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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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BurnNote said:
I agree that making fake evil magic books is not something we should do, for a variety of option.

But I don't think it's encouraging people to go cultist. You only get evil magic books if you look for them, generally. Mathilde wouldn't exactly go and hand them out at dinner parties or spam people with them. Also, it's not like you do a ritual by accident. Or that people don't know that magic is dangerous shit. Like, maybe we have different things in mind of what type of fake book this is about, but I wasn't thinking of something subtle that might be inoffensive at first glance. I was thinking a proper necromancy or something like that.

To make a comparison: If I make a fake dating profile on a cheating site, and then link someone to that, I arguably have some moral responsibility if they try to hook up with that fake person. I did technically tempt them. But that doesn't mean they didn't behave in a way that deserves some asskicking. They still had a choice both in following the link (acquiring the book) and then going through with it (trying to perform the ritual).

Sometimes a person doesn't get a choice (possessed by a daemon), but that's not the case for the fake dating site. There's also cases where cheating is at least kinda understandable if still shit, like if you're in a shitty marriage and your partner is already cheating so it's like things can get much worse. That would be Vanhel and his Skaven invaded lands, or the Grand Theognist in the Vampire Wars. But those cases are pretty fucking rare.
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I do not think it works like that, it feels a bit like essencializing potential cultists: there are bad people who when presented with a evil book will turn cultist and then there is everyone else. The problem with that is Chaos (and to a lesser extent necromacy) is about temptation. A lot of people fall because they had just the wrong book fall into their hands at just the wrong moment, or just the wrong daemonic whisper, others do indeed go looking for the power of Chaos but not out of a generic desire to do evil but because they have some burning passion that supersedes faith and reason both, avenging a destroyed home, bringing a loved one from the dead. A false book of dark lore would catch the desperate as much as the ambitious and the mad and since it will be designed to show each their heart's desire it would catch far more people than would have otherwise Fallen.
 
Really, the Grey Wizard most likely to have come up with some fake Black Magic books is Algard - tossing a bunch of those into his Screaming Towers alongside the actual bait would be a good contingency plan for if someone managed to breach his defenses.
 
Those were some suspiciously stringent denials to a fairly absurd statement there.

Well, I guess it makes sense. The thread is an excellent insulator to supposition.
 
Redshirt Army said:
Really, the Grey Wizard most likely to have come up with some fake Black Magic books is Algard - tossing a bunch of those into his Screaming Towers alongside the actual bait would be a good contingency plan for if someone managed to breach his defenses.
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A fake black magic book designed to get anyone using it killed from going something dumb like drinking mercury.
 
This is probably the Nth time of someone saying this, but I really feel like we got super lucky in our results this chapter. There was no subsequent roll we could have failed, we didn't have to fight or get a disease or anything. The birb even helped us close the hell portal instead of attempting a breach as a plan B after messing with our mind. And nothing it actually said was even all that troublesome. No secrets we can't ignore, no serious temptation, no credible threats. Honestly, the biggest danger I see is if we relay the encounter completely honestly and people conclude that we are either obviously lying and hiding the bad stuff (because who encounters a Lord of Change just to hear a mildly interesting monologue filled with the most by the books stuff alongside some unsurprising knowledge and copious self-aggrandizement), or they are really worried because this Daemon seems to genuinely try to have a fair relationship with Mathilde to the best of its ability.

Boney said:
As others have pointed out, Grey Wizards cannot edit memories. They can remove all memories of themselves from a target with Mindhole, or conceal specially-prepared memories to be revealed on a specific trigger with whatever they used for the memory packets.
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Does that mean that memory packages feel like a foreign memory? Or is it more that they are somehow devoid of the circumstances of how the memory formed, even when unpacked?
 
Chlof said:
Is it possible to reliably distinguish a foreign memory from a native one?
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Depends on what comes with the memory and what is in the memory. Does it use vocabulary and phrasing that the subject doesn't usually think in (if the subject thinks in words at all)? Does it include sensations from back when it was formed?
 
Andres said:
Why don't grey wizards edit people's memories? Is it an ethical issue or do they just lack the spell for it?
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I'm certain they would if they did have the spell for it - Mathilde certainly didn't have any ethical qualms with messing with people with Mindhole in interrogations.

So it looks like it just isn't currently possible. Maybe someday someone will codify a Mindhole mastery, but it hasn't happened yet.
 
Truthfully I feel like people are overestimating Tzeenech and his deamons. He is nowhere near omniscient to get Mathilde flip with with one conversation. Hell for somebody who claims to control the fate he is not even meta.

Now if it was @Nurgle or one of his boys that would be another thing. He has been hanging around in the thread itself, like Evil Santa with bags full of his own brand of gifts *coughcough*, hell he is even voting for stuff. He knows a lot, perhaps too much. That would have been really scary.

FallenPears said:
Are we sure that human wizards actually exist, and they aren't all just dragons in disguise?
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*starts singing*
Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landside,
No escape from reality
/singing.
 
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The Birb of Destiny suggested that Clan Mors were close to converting to worship of the Four, but we utterly crushed them at K8P and now they don't serve any god.

So I'm left wondering—was the warlord of Clan Mors a potential Everchosen candidate, but we removed them from the running before they even reached the qualifiers.

And if a Skaven warlord can be an Everchosen candidate, then that throws open the contest to, well, anyone and anything.

... Except maybe the dead.
 
BeepSmile said:
Ohhh. Eshin-friend, Everchosen.

No. Wait.
Eshin-friend as adventurer, travelling on the back of Stompy the Mammoth; Everchosen.

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Actually, to hell with the Everchosen nonsense: The Adventures of Stompy and Eshin-friend, a hit new series available at all good bookstores!
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Well, the narrative slot of "Buddy adventures of big beefy guy and smaller cunning guy" has been freed up. And Mathilde can be an inverse Thanquol: Kinda goofy, but deadly competent in the moments that count with a knack of pulling together disparate faction to produce impossible victories. But she isn't totally adverse to getting together for a nice hot drink after the adventure to exchange professional tips (and gossip). It helps that neither Stompy or Eshin-Friend mind that the hot drink is ale.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
The Birb of Destiny suggested that Clan Mors were close to converting to worship of the Four, but we utterly crushed them at K8P and now they don't serve any god.

So I'm left wondering—was the warlord of Clan Mors a potential Everchosen candidate, but we removed them from the running before they even reached the qualifiers.

And if a Skaven warlord can be an Everchosen candidate, then that throws open the contest to, well, anyone and anything.

... Except maybe the dead.
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Honestly, K8P had so many factions that I wouldn't be surprised at someone from Clan Mors being a candidate. (But the Birb did say that they were at the precipice of apostasy. Mors may have gone back to the Horned Rat for all we know.)

I wouldn't be surprised at anyone canonical being a candidate right now even if we assume it wasn't someone from Mors. Mathilde's a candidate. Egrimm and Alric were possibly candidates, if you take the Birb's words in that particular passage as taunting rather than lies (which admittedly you might now). Yes, Chaos tries to corrupt everyone, but are still some pretty high-up members of an organization founded with the intent of fighting Chaos and corrupt magic-users.

That said, Boney said all candidates but one are drawn from canonical figures, and he has said before than Everchosen won't necessarily hit the Old World so the pool is probably worldwide. I have to imagine that at worst there's one or two more living candidates around the Old World.
 
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Parabola said:
Honestly, K8P had so many factions that I wouldn't be surprised at someone from Clan Mors being a candidate. (But the Birb did say that they were at the precipice of apostasy. Mors may have gone back to the Horned Rat for all we know.)

I wouldn't be surprised at anyone canonical being a candidate right now even if we assume it wasn't someone from Mors. Mathilde's a candidate. Egrimm and Alric were possibly candidates, if you take the Birb's words in that particular passage as taunting rather than lies (which admittedly you might now). Yes, Chaos tries to corrupt everyone, but are still some pretty high-up members of an organization founded with the intent of fighting Chaos and corrupt magic-users.

That said, Boney said all candidates but one are drawn from canonical figures, and he has said before than Everchosen won't necessarily hit the Old World so the pool is probably worldwide. I have to imagine that at worst there's one or two more living candidates around the Old World.
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It being made up of canon characters does do something to concentrate it in the Old World- the vast majority of canon characters are in the OW.

(Well, a large number of potentates are presumably up in the Chaos Wastes, so, Old World-adjacent)
 
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