels like one of those instances we've had in the past where the system had to budge a little because what us spending favors meant had changed.

Or, to attempt to put that less weirdly, the Orbs of Sorcery have a lot of mythology built up around them, and regardless of the veracity or seriousness of any of them we'd still be showing up with eight of the things, obvious to anyone with wizardly eyes to see, without any build up or warning that we'd be doing something like this. Even if a sufficient number of power stones properly worked together can mimic their functionality, to try and scrape off that 'Irreplaceability Sauce' GW likes to put on everything, putting that backwards is to say that we just sort of casually shrugged, academically speaking, and then proved that we could just ignore the Irreplaceability Sauce altogether by flexing our wizard lord sized giga-brain.

The scenario is being called the Galaxy Dunk, but we're not really thinking about what we're going to be dunking into. It's not a hoop. It's the sauce. The Irreplaceability Sauce.

And being able to handle the Irreplaceability Sauce means that a lot of things that are too spicy for anyone else to touch are suddenly in question again, because here we are, and our breath carries the nose-hair-vaporizing stench of mysteries that can set lesser researchers to weeping. "No one can do this; all that have tried have failed"-- but maybe not us. It's a step into myth.

It's a lot easier to get people to go along with your ideas when they're grappling with a niggling sense that the laws of physics might operate differently on your laboratory stove.

We might even get a discount on Perpetual Apprentice employment. :V
 
"And for my next trick, Rosie, I'd like your support to set up Mark 1 Dämmerlicht Haléthan Tributaries in these western sections of the Hunters Hills. My calculations show they should be in range of a particular maypole in the Moot."
 
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chocolote12 said:
The first set of Morbs doesn't sound like the sort of thing we're going to be selling like a particularly well-sprinkled cupcake or whatever, I think.

The Morbs themselves are probably going to end up in their respective colleges, with us probably holding on to our own, but the overall value of the set of them feels like one of those instances we've had in the past where the system had to budge a little because what us spending favors meant had changed.

Or, to attempt to put that less weirdly, the Orbs of Sorcery have a lot of mythology built up around them, and regardless of the veracity or seriousness of any of them we'd still be showing up with eight of the things, obvious to anyone with wizardly eyes to see, without any build up or warning that we'd be doing something like this. Even if a sufficient number of power stones properly worked together can mimic their functionality, to try and scrape off that 'Irreplaceability Sauce' GW likes to put on everything, putting that backwards is to say that we just sort of casually shrugged, academically speaking, and then proved that we could just ignore the Irreplaceability Sauce altogether by flexing our wizard lord sized giga-brain.

The scenario is being called the Galaxy Dunk, but we're not really thinking about what we're going to be dunking into. It's not a hoop. It's the sauce. The Irreplaceability Sauce.

And being able to handle the Irreplaceability Sauce means that a lot of things that are too spicy for anyone else to touch are suddenly in question again, because here we are, and our breath carries the nose-hair-vaporizing stench of mysteries that can set lesser researchers to weeping. "No one can do this; all that have tried have failed"-- but maybe not us. It's a step into myth.

It's a lot easier to get people to go along with your ideas when they're grappling with a niggling sense that the laws of physics might operate differently on your laboratory stove.

We might even get a discount on Perpetual Apprentice employment. :V
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Honestly, yeah.

Showing up with 8 impossible to replicate items with no warning .... just being able to flex like that is almost worth more then they could possibly pay us for it.

For the rest of our life, we can look any Imperial Wizard in the eyes if they ever doubt us about anything and be like "hey, remember when I did the thing", and it's very hard to have an argument against that.
 
Before we get too full of ourselves, I expect pretty much any Lordy/Lady Magister worthy of the rank is going to have their own gigaflex-moments they can point to with a raised eyebrow and knowing look.

"How many hellcannon foundries have you destroyed/slave revolts engendered/wibbly-wobbly-Timed, again?"
 
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Alliterate said:
Before we get too full of ourselves, I expect pretty much any Lordy/Lady Magister is going to have their own gigaflex-moments they can point to with a raised eyebrow and knowing look.

"How many hellcannon foundries have you destroyed/slave revolts engendered/wibbly-wobbly-Timed, again?"
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"Stupid teleporting towers, it's not that impressive, grumble grumble."
 
chocolote12 said:
we'd still be showing up with eight of the things, obvious to anyone with wizardly eyes to see, without any build up or warning that we'd be doing something like this.
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So, thinking about practicalities for a minute, we'd need an event that had all the colleges heads assembled, possibly all the Lord Magisters too, ideally. Do we think we've got enough credit with the supreme patriarch to get a moment before or after the college challenges? Otherwise we might need to have Heidi ask the emperor to call the relevant parties together- political flex as the opening move?

Then there's the presentation.

The things themselves are going to be the size of like, soccer balls, right? I've heard "human head" used but that's a bad metric because it's so lumpy and inconsistent. So, carrying eight of them means we basically walk in with a wheelbarrow, or a cabinet on our back.

Or we could reach deep in to our prior, subtler flexes, and have ducklings and apprentices carry one in each after us, so they can be brought directly to each college group for inspection.

I'd vote for-

Grey- Eike

Red- Adella

Yellow- Sonja

White- Barbantis. Egrimm's old apprentice with the visceral windsight that we cleared of chaos corruption

Blue- Hebert.

Purple- Gretel is still a personal favorite because of how much Mathilde likes her.

Green- panoramia, obviously.

Gold- Max. Johann is our buddy, but Max is our paper writer who let us accumulate the favor to do it.

Plus I think that group represents a lot of mentorship on Mathilde's part. This is a good subtle recommendation for them all, and I picked ones junior enough that they could still need a bit of it.
 
It was brought up as an idea shortly after the original Orb discovery, but...

"Hello Lord Algard. Here, take these. You guys need to keep these under better protections. Ok, bye!"
 
Glau said:
So, thinking about practicalities for a minute, we'd need an event that had all the colleges heads assembled, possibly all the Lord Magisters too, ideally. Do we think we've got enough credit with the supreme patriarch to get a moment before or after the college challenges? Otherwise we might need to have Heidi ask the emperor to call the relevant parties together- political flex as the opening move?

Then there's the presentation.

The things themselves are going to be the size of like, soccer balls, right? I've heard "human head" used but that's a bad metric because it's so lumpy and inconsistent. So, carrying eight of them means we basically walk in with a wheelbarrow, or a cabinet on our back.

Or we could reach deep in to our prior, subtler flexes, and have ducklings and apprentices carry one in each after us, so they can be brought directly to each college group for inspection.

I'd vote for-

Grey- Eike

Red- Adella

Yellow- Sonja

White- Barbantis. Egrimm's old apprentice with the visceral windsight that we cleared of chaos corruption

Blue- Hebert.

Purple- Gretel is still a personal favorite because of how much Mathilde likes her.

Green- panoramia, obviously.

Gold- Max. Johann is our buddy, but Max is our paper writer who let us accumulate the favor to do it.

Plus I think that group represents a lot of mentorship on Mathilde's part. This is a good subtle recommendation for them all, and I picked ones junior enough that they could still need a bit of it.
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[ ] Unbeknownst. Just quietly deposit them in each Patriarch's office.
[ ] Subtly. Delivered by the Grey Order Post office, with a complimentary slip.
[ ] Normally. Make an appointment with each College and do them all in a day.
[ ] Showily. Assemble all the Patiriarchs for an unveiling ceremony.
[ ] Very Showily. As per the above, but get a former Duckling to accompany you for each of their respective colleges.
[ ] With Mathildean Showwomanship
 
If she's going to have a viewing party or whatever, I would hope some focus would be paid on the Morbing machine's presentation. She could pay for a dwarf or elf carpenter to create a facade for the machine that resembles a fruit bearing tree of some sort. It'd be a fruit salad tree but the fruit salad is morbs of all eight winds, a morb tree.
 
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...You know, it just occurred to me that there's one thing Mathilde definitely cannot test on her own in regards to AV: other windsights.

She is unable to see the primordial winds in the moment that they emerge, and the equivalent to other senses might be also overwhelming, but it'd be interesting to imagine what they might be like, after we publish the book and possibly trade away AV for others to study on their own.

Would someone with auditory windsight hear someone slamming all the keys of a piano at once? Would Eike simply feel emotionally overloaded, with her intuitive sight?

Maybe not enough material for a full paper, but it's worth considering.
 
Speaking of Windsight and AV-generated Primordial Winds, what happens if Mathilde gets her Flicker AM under control and uses that to let her try to see that moment of Wind creation? Does that only apply to her own perception, or can other wizards in the room also see better? If the latter, is it only for visual Windsight because of the whole light thing?
 
Parabola said:
Mathilde was flattered that she got tested for demon possession because it demonstrated how impressive what she did was. Surprising the Sigmar out of the Colleges is not a bad thing.

...And, this is a long shot, but it's vaguely possible that this could end up making Lord Hatalath see Mathilde as someone to actually take seriously. Maybe unlock the mythical Elf Favor?
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Hatalath will learn about it how? And even if he did, why would the Elves be grateful for it? I'd honestly expect the RoW over the swamp to be more likely to unlock Elf Favour.

Nurgle said:
No we give the first away to get the college hooked than we sell the second set. Not just to colleges but wizard we know who can do things for us or pay for it. The gold order is rich and has vast resources. Or we higher a college to build things or all the books. But I want lessons from Algard since he is the wizard with the second most experience studying the Liminal realm we know and he is the only one we have a chance of actually learning from.
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I'm pretty sure Algard's knowledge about how to do magic with liminal realms is too wrapped up in his own understanding of magic. It's uncodified and Mathilde thus cannot learn it. Anything that isn't practical Mathilde can just buy a book on.
 
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