Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

[Alratan]

On proof,/blackmail recall that even someone watching Mathilde in the room wouldn't have known what happened. The information was directly downloaded into her mind. Someone who gets a vision or dream of her creating the liminal realm wouldn't know what happened unless they were inside her mind.

She told Belegar about the possession by Mork, despite all the problems that could cause, back when she knew him a lot less.

She told Ranald about the possibility of using AV to fingerprint gods, even though it cut off a promising line of research.

She told Helga about the debt and chose to pay it back in full even though it left her with very little money.

She told Belegar again about the Waystone knowledge she got up north knowing it could further exacerbate a divide in the Karaz Ankor.

And back near the beginning, she told Abelhelm about accidentally knocking someone out with a magic dart.

Mathilde is a weirdly honest person for her wind, profession, and god- and it usually works out for her.

(Only just got the chance to respond to this. Probably won't be making any further responses, because this argument mostly seems to have degraded into people just saying the same things over and over again.)

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That's because the Grey College is very different to those people, and has a very different expectation of what it means when you share information and what you mean when you do.

Telling the Grey College is implicitly asking them to do something about it because of what need-to-know means. This was discussed with regards to the EIC, IIRC.

I'm much less opposed to talking to Belegar or Gunnars about this, although it's also an unnecessary risk, and praying to Ranald about it is just good sense.

It's specifically telling the Grey College that is so very problematic because of the expectations they have of their people.

 

[consequences]

[X] [BELEGAR] Daemon and weakening

[X] [COLLEGE] Everchosen and Greater Daemon

Not without shredding the absolute hell out of the fabric of reality every time it's turned on, which tends to be frowned upon.

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So the Pendulum is likely about the upper limit of what can be safely(ish) contained insofar as that ever applies to Battle Magic?

Just to clarify, you're doubtful that the agents of the Schemer would have a way of revealing information in a way that would be damaging for Mathilde?

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We saw into the liminal realm. If the Daemon had physical senses to see outward, the first thing that comes to mind is duplicating the physical appearance of Mathilde's Calamity room as the opening salvo at taking a crowbar to the trust someone has in her. Just dropping 'so how is our dear friend Weber's research into <the most sus metaphor for pocket dimensions to the targeted individual> on a carefully picked target before we publish could start sowing the seeds of doubt.


It's not the crime, it's the cover up. That's two possibilities I came up with nearly instantly, the twisty plotter daemon probably can do at least one more.

I do hope that QM will let us face the consequences if disclosing wins. People need to realize that we are living in a deathworld, not in my little pony.

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Most deathworlds wish they were as hardcore as My Little Pony.

-The Gatekeeper, who's job it is to hunt the servants of Chaos. She's also arguably the one who want's to be here the least. Chance of withdrawal: HIGH

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This seems short sighted when she could get an extra tasking to keep an eye on us since she's already there and involved. Which could lead to resentment at her further AP Hell and knock on effects, but I would personally rate the chance of withdrawal as Very Low.

 

[Sparsebeard]

It's not personal, it's that it's even the appearance of that kind of stuff is a hot button topic to me, because I've seen lots of games either die or jump the shark after something like this happens, and many of them were ones I previously adored.

So I'm stepping out for a while and hoping I'm wrong so I can come back to happier times, rather than letting myself build more and more dread over the topic.

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I get that, but it's not the kind of thing that's nice to share with the author.

If you want to take a break from a story, fine. But saying it to the author is not "courtesy", it's the kind of thing authors end up thinking again and again and obsessing over. Many stories end because a minority's criticism end up messing with the author's head and affecting capacity and motivation to write.

You might not like the direction, but the best thing is NOT to share it with everybody, especially not in a thread that the author reads. Even when a person receives tons of positive feedback, it's the human mind's way to obsess over the bad.

There will always be rude people, no need to be you. I get that it might be hard to keep such things for yourself when you love something and the author goes a direction you don't like, but ultimately, the quest is not about you.

Also, considering many people respect your opinion and you say things like "I'll come back if the thread chooses acording to my wishes" comes out as manipulative.

[X] [BELEGAR] Daemon and weakening
[X] [COLLEGE] Everchosen, Daemon, and Mathilde's candidacy

 

[NSMS]

Do you expect them to manufacture a plot whole-cloth that is sufficiently convincing that we get, what, backstabbed in our sleep by a LM hit-squad?

That's "rock falls".

The odds of us not being considered a Tzeentch plant go up staggeringly by us not admitting we had a psychic conversation with a greater daemon of Tzeentch.

Because "compromised" isn't the same thing as "willing participant".

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No, I was pointing out there is a measurable gain from telling the colleges that a demon of Tzeentch spoke to us, in that it makes it harder for it to set things up to screw us over, and then when you challenged that by pointing out that it could do that anyway I stated that giving advanced warning makes lies like that easier to spot. Basically, I was just challenging the implicit assertion that there's nothing to gain from talking to the colleges- I wasn't speculating on the consequences of a Tzeentch plot or scheme of this nature, because that wasn't part of the original context of what I was replying to.

 

[The Phoenixian]

[X] [BELEGAR] Nothing
[X] [COLLEGE] Incoming Everchosen
[X] [COLLEGE] Nothing



On the other hand, a Headpat and Anti-Headpat collision sounds like a good way to attract Dark Headpats...

I think you really need to take a step back here and recall what exactly blackmail is ('Take a step back' as a figure of speech, not an emotional rebuke, sorry): Blackmail is the ability to prove things that other people don't want proven.

If we do not talk, there is nothing the bird can prove. Nothing. It doesn't exist.

There are no cameras.

There are no lie detectors it can get called on us.

There are no witnesses.

There is no blackmail.

Let's reverse this scenario: A prominent Lord of Change just had a Close-Mathilde Encounter. We popped up out of nowhere, flexed at this Bird, and then collapsed a pocket dimension on its head. How can it prove that this happened to anyone? Will any of its friends believe it? No. We are the Boogeyman in its closet. The monster under its bed. The horrid thought lurking in its head. If it tries to talk about it, its therapist will sit it down and ask it if the Lord Magister is in the room with it right now.

It has nothing.

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Okay, going over the things in this incident in the ones that come to mind.

1: There is Mathilde's current emotional turmoil and the question of what happened to cause said turmoil.
2: There is a verifiable and potentially exploitable weak spot in reality in Mathilde's house.
Most of all though....
3: There is Mathilde's sudden and unexplained trait of being notably more competent when near Tzeentchian sorcery. Especially if it turns out Tzeentchian sorcery... likes her, in ways that another wizard could see. Let alone ways that made themselves deliberately obvious to said wizard.

#3, in retrospect, also being a thing that I don't think can be explained in a good way by anything, and Being Scouted For Everchosen at least sounds like the Least Bad way.

 

[pucflek]

Like, "if tainting wizard relation was as easy as getting greater daemon talk to them, tzeentch would be doing it all the time" is meh argument. Manifesting greater daemon is incredibly costly affair. Im pretty sure the slaaneshi keeper of secrets/daemon prince is one of the few occurences of greater daemon sightings since asavar kul, and it only happened in extremely uniquecircumstances. Encountering greater daemon is not normal. Encountering one as result of our actions is incredibly damning. This will not be handwaved away. Even in good scenarios our agency and ability to act may be severely limited.

 

[Gavin Prince]

When explaining to the colleges how our potential status as an Everchosen candidate is meaningless, we should bring out our four-faced divine artefact to bolster our chances of being believed.

 

[TheWiseTomato]

Shit happened, we have to own it. I think Mathilde values her relationship with Belegar and the dawi too much to break faith with them like this. The idea that we can just keep our mouth shut, cross our fingers (lol) and hope for the best is not a great one.

 

[Alratan]

We saw into the liminal realm. If the Daemon had physical senses to see outward, the first thing that comes to mind is duplicating the physical appearance of Mathilde's Calamity room as the opening salvo at taking a crowbar to the trust someone has in her. Just dropping 'so how is our dear friend Weber's research into <the most sus metaphor for pocket dimensions to the targeted individual> on a carefully picked target before we publish could start sowing the seeds of doubt.


It's not the crime, it's the cover up. That's two possibilities I came up with nearly instantly, the twisty plotter daemon probably can do at least one more.

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It could have done that anyway, and could make up anything it wanted at any time. The fact that this event actually happened is irrelevant.

Okay, going over the things in this incident in the ones that come to mind.

1: There is Mathilde's current emotional turmoil and the question of what happened.
2: There is a verifiable and potentially exploitable weak spot in reality in Mathilde's house.
Most of all though....
3: There is Mathilde's sudden and unexplained trait of being notably more competent when near Tzeentchian sorcery. Especially if it turns out Tzeentchian sorcery... likes her, in ways that another wizard could see. Let alone ways that made themselves deliberately obvious to said wizard.

#3, in retrospect, also being a thing that I don't think can be explained in a good way by anything other than by Being Scouted For Everchosen.

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1) |Mathilde has exceptional Intrigue. If she choses, no one will know this happened. Just as she shrugged off literal divine possession and none of her colleagues she didn't tell noticed. That was a much bigger deal.
2) Would exist whether or not the daemon spoke to us. We don't have to hide our creation and destruction of a liminal realm, just the daemon contacting Mathilde
3) Could probably always have happened anyway at any time to any wizard if Tzeentch felt like it. It's not something that can or needs to be explained, just Tzeentch being Tzeentch.

 

[consequences]

#3, in retrospect, also being a thing that I don't think can be explained in a good way by anything other than by Being Scouted For Everchosen.

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'Tzeentch is willing to sacrifice some minions to frame a champion of order and start the distrust spiral' seems pretty on brand, if not taken in a vacuum with no reported contacts.


Oh look, a third reason to come clean(ish). The embodiment of lies and schemes now needs *four* reasons to outdo a nerd spending five minutes of thought.

 

[NSMS]

Like, "if tainting wizard relation was as easy as getting greater daemon talk to them, tzeentch would be doing it all the time" is meh argument. Manifesting greater daemon is incredibly costly affair. Im pretty sure the slaaneshi keeper of secrets/daemon prince is one of the few occurences of greater daemon sightings since asavar kul, and it only happened in extremely uniquecircumstances. Encountering greater daemon is not normal. Encountering one as result of our actions is incredibly damning. This will not be handwaved away. Even in good scenarios our agency and ability to act may be severely limited.

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Worth noting that result 41 - 50 on one of the miscast tables is almost exactly what happened to us:

Here


The RPG does not deal with Battle Magic so this is what you get for messing up Fiendishly Complicated magic... or for being unlucky on any of the other miscast tables. Technically you could try to cast light and with enough 100s get sucked into the realm of chaos.

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Yes, this is for a demon prince, not a greater demon, but the difference between the two is honestly minimal in this context. Point is, this is far from unprecedented.

 

[Alratan]

'Tzeentch is willing to sacrifice some minions to frame a champion of order and start the distrust spiral' seems pretty on brand, if not taken in a vacuum with no reported contacts.


Oh look, a third reason to come clean(ish). The embodiment of lies and schemes now needs *four* reasons to outdo a nerd spending five minutes of thought.

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Tzeentch could and would do this without us having had mental contact with one of his Greater Daemons. Tzeentch doing random shit is what Tzeentch does. It's not evidence of anything.

 

[consequences]

It could have done that anyway, and could make up anything it wanted at any time. The fact that this event actually happened is irrelevant.

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If you think that 'daemon says thing, events shortly after show daemon was speaking the truth, after now ominous silence on subject from Mathilde' is somehow going to make her look better, I don't feel like there's any productive discussion to be had.

 

[Ergosum]

Your opinion directly contradicts Mathilde's view on the issue. The Waystone Project being in jeopardy is brought up by her before considering the consequences of the Everchosen-ship, as a possible consequence of the certain loss of standing and trust that this revelation will bring.

And I think she'd have a far better grasp of the situation than either of us.

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According to her, the Waystone Project would be in jeopardy, if the Dwarfs and Colleges "were to suddenly have reason to distance themselves". That's Mathilde, in her still shocked mental state, thinking about the literal very worst case scenario. Not about something that is particularly likely to happen (which it isn't, for the reasons I've outlined in my previous post).

 

[Dark as Silver]

Unless all of them get hucked into a bin because they could possibly be Tzeentchian trickery.

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Well if this one is Tzeentch, then the sane are well and truly fucked.

and the Gods start sending warnings to the faithful

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[Alratan]

If you think that 'daemon says thing, events shortly after show daemon was speaking the truth, after now ominous silence on subject from Mathilde' is somehow going to make her look better, I don't feel like there's any productive discussion to be had.

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This or any other daemon could do this about anything at all they chose to make up. The fact that we actually did have contact with this daemon makes no difference,

Events can't show that it was telling the truth about communicating with Mathilde because there is no evidence, and it's just about literally impossible to prove it happened. Even Mathilde would find it impossible to prove that it did rather than it being another form of miscast that caused her to imagine that a daemon contacted her.

According to her, the Waystone Project would be in jeopardy, if the Dwarfs and Colleges "were to suddenly have reason to distance themselves". That's Mathilde, in her still shocked mental state, thinking about the literal very worst case scenario. Not about something that is particularly likely to happen (which it isn't, for the reasons I've outlined in my previous post).

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And directly above there she says that they would have said reason.

 

[The3rdCorinthian]

If you think that 'daemon says thing, events shortly after show daemon was speaking the truth, after now ominous silence on subject from Mathilde' is somehow going to make her look better, I don't feel like there's any productive discussion to be had.

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Nah, mathilde just immediately has a perfect poker face and says it lied, and because it's a daemon everyone immediately agrees because All daemons lie.

I think this is starting to really get personal, since I used to be a compulsive liar to the point where my parents began to be unable to completely trust me even when I was telling the truth, because they just couldn't be sure, and that was about hiding way smaller stuff than a daemon indicating I've got Tzeentch's attention. I'm going to ignore or otherwise stop posting until the votes over.

 

[Nerdasaurus Rex]

You spent the entire post referring to this result as a 'minor miscast' when it wasn't actually a miscast, it was a success that resulted in a greater demon downloading a monologue (and hopefully only that) into our head. That is the deliberate minimization to which I refer.


I didn't. Don't try to play the refs on this.

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It has the same consequences as a "minor miscast" (where a major one is where they scrape our insides off the walls), and besides the success of the experiment is completely independent from the demon's intervention. Besides, you can miscast and successfully cast a spell at the same time—they are not mutually exclusive. We did some experimental spellcraft, and a demon used that to get in contact with us. Since that wasn't a desired or intended result, then it was a miscast. And since the only thing that happened was a monologue informing us that Tzeentch and His magic likes us, and not, say, exploding us into a thousand pieces, then in my mind that qualifies as a "minor" miscast.

Also, saying it "downloaded a monologue into our head" makes it sound a lot worse that it is. It used magic to create speech that didn't need air or ears to be heard, but I feel saying it was thrust into our mind like a computer virus grossly exaggerates the situation.

 

[StormySky]

Well if this one is Tzeentch, then the sane are well and truly fucked.

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It's Order Gods, differentiated from Chaos by the fact that the Chaos Gods were referred to as such earlier in that same sentence.

 

[TotallyNotEvil]

No, I was pointing out there is a measurable gain from telling the colleges that a demon of Tzeentch spoke to us, in that it makes it harder for it to set things up to screw us over, and then when you challenged that by pointing out that it could do that anyway I stated that giving advanced warning makes lies like that easier to spot. Basically, I was just challenging the implicit assertion that there's nothing to gain from talking to the colleges- I wasn't speculating on the consequences of a Tzeentch plot or scheme of this nature, because that wasn't part of the original context of what I was replying to.

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And I challenge your point that this would even make things better. Because to a lot of people, it absolutely won't. Pointing ourselves as already being somewhat involved with a greater daemon will be more damning than nothing at all.

And this uncertain benefit is on top of the atrocious risk we are taking.

So yes, I don't really the possibility that this could make an impossibly powerful plot against us maybe be a bit harder as a "benefit" to this.

"It's raining blood, but maybe the garden will get greener after that."

Yes, this is for a demon prince, not a greater demon, but the difference between the two is honestly minimal in this context. Point is, this is far from unprecedented.

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You realize that's the "catastrophic" table, right? It's right there with "you get sucked into the Warp, roll a new character".

 

[LadyLynn]

Just to verify: the College option is only reporting to the Grey College, right?

I see some talk about other Magisters on the Project potentially leaving, but I'm not sure why they would learn anything about what the Grey College would certainly see as highly classified information.

 

[DragonParadox]

It has the same consequences as a "minor miscast" (where a major one is where they scrape our insides off the walls), and besides the success of the experiment is completely independent from the demon's intervention. Besides, you can miscast and successfully cast a spell at the same time—they are not mutually exclusive. We did some experimental spellcraft, and a demon used that to get in contact with us. Since that wasn't a desired or intended result, then it was a miscast. And since the only thing that happened was a monologue informing us that Tzeentch and His magic likes us, and not, say, exploding us into a thousand pieces, then in my mind that qualifies as a "minor" miscast.

Also, saying it "downloaded a monologue into our head" makes it sound a lot worse that it is. It used magic to create speech that didn't need air or ears to be heard, but I feel saying it was thrust into our mind like a computer virus grossly exaggerates the situation.

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Rolling a middling result on the Catastrophic Miscast table is not minor, a minor miscast is things like 'you sour nearby milk'.

Edit: Mathilde'd

 

[Alratan]

It has the same consequences as a "minor miscast" (where a major one is where they scrape our insides off the walls), and besides the success of the experiment is completely independent from the demon's intervention. Besides, you can miscast and successfully cast a spell at the same time—they are not mutually exclusive. We did some experimental spellcraft, and a demon used that to get in contact with us. Since that wasn't a desired or intended result, then it was a miscast. And since the only thing that happened was a monologue informing us that Tzeentch and His magic likes us, and not, say, exploding us into a thousand pieces, then in my mind that qualifies as a "minor" miscast.

Also, saying it "downloaded a monologue into our head" makes it sound a lot worse that it is. It used magic to create speech that didn't need air or ears to be heard, but I feel saying it was thrust into our mind like a computer virus grossly exaggerates the situation.

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It literally did download a monologue into Mathilde's mind, and neither she nor anyone she tells has any way of knowing that it didn't download anything else.

Just to verify: the College option is only reporting to the Grey College, right?

I see some talk about other Magisters on the Project potentially leaving, but I'm not sure why they would learn anything about what the Grey College would certainly see as highly classified information.

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Presumably when one of their Lady Magisters goes to the Grey College to warn them that she's potentially been mentally compromised by a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch and that they need to intervene, one of the action the Grey Patriarch may take is to warn his peers in the other Colleges that requests from and information supplied by said Lady Magister should now be treated with caution.

 

[AzrielIlluminare]

Tzeentch could and would do this without us having had mental contact with one of his Greater Daemons. Tzeentch doing random shit is what Tzeentch does. It's not evidence of anything.

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So Tzeentch just randomly offers power ups now? Plus, if Tzeentch loves doing random shit, then sending one of his Greater Daemons to fuck with a troublesome Wizard would obviously be waved off like your saying Mathilde having Tzeenchtian Sorcery like her would be. So, having a Greater Daemon pop up is a problem that means everyone is going to suddenly see us as untrustworthy, but having magical benefits when around Tzeenchtian stuff is dismissible as Tzeentch just being a troll? Riiiiight.

 

[NSMS]

And I challenge your point that this would even make things better. Because to a lot of people, it absolutely won't.

And this uncertain benefit is on top of the atrocious risk we are taking.

So yes, I don't really the possibility that this could make an impossibly powerful plot against us maybe be a bit harder as a "benefit" to this.

"It's raining blood, but maybe the garden will get greener after that."

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This point just comes down to a difference of opinion, then; all I can really say is 'I disagree'- both on the scale of the risk (I definitely wouldn't class it as 'atrocious') and how much a reveal would help.

You realize that's the "catastrophic" table, right? It's right there with "you get sucked into the Warp, roll a new character".

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Yep. Point was that it's a known result that can happen to anybody working magic, and that it doesn't appear to cost any special effort from the CGs, the way pucflek stated as an argument for the colleges reacting extremely to this event.