Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[The3rdCorinthian]

Is there a reason we want to pursue liminal realm research, beyond idle curiosity?

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How else are we going to pull 'nothing up our sleeves' jokes at parties?

More seriously, it's more a college thing. The entire college being in a liminal realm is one of the Mysteries teclis left them, and solving it, or at least attaining greater mastery,

Sheer spite at not letting Tzeench close off a research avenue

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Also this.

As it was in 'Breaker of chains', it's true here: Bird delenda est.

 

[TotallyNotEvil]

Is there a reason we want to pursue liminal realm research, beyond idle curiosity?

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It would be kind of cool. I don't have a particular interest in it, but assuming that bird-heckling isn't a normal phenomenon there are a few tradecraft uses I could see for rooms existing where they'd be physically impossible to fit.

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I think "it's pretty cool/interesting" is a good enough reason, but I can see there being applications related to enchanting, experimenting, spellcraft and maybe apparition binding.

The Grey Lords clearly put in a lot of work into theirs, and I'm pretty sure they get a lot out of it.

And, of course, the most important reason of all: it's a GALAXY FLEX.

 

[Aule]

A reminder that we got AV through a highly improbably chance of the Thorned One being stuck between two states and constantly bleeding as a result.

Highly improbably chance.

It was Tzeentch's plan all along, hahaha

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Yeah, but at what cost tho?

I don't really expect we will get executed or anything. But this isn't the sort of thing that, once in the open, people just forget about.

In an ideal word, sure, we'd have group theraphy with the other people in similar situations. But this ain't an ideal world.

And we don't really know how something like this might spread, or might lead to dominos falling in ways they wouldn't before. It's not a genie that goes back in the bottle. Whether we like it or not, whether they like it or not, the niggling seed of doubt will be planted.

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Why would this plant a seed of doubt, though? We've previously met a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh, y'know, the one actually focused on corrupting people. We helped defeat and banish it. We have now met a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch which we defeated and banished...why would there suddenly be more suspicion on us now than there was then?

The idea that running into daemons irrevocably taints you in the eyes of basically anyone involved in magic is verifiably false and I'm really confused why anyone is buying into it.

 

[EVA-Saiyajin]

Do not let yourself be influenced by a daemon, people. Alectai had the right of it. Acknowledge it but do not base our actions around it.

Do not get paranoid or start making plans based on what it said.

 

[Aule]

On a more serious note, an interesting inquiry could be made towards Laurelorn's leadership: suppose a new Everchosen does arise in the relatively near (especially by Elven standards) future, and does choose the Kislev/Empire direction for their assault, will they send at least some help?

 

[EVA-Saiyajin]

But how many of those cliched characters had the advantage of being piloted by a basically good and uncorrupted hivemind? Maybe we are the one to succeed in fighting fire with fire. I mean IRL that's how fires are actually stopped some times.

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That is exactly what this Daemon wants, for us to start planning to use what it told us. The instant we do so, it has won, for we have stepped into the web with so many paths leading to a similarly damned fate.

Just, don't let it influence decisions like that.

 

[GrimTheMad]

Also also, I continue to be entertained by just how terrifying Mathilde's character sheet would be to anyone who somehow saw it in universe.

Avatar: You've had close encounters not only with your own God, but with others, and are growing able to recognize and understand divine energies. +1 Piety, +1 Learning, able to sense nearby divine intervention.

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Morr: You didn't earn the secrets you know of His, but the mighty blows you've struck against the Necromancers and Vampires of Sylvania hopefully go some way to easing how awkward it might be when you finally meet Him.

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Advanced Morrite Lore: You know the secrets no Priest of Morr should have ever put to paper. +1 Learning

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Von Carstein Lore: You have received a glimpse into the founder of the bloodline long before he took up the name of von Carstein.

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Necromantic Insight: +20 to dispel and induce miscasts against Necromancy. Able to identify (and cast) the spells of Necromancy.

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Fated: +20 to spellcasting in the presence of Tzeentchian sorcery, ??? when spellcasting in the presence of Tzeentchian sorcery.

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Dhar manipulation: You know the theory behind using another Wind to manipulate Dhar.
Dhar diagnosis: You know how to spot Dhar poisoning, gauge its severity, and temporarily reduce the severity of some of its symptoms.
Dhar insight: You've observed Dhar in so many different contexts that you've reached a deep understanding of it without ever wielding it. +10 to studying or countering Dhar-based magics, +20 to wielding Dhar.
First Secret of Dhar: Dhar is inherently unstable, everyone knows that. What they don't know is how to turn Dhar against itself. You do. And now you'll never not know it.
Second Secret of Dhar: Dhar could be made more unstable. A tiny nudge in just the right way and Dhar unravels in just the right way to unravel more Dhar, and so on until nothing remains.

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The Vampire Prophecies of W'Soran
Vlad von Carstein's study notes of the Carstein Ring

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Kurgan Shrine to Mannsleib
Kurgan enchanted weapons (approx. 12)

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A dragon-skull chair, ensconced within your Library.

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Magical components and artefacts:
The original Liber Mortis.

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It looks like someone who looked at the myriad ways a wizard could fall to the darkside and picked 'all of the above'.

 

[DragonParadox]

Honestly I am not looking forward to all the chaos demon talk we are about to get into, maybe it's just me but there is going to be just so much pointless worry and reassurance and suspicion and picking apart of words. Literally nothing is actionable by anyone, but both we as players and Mathilde as the PC are going to want to do something so expect a bunch of no-roll dead ends on 'making Tzeench not like you so much' and way too much hopes of someone else being the adult in the room and saving us from the Big Bad Molusk. List including but not limited to Ranald Kragg, Algard, Kasimir etc...

As cool as the update was I do not foresee good things coming from it because of the natural and understandable player reaction to danger does not make for fun actions.

 

[Parabola]

The thing is I do not think we are getting vote

• AP is already at a premium with multiple long term projects in the works
• We are probably going to use some AP doing social faux-social actions as a placebo
• Add in fear of Chaos and I do not see how such a majority would form

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I'm not saying she won't be too busy to try, I'm disagreeing with your earlier statement that Mathilde would be too scared to try, or be jumpy around them.

She's not suddenly going to think 'hmm the Colleges are vulnerable to daemonic intrusion', she's probably going to think 'Teclis must have known how to make liminal spaces safe, in addition to making them'.

 

[TotallyNotEvil]

The idea that running into daemons irrevocably taints you in the eyes of basically anyone involved in magic is verifiably false and I'm really confused why anyone is buying into it.

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Being afraid of people being tainted by daemons is not an irrational fear.

If there were absolute surefire ways of detecting chaos infiltration, we wouldn't be playing Warhammer.

So yes, even if available methods turn everything "clean", and they almost certainly will because this is Tzeentch telling Tzeentch's magic what to do, not us, people will be people.

It's called bias.

 

[chocolote12]

Why would this plant a seed of doubt, though?

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Essentially, because we'd be planting it in the soil of attention, and watering it with the fertilizer of worry. The last Greater Daemon we fought was just some person that we stabbed, and we gave them the same attention as an Orc.

If this greater daemon says things that make us worry, then what it did was say things that make us worry, which is the bad thing it's done. If we make our Will Save and don't worry about it, then it will have accomplished nothing.

Not letting it influence our actions is the way in which it will have had no influence on our actions.

 

[Wodger]

Is there a reason we want to pursue liminal realm research, beyond idle curiosity?

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Might help with understanding of ulgu from the perspective of boundaries.
Dwarf, elf and forest spirit souls all travel through liminal realms I think.
Are Divine realms related to liminal realms?

 

[DragonParadox]

Might help with understanding of ulgu from the perspective of boundaries.
Dwarf, elf and forest spirit souls all travel through liminal realms I think.
Are Divine realms related to liminal realms?

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The last one is easy, no they are part of the warp, wholly of one world except maybe Gazul's.

 

[Ergosum]

On a more serious note, an interesting inquiry could be made towards Laurelorn's leadership: suppose a new Everchosen does arise in the relatively near (especially by Elven standards) future, and does choose the Kislev/Empire direction for their assault, will they send at least some help?

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Probably, though not assuredly. An Everchosen attacking the Empire is also a threat to Laurelorn, given that it's in the middle if the Empire and I doubt the forces of Chaos would make an exception when razing the whole area to the ground if they triumphed.

 

[deathofrats0808]

Teclis: ...This was supposed to confound you all for at least another 2 centuries. I'm not sure whether to feel frustration or pride.

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I like to think he'd be proud. Teclis himself was by all accounts an unreasonably brilliant student. He graduated from the White Tower after 150 odd years. It seems to take most Elves closer to 500.

 

[picklepikkl]

Given the sheer trauma Mathilde has just suffered I would be shocked if she ever went near making liminal realms again, she would probably get jumpy entering one knowing what she knows now. This is a nat 1 there are no good sides, only bad sides and worse sides.

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Is there a reason we want to pursue liminal realm research, beyond idle curiosity?

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The thread might want to take another shot at it to make our Aethyric Vitae book more impressive. Personally, I'm not into it (I'd rather just make the Orbs of Sorcery and then finish, meaning we could close the book on AV next turn if we get the necessary CF this turn), but Boney did say that we'd unlocked an action to take another stab at making a liminal realm with AV, this time on purpose and without the Bluebird of Happiness Raging Paranoia.

 

[Ericwinter]

Is there a reason we want to pursue liminal realm research, beyond idle curiosity?

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Aside from it just being cool and an absolute flex? Personally, I'm interested for two reasons.

One, we've run into them a lot, recently, so knowing more about them would be nice. Especially when people like Drycha can do the things we've seen them do. Two, while the Colleges clearly haven't been broken into yet by demons, we're not entirely sure if that's luck, because they know how to set up the wards, or whatever Teclis did was permanent. I would like to, at the least, make sure which it is so we can pass on warnings if need be.

 

[Ganurath]

So, I'm going to throw something Apocryphal together after work to give the thread something to talk about other than Tzeemtchian murmurs. Unless there are topic requests that I think might be suitably distracting, it'll be a portrayal of my fever dream of Matorca being more interesting than it seemed.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Being afraid of people being tainted by daemons is not an irrational fear.

If there were absolute surefire ways of detecting chaos infiltration, we wouldn't be playing Warhammer.

So yes, even if available methods turn everything "clean", and they almost certainly will because this is Tzeentch telling Tzeentch's magic what to do, not us, people will be people.

It's called bias.

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My point is that we've already been in situations that anyone paranoid enough to care about this will find more worrying than they find this. We met and even got our mind messed with slightly by a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh (in combat, sure, but it probably lasted as long as this little interaction, which was also combat, did). We have been alone with a number of different vampires and once even worked for a vampire-backed conspiracy. We have spent more time interacting with a skaven socially than anyone else in the Empire.

This is a drop in the bucket and keeping it secret when we've revealed all of the above (at least to the Grey Order higher-ups) is deeply dumb and pointless.

Essentially, because we'd be planting it in the soil of attention, and watering it with the fertilizer of worry. The last Greater Daemon we fought was just some person that we stabbed, and we gave them the same attention as an Orc.

If this greater daemon says things that make us worry, then what it did was say things that make us worry, which is the bad thing it's done. If we make our Will Save and don't worry about it, then it will have accomplished nothing.

Not letting it influence our actions is the way in which it will have had no influence on our actions.

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I'm not saying we go on a paranoid rant to the Grey College. I'm saying we give them a bare bones 'met a daemon, should probably get checked, it said a bunch of bullshit I probably shouldn't pass on' like we've given them reports on all the other suspicious encounters we've had.

This should be treated exactly like any of our other encounters with vampires, daemons, and other unpleasantness, which means reporting it.

 

[Glau]

Huh. It occurs to me that 'don't let the demon change your plans' basically means we shouldn't pursue liminal realm research- not if one of our main motives is spiting the demon. That's definitely a change in plans and priorities.

As cool as the update was I do not foresee good things coming from it because of the natural and understandable player reaction to danger does not make for fun actions.

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Disagree. Quests without danger are pointless for both the qm and the readers. Having to take seriously the consequences of failure gives a very good reason not to go for 110% of everything we can get. And because without meaningful failures the instincts to complete everything and collect everything have no pushback- it becomes a question of when we do everything, not if we do everything.

 

[Ericwinter]

Huh. It occurs to me that 'don't let the demon change your plans' basically means we shouldn't pursue liminal realm research- not if one of our main motives is spiting the demon. That's definitely a change in plans and priorities.

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Only if you think we wouldn't have pursued the research if the bird didn't show up. I mean, it's still a change of plans and priorities, but not because of the bird.

 

[DragonParadox]

I'm not saying we go on a paranoid rant to the Grey College. I'm saying we give them a bare bones 'met a daemon, should probably get checked, it said a bunch of bullshit I probably shouldn't pass on' like we've given them reports on all the other suspicious encounters we've had.

This should be treated exactly like any of our other encounters with vampires, daemons, and other unpleasantness, which means reporting it.

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Checked for what though? Possession? Because that is the only thing they have a spell for, otherwise all they can do is look at us with magesight for signs of Dhar exposure.... which Mathilde is probably the expert on. There is this notion that somewhere in the Colleges there is someone with a bag full of reassurance. What if there isn't, what if they all know no more of this than Mathilde because to know more would be itself going to deep into the mysteries of Chaos? I mean we already have the Grey College's anti-Chaos course and are the preeminent expert on Dhar in the colleges, partly because of lore that would get us burned at the stake. Is it really reasonable that somewhere there is a person with even more forbidden lore and they will reveal that for Mathilde's peace of mind.

 

[Redshirt Army]

In the interests of getting this topic done and over with so I can enjoy this thread again:

What actions do we want Eike to sit in on next turn? If we're gonna take some time off as a mental health break then maybe we could include her in that as well?

 

[Raikazin]

What should be affecting our actions is the fact a greater daemon decided to show up and give us attention and potentially magic powers. Until Mathilde gives us some more exposition on what this means in the context of the universe, it's not unreasonable to assume this is bad news and should be reported. The actual substance of what was said is not relevant to the calculation of how bad the above is. I think calling the urge to address this concern extreme paranoia is kind of missing the point.