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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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If hearing words was that bad, a Lord of Change could just take to the sky and shout "Wowie i love magical colleges so much" over Altdorf to get everyone in city killed.

I doubt There isn't a single high offical in the Empire from Witch Hunter, to Patriarch and the Emperor who haven't heard or been tempted by demons before. This is bad yes, but Mathilda isn't actually corrupted, just have the eye of at least one Chaos God on her. Which again, i think at least is typical for the guys who do actually get stuff done.
 
Alratan said:
The risk of telling the Colleges or anyone else isn't that they're kill Mathilde, it's that in future they won't trust Mathilde quite enough to share one small but critical piece of information that will screw the forces of order 'For Want of a Nail' style.

That's why we should act as if the daemon never showed up. We should continue to investigate liminal realms, we should write down how to make them with AV in our book, we should carry on with next turns plan as if this hasn't happened.
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Or what could happen is that Tzeentch plans to engineer a situation were the College learn that we met a demon and didn't tell them. In that case, it would appear really bad for us, even treacherous. We didn't break the law or anything, were as careful as possible when doing the experiment, and our resume is exemplar. We're certainly not the first wizard that gets visited by a demon, and immediately telling Algard we met one is further proof that we're loyal. I don't think that just talking with demon will cause the GC to distrust us.
 
I mean what do we gain from telling the Colleges or anyone else for that matter?

'The demon will not be able to reveal we hid anything' is only applicable if we reveal the whole truth which very few people seem to want to do. If the Grey College are the sort to listen to demon-sourced information the fact that we give them half the truth will only confirm whatever else the agents of the Changer say made up or no. It is not like there exists some neutral source that can confirm what happened here and catch us out.

I think say nothing to no one ever is the most sensible course of action because as far as I can see there is nothing to gain and must to lose if we talk.
K von Carstein said:
Or what could happen is that Tzeentch plans to engineer a situation were the College learn that we met a demon and didn't tell them. In that case, it would appear really bad for us, even treacherous. We didn't break the law or anything, were as careful as possible when doing the experiment, and our resume is exemplar. We're certainly not the first wizard that gets visited by a demon, and immediately telling Algard we met one is further proof that we're loyal. I don't think that just talking with demon will cause the GC to distrust us.
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OK how does he engineer this? The only witnesses are us and the demon.
 
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Oh and on the matter of never casting where there are Tzeenchians around I do not think that is reasonable because they do not generally announce themselves from the rafters before casting, if anything I think we should seek out a Tzeencian, like a Tzagor or something and throw a spell in their presence when we have back up in the closest thing to a controlled environment with low stakes. The last thing we want to do is have the mysterious trait show up when we are the last line of defense to prevent Mandred from being eaten by a Chaos spawn or something equally dramatic.
 
Alratan said:
The risk of telling the Colleges or anyone else isn't that they're kill Mathilde, it's that in future they won't trust Mathilde quite enough to share one small but critical piece of information that will screw the forces of order 'For Want of a Nail' style.

That's why we should act as if the daemon never showed up. We should continue to investigate liminal realms, we should write down how to make them with AV in our book, we should carry on with next turns plan as if this hasn't happened.
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That would be an incredibly arrogant view of ourselves. I trust the grey college to be aware of these sort of issues and to respond in an appropriate manner. As for need-no occurrences, that will happen regardless of if we tell the colleges or not.
 
DragonParadox said:
I mean what do we gain from telling the Colleges or anyone else for that matter?

'The demon will not be able to reveal we hid anything' is only applicable if we reveal the whole truth which very few people seem to want to do. If the Grey College are the sort to listen to demon-sourced information the fact that we give them half the truth will only confirm whatever else the agents of the Changer say made up or no. It is not like there exists some neutral source that can confirm what happened here and catch us out.

I think say nothing to no one ever is the most sensible course of action because as far as I can see there is nothing to gain and must to lose if we talk.
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I don't buy this because I don't buy saying we saw and spoke to a daemon as a meaningful risk. It's a basic precaution we can take to double check that we aren't compromised (the College has ways to check that, and we'd get checked) with no meaningful down side because this is just a standard work hazard...they will check us and move on.

We don't gain a lot (the double check that we aren't compromised is pretty much it...maybe some good advice as well), but it has no meaningful risk or cost so why not engage in best practices?
 
DragonParadox said:
OK how does he engineer this? The only witnesses are us and the demon.
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I dunno, I'm not an immortal demon whose specialty is plotting. But it's a Tzeentchian one, so there's definitely a catch if we don't tell anyone.

Also, an argument could be made about not telling the GC (but they should know that an EC is coming soonish), but do you really think we shouldn't tell Belegar? He's one of our best friends, and we just weakened the fabric between the warp and the materium in his fortress. That's a very big vulnerability, and not telling him and letting him take precautions isn't what a friend should do. We're supposed to be a Dawongr, we should act like it!

Also, having that Gazul cleric take a look at our soul would be nice, to see exactly what's going on.

DragonParadox said:
Oh and on the matter of never casting where there are Tzeenchians around I do not think that is reasonable because they do not generally announce themselves from the rafters before casting, if anything I think we should seek out a Tzeencian, like a Tzagor or something and throw a spell in their presence when we have back up in the closest thing to a controlled environment with low stakes. The last thing we want to do is have the mysterious trait show up when we are the last line of defense to prevent Mandred from being eaten by a Chaos spawn or something equally dramatic.
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I'm afraid that getting us to go fight Tzeetchian casters is exactly what the Blue Bird was thinking when giving us this trait. Doing it is a really bad idea.
 
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So after I reread this update, I can say: This went pretty well!

The AV action succeeded and got a really cool result. Bit unfortunate side effect, but that's ok. Mathilde learned she can actually close rifts, which might come in handy at some point. Trying to figure out a better way to secure things would be nice for a second try, but it's good to know they can be invaded like this. Better find out now, when it's empty and tiny in the safety room, rather than when we've got important stuff there. And greater birbs are always hard to keep out, but we have a bunch of options (ask elves, ask other elves, look at the college, ask Ranald).

And hey, we rolled a nat 1 and got bonus stuff out of it. How neat is that? First, we got headpats. Evil headpats, sure, but headpats still. Mathilde is winning the biggest divine contest on the planet, and she didn't even know she was taking part. And if we ever meet the next Everchosen, we can tell them they only got the position because Mathilde was too cool to bother with it. Which is also the second thing: Mathilde now knows IC about Everbowl, so there's less hard exhausting stuff of keeping what Mathilde actually knows in mind, which means more energy to spend on designing chicken farms.

Third, Mathilde has slammed a door in the face of a major daemon. So check off 'defy major daemon'. That's a requirement for being a top grade Warhammer badass, and it didn't even take a full AP!

Fourth, Mathilde got a cool new trait. Collection of all evil magic traits continues! The unknown part is a bit annoying, but I'm sure we'll learn eventually. Also, since Chaos in general and Birb specifically is inherently self defeating, it might even be a good thing for Mathilde (I wouldn't bet on it, but it's certainly possible).

Fifth, hopefully this will motivate the thread to finally take some of those Arcane Mark actions. I've wanted to do those since literal years.

Sixth, this going to be very reassuring and soothing to the paranoia of the Greys. After all, Mathilde has now officially been visited by a daemon and reported it (assuming we do report it, but we should), there's confirming intel that there probably is an Everchosen incoming as predicted by very basic math, and we can get together with others and make fun of his speech. Suuure, you're so all powerful you keep getting your ass handed to you. You're definitely not mad at all and imitating a blowhard. Not to mention the total logic vacuum of "if you become our willing slave, you can totally do what you want!".
Really, it should've stuck to critiquing Mathilde's fashion choices. I mean, her fist change in literal decades was from "Grey Robe" to "slightly fancier Grey Robe", until someone took pity on her and forcefully added some ornamentation.

Seventh, it didn't even try to bring up her other dark secrets, which again shows their limitation. You can say it's part of a clever plan, but then anything can be part of a clever plan if you define your goals in hindsight based on what happened.
 
K von Carstein said:
I dunno, I'm not an immortal demon whose specialty is plotting. But it's a Tzeentchian one, so there's definitely a catch if we don't tell anyone.

Also, an argument could be made about not telling the GC (but they should know that an EC is coming soonish), but do you really think we shouldn't tell Belegar? He's one of our best friends, and we just weakened the fabric between the warp and the materium in his fortress. That's a very big vulnerability, and not telling him and letting him take precautions isn't what a friend should do. We're supposed to be a Dawongr, we should act like it!

Also, having that Gazul cleric take a look at our soul would be nice, to see exactly what's going on.
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I think we should never tell anyone ever because there is no benefit to it unless one assumes both hyper competence from Tzeench that we can in no way anticipate and that in some way none of us can see Belegar or the Grey College or whoever will somehow be able to solve the problem as opposed to you know... just giving them nightmares for no reason. Hell if we assume Hyper competent Tzeench why would his plotting stop at Mathilde? Maybe the plan is to worry Belegar such that he does not have a good night's sleep before an important battle so that he is tired and fails to parry an ork's axe which kills him.

This is why hand-waving *Tzeench will find a way to screw us over if we do not do X* is a bad idea because you can use it to justify anything.
 
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Also, the Grey College should know about the next Everchosen coming soon. Not letting the Empire know about such a threat is outright treasonous, and there probably won't be another occasion to reveal it without being very suspect. We can say it now because coming out and telling what the demon said immediately simply shows we're loyal. Doing it months or years after would appear very suspicious.

DragonParadox said:
This is why hand-waving *Tzeench will find a way to screw us over if we do not do X* is a bad idea because you can use it to justify anything.
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Well, in that case my argument about telling Belegar becomes even more compelling. And there's definitely things that the Empire could do.

K von Carstein said:
Actionable or not, it seems kind of dumb not to tell the GC. As a LM, we have a duty to report things of that kind to our boss. Algard isn't going to run in circles like a beheaded chicken.

It's definitely actionable, because it means the Empire will have to be careful with its ressources, maybe not go into a war over some city in a swamp or anything of that sort.

It means the Empire must already reach to other nations to lay the groundwork for cooperation, that the Colleges can be on the lookout for any potential Everchosen in and around the Empire. There's plenty of things the Empire can do to prepare.

And if that Everchosen arrives while the Empire is busy doing something else, something we could have prevented by telling the GC, what would Mathilde think of herself?
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K von Carstein said:
Also, the Grey College should know about the next Everchosen coming soon. Not letting the Empire know about such a threat is outright treasonous, and there probably won't be another occasion to reveal it without being very suspect. We can say it now because coming out and telling what the demon said immediately simply shows we're loyal. Doing it months or years after would appear very suspicious.
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That is not news, the next ecerchosen is always coming other than the time they are already here. It's like saying 'winter is coming'. It''s not like the daemon gave us a timeline.
 
DragonParadox said:
This is why hand-waving *Tzeench will find a way to screw us over if we do not do X* is a bad idea because you can use it to justify anything.
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My view is that a similar argument can be made for not doing X: in the case of the spark of this discussion telling the colleges.
My idea is that the benefit of telling the college is that we get a second set of eyes on the problem, and are thus able to receive advice.
Given that we directly know that we have attracted the attention of the Chaos Gods to a significant degree: beyond that of "Curse that annoying, interfering wizard" getting advice would overall be a good thing.
 
DragonParadox said:
Our lifetime is potentially endless because Mathilde is a wizard. If nothing kills her she could be here a thousand years from now.
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K von Carstein said:
Really? Because wizards may live longer, but them being immortals is just a theory.
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Even if we accept immortality as a given, the knowledge we have does suggest a more definitive, immediate bound to the next everchosen's appearance as compared to "He will appear someday"
 
We might also want to talk to our new friend Elrisse, who's also a specialist in dedaemoning.
Zero Gravitas said:
"It is a place where you can get your taste in hats evaluated by cryptic bird daemons," said Lady Magister Mathilde Weber.
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I want an entire omake of this. Maybe Eike or Mandred getting their promotion.
DragonParadox said:
Our lifetime is potentially endless because Mathilde is a wizard. If nothing kills her she could be here a thousand years from now.
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The selection process seems to have started. That's different to it'll happen some day
 
VoiceOfTheRiders said:
My view is that a similar argument can be made for not doing X: in the case of the spark of this discussion telling the colleges.
My idea is that the benefit of telling the college is that we get a second set of eyes on the problem, and are thus able to receive advice.
Given that we directly know that we have attracted the attention of the Chaos Gods to a significant degree: beyond that of "Curse that annoying, interfering wizard" getting advice would overall be a good thing.
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What problem are we getting those eyes on? What information do that have that is not inherently tainted? If there was anything the Colleges could do about this that were not as much a shot in the dark as our actions I would be all for it. But all of the information we have and I use that term lightly comes straight from Tzeench. Every last word that demon said could be a lie designed for the amusement of the Changer of Ways. The only reason we the players know that is not the case is OOC information from the GM.

K von Carstein said:
Really? Because wizards may live longer, but them being immortals is just a theory.
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OK then let's not argue over it, we 'know' (assuming you can trust a demon, see above) that the next Everchosen will come within the indeterminate but potentially centuries long lifespan of Mathilde Webber
 
K von Carstein said:
Well, even then it's pretty useful to know that an EC will come in that time window.
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Not really? An EC can come at any time - particularly after a bit of time passes since the demise of the last EC.

Considering nearly two centuries went by an EC appearing sometimes in the next few decades is not a certainty but at the very least a highly probable event.

Since we don't know who they might be or a more precise timeline the daemon essentially told us nothing.
 
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