Hm. I suppose we don't really use it for our own purposes all that much. And if we're done experimenting with it it really wouldn't be that useful to us anymore... I could come around to the idea of handing it over to the colleges once we finish the orbs, honestly.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
The only non-forbidden method I can think of is staking something like a Rider in Red or a Darkhound to the ground and slowly bleeding it while it is alive. Oh course much like a daemon these things also need to be fed something to be kept manifested when they are all the way in the material world so so you would have to figure out how to
- Feed the wizard-hunting spirit being...
- ...through the bindings you use to keep it from eating your face
- And also get at it with a knife and a bucket on a semi-regular basis to collect the blood without disturbing said bindings
It is literally our only source of runesmith favor for any non-traditional purpose
- Location
- England, unfortunately.
- Pronouns
- She/They
Because the colleges would never get involved with grey areas like this ever.
Please, ignore the bound apparitions, they are good doggos sir.
I'll be blunt, even in the case that they don't actively make use or find a way of reproducing AV, they can STILL be useful because you suddenly have a lot of people with a lot of different viewpoints that Mathilde, being a single human being with Biases and imperfect knowledge, would never have even considered, or would not have had the resources to think of.
Talking about this research as only being useful as a 'Dunk' is incredibly narrow minded and Protagonist Focused, and ignores that the colleges are made up of numerous capable people who do not shadowrun at the first mention of potential dark magic accusations, but instead sit down and carefully consider precisely how they could instead go about their research without having to risk that. There's already been shown several ways in which magisters navigate the webs of their obligations, we're even doing it with the waystone project since that involves Dhar as a key component.
- Location
- Netherlands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Personally, I consider the Snakebox to be so valuable that I think it's better to keep it in a Dwarven Karak, where it can be contained with a maximum level of security and stability.
If it could be drained for centuries, or millennia... the amount of value it would offer would be preposterous.
Blackout
Fed By Comments
- Location
- Who knows?
According to 4th edition Empire Armybook, yes. Gromril heated with dragonfire and cooled in daemon blood.
However, the guy who did that wasn't known as Alaric the Mad for no reason.
- Location
- England, unfortunately.
- Pronouns
- She/They
IIRC, wasn't it the whole 'Rune placed on Warpstone' thing that was him actively being insane, and everything else was just him being insane by Dwarf standards?
Where are these talented Colleges researchers currently sitting around doing nothing who can pick up AV research going to come from?
Everyone competent in the Colleges is probably in AP hell, because it's a big Empire and there are comparatively very few Magisters. All of these magisters have their own day jobs and their own bits of interesting research they'd like to get around to one day. Why would they drop them in order to study this irreplaceable very limited resource that's controlled by someone else who has already picked the low hanging fruit from the research tree?
We can, and probably should get WebMat to study it after publication, but they're probably the only ones, and they also have plenty to be working on in the interim.
Boney may also have said not to believe that story.
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AV is incredibly rare; there's not enough of it to give to every interested LM.
A gallon of AV is probably a lot more valuable than gromril, let alone mundane gold, so the Colleges are going to want to restrict the knowledge. Learning how to cast Battle Magic is also restricted for example and it is a lot less sensitive.
It is absolutely useful in the same way owning a gromril mine is useful - we can use the AV to trade with Runesmiths or other wizards for just about anything.
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
I'm totally opposed to it. If the colleges want AV they can have AV. Not the box.
I'm stating this now not as an invitation/request to engage on this matter at this time, but because two people have now floated the idea and that's my standard for at least saying 'I don't like X' in this quest.
And I really really don't like the idea of Mathilde giving the box away.
AV and AV research would be a lot more attractive for other Magisters to take up if it came from a wizard with an untarnished reputation, and if one of the first uses of one of its applications wasn't associated with tarnishing that wizards' reputation.
This also means that publishing the book incorporating safety measures for liminal realms is very sensible, as it reassures more generally that this line of research won't get you in serious trouble.
This also means that publishing the book incorporating safety measures for liminal realms is very sensible, as it reassures more generally that this line of research won't get you in serious trouble.
If a dwarf is insane by dwarf standards, would they not just be regularly insane?
- Location
- England, unfortunately.
- Pronouns
- She/They
ut wiggy, the colleges wont do anything with it, even theoretical considerations, because it's too close to forbidden/too rare/they're too busy/we know everything about it already.
...I need a break. the past 3 days have been nothing but people bitching that our colleagues cannot possibly help up with literally ANYTHING.
...I need a break. the past 3 days have been nothing but people bitching that our colleagues cannot possibly help up with literally ANYTHING.
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
I am totally the opposite of opposed to this.
If Alric can survive the night of a thousand duels then we can survive a phonecall with a spooky bird.
You are right maybe there is something we are not seeing, some Gold Wunderkind who can develop a darkhound smoothy apparatus that will produce industrial quantities of AV, but there is no reason to assume that are even a wizard or for that matter that they have even been born. It has been 20 years IC since quest start with time passing slower as complexity increases. Out of the blue AV improvements sounds very much like the kind of thing that would be out of the quest's timeline. Giant leaps forward in research are all the more rare as they are beholden to the idiosyncratic interests of individual wizards and their relationship with magic.
I'm still not seeing why the Colleges would be that desperate to have AV, rather than the products of AV.
Sure, they'd want as many orbs as we can make, but they'd probably be just as happy if someone in WebMat like Max or a perpetual we hire makes them.
Magisters are busy, they have their own day jobs and research projects they'd have to abandon to pick up AV research and I just don't see the motivation for them to do so. If the inventor/discoverer of AV, who runs a Research focused branch College doesn't think it's worth investing more time in why would they, and if we did think it worth further research they'd be competing with people who have a head start and much easier access to the material and any unpublished research notes.
As a side note, there could be some interesting opportunities for Max to develop his personal project based on orb creation. For example, is it possible for otherwise mundane craft to produce otherwise impossible results in a region of reality softened by the presence of one or more different types of Orb.
Slightly differently, if you can mould a growing orb into shape, can you make a mould of something like the rune of a Wind or other magical rune to strengthen or focus the effects of the orb in a way that interacts with mundane crafting.
On that note, we might want, on the turn we wrote and publish the book, to give samples of AV to our immediate colleagues so they can get in first with publishing follow on papers. We can probably use WebMat actions for this, giving Egrimm, Max, Johann, Adele, etc the first look. The big flex would be to see if Cython is interested in collaborating on something related to what AV reveals of the Winds-as-Gods hypothesis, or related things like whether each Wind is formed in the image of a god like construct or entity.
This kind of coordination is by no means unknown in academia.
Sure, they'd want as many orbs as we can make, but they'd probably be just as happy if someone in WebMat like Max or a perpetual we hire makes them.
Magisters are busy, they have their own day jobs and research projects they'd have to abandon to pick up AV research and I just don't see the motivation for them to do so. If the inventor/discoverer of AV, who runs a Research focused branch College doesn't think it's worth investing more time in why would they, and if we did think it worth further research they'd be competing with people who have a head start and much easier access to the material and any unpublished research notes.
As a side note, there could be some interesting opportunities for Max to develop his personal project based on orb creation. For example, is it possible for otherwise mundane craft to produce otherwise impossible results in a region of reality softened by the presence of one or more different types of Orb.
Slightly differently, if you can mould a growing orb into shape, can you make a mould of something like the rune of a Wind or other magical rune to strengthen or focus the effects of the orb in a way that interacts with mundane crafting.
On that note, we might want, on the turn we wrote and publish the book, to give samples of AV to our immediate colleagues so they can get in first with publishing follow on papers. We can probably use WebMat actions for this, giving Egrimm, Max, Johann, Adele, etc the first look. The big flex would be to see if Cython is interested in collaborating on something related to what AV reveals of the Winds-as-Gods hypothesis, or related things like whether each Wind is formed in the image of a god like construct or entity.
This kind of coordination is by no means unknown in academia.
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The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
Aetheric Vitae right now is the only indication that the Primordial Winds even exist --- to coin a term for the winds at the moment they come into existence --- let alone any source of them for experimentation.
Figuring out what in the world these even are is... probably important. Especially given how much that ties into the paradigm of human magic being about shaping the winds to the wizard even as the wizard is shaped by the wind.
The certainty that the winds even in the "natural" world are not actually in their most fundamental state not only begs the question of "Why?" but also "Okay, so how far can we push this?" The latter being especially important for the likes of human magic, with it's spellcrafting traits and masteries, where it's highest heights are all about pushing that malleability to its limits.
Related:
It does strike me that the interactions we see with the Primordial winds with powerstones at the moment of Vitae detonation, and/or some other method to manipulate the primordial winds could tie into supercharging runecraft.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
Agreed. It's a unique, non-renewable and very precious ressource, I'm not letting that out of our control if I can do anything about it.
Remember that the colleges can't simply take AV away from us—Feldman and the Golds tried that with our Skaven loot, and Dragomas slapped him down and made him bribe us for the stuff. Even if we lose all credibility with the colleges, this is still our project and we have a right to it.
I will say that the idea that wizards aren't capable of dropping their own studies for something new and more interesting is pretty weird. Like if av hits the market there is at least one wizard who i can guarantee will jump at the chance, and that's our own patriarch. I'm betting there are a few others from all 8 colleges who have roadblocks who they think they could be solved by av.
Edit: i bet the alchemists will try to batter down our doors for this stuff.
Edit: i bet the alchemists will try to batter down our doors for this stuff.
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Seeing as human casting is intuitive rather than intellectual, why would intellectually understanding this be that relevant? Sure, if you're spellcasting at the polars gates the difference between the primordial winds and the regular Winds is probably pretty important. Why would it matter that much subsequently?
Sure, if you have AV and are trying to exploit it, knowing about primordial winds probably does matter quite a lot. Virtually no wizards will ever have AV, so it's not relevant to them.
It's a massive academic and intellectual triumph, but the only Magisters who'd want to research it are specialists in deep magical theory. There are so few Magisters that there may literally be none of them active though.
I'm sure he'd put it on his list for when he has a spare AP. Maybe next decade.
And there's no reason to think that AV would solve roadblocks for anything else. It's interesting, but it's not a panacea for everything.
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- Location
- Netherlands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I wouldn't be surprised if we got a "trade AV for College Favor" option after we make the AV book.
Though... who really knows how the College Favor system will work after we've yknow. Donated Orbs of Sorcery to everyone and written a book that turns everything upside down.
I suppose we'll see when we get there.
Though... who really knows how the College Favor system will work after we've yknow. Donated Orbs of Sorcery to everyone and written a book that turns everything upside down.
I suppose we'll see when we get there.