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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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I'd prefer giving the greatsword to Maximillian to enchant so that we get a magic weapon for free instead of having to spend dwarf favour on it.
 
Equable said:
Well, the actual best material would probably be ithilmar, as it's lightness might counteract the intitiative penalty of greatweapons, but good fucking luck, the elves are stingier with it than the dwarves are with gromril.
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"Hey Belegar, since we're in Karaz-a-Karak anyway, do you think we could stop by the trophy hall full of things you've taken from dead elves? It's been a while since I was on a proper shopping trip..."
 
Karugus said:
I'm pretty sure if we just go by RAW she wins off of seed regens, but those wouldn't actually happen in a one on one duel with something that really wants her dead.

But yeah, Mathilde is someone liable to be stuck in quarters with some nasty gribblies

much more forgivable, but then we can't come at the slayer wizard aesthetic from the other direction, considering that's how the Dwarfs saw us almost winding up as at Drakenhof :V

Like, objectively, you might have merit in it being suboptimal (though the better greataxe, and the likely possibility of winding up better with the axe skill than the greatsword make that uncertain). But there's something to be said about Mathilde changing how she looks and how other people see her from a narrative perspective. There's appeal in the greatsword in terms of being familiar but I value the impact of K8P as something of a watershed moment for Mathilde.

One of the biggest things that always stuck with me was Van Hal calling out Mathilde asking him for advice, stating she was the second most powerful person in the province and asking her to have more faith in herself. Queue him dying a bad death and that promised certainty being more distant than ever before. Compare the Mathilde that spoke with Van Hal there, with the listless one who signed on with Belegar and the one we just saw educate her journeymanlings with style and show them how dispelling is really done. There's this shift in tone and internal narrative along the way that's never explicitly called out but leaves us with this Mathilde who is absolutely confident in what she knows and doesn't know, of what she can and can't do (as when she slept off the Divine Heist) and I want there to be visible indicators of that. For some change to be apparent even to those who only really knew the stories about her. And that might just call for mixing things up with the giant sharp thing we quietly kill monsters with.
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I'll be blunt. I do not feel that changing Mathilde's weapon in this way to be an indication of growth. I love the imagery you build up here about how Mathilde has grown as a person, but the conclusion of "So let's get a greataxe" doesn't follow in the slightest.

Mathilde's skills with a greatsword have been with her for a long time. She has been using one for around 7 and 1/2 years in story.

She sought out training from the Greatswords of Stirland. Recieved it from the Champion of Stirland, who became one of her best friends. Carrying her greatsword saved her life when she identified an undead infiltrator. She was so proud of her skills that she made her house banner show a greatsword.

She carried her greatsword into the battles in the Haunted hills and Drakhof. She held a greatsword when her liege was struck down (even if she did have to pick up a runefang). She carried a greatsword after Marcus died. She took her greatsword into the depths of Kharak Eight-Peaks, and used it when she forged the connection that would accidently allow her and Ranald to steal power from Mork himself.

Time and again, in the most important battles she has faced, in the most pivitol moments of her life, Mathilde has carried a greatsword.

To give that up simply because we want really nice Runic weapon feels cheap.
 
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Equable said:
Well, the actual best material would probably be ithilmar, as its lightness might counteract the intitiative penalty of greatweapons, but good fucking luck, the elves are stingier with it than the dwarves are with gromril.
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Yeah, Ithilmar is what Elven badasses wave around, it's probably the most magically conductive metal in existence except maybe triple-refined Gromril (And nobody knows how to do the third refinement in the current day, and the amount of people who can refine it twice can be counted on one hand)
 
Andres110 said:
I'd prefer giving the greatsword to Maximillian to enchant so that we get a magic weapon for free instead of having to spend dwarf favour on it.
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Sure it would be free, and it wouldn't take an action or two to learn a greataxe, but it would be alot worse then anything we could get by spending Favor.

Even the shittest sword Kragg could forge could, by sheer virtue of the runes he'd put on it, beat ANYTHING Maximillian could make us.
 
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Alectai said:
Yeah, Ithilmar is what Elven badasses wave around, it's probably the most magically conductive metal in existence except maybe triple-refined Gromril (And nobody knows how to do the third refinement in the current day, and the amount of people who can refine it twice can be counted on one hand)
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Well, there is also Glomril, the stuff The White Dwarfs armor is made out of. So, that might match Ithilmar too. Too bad apparently no one has the slightest clue how to make it. :(

Wait, no. I'm sorry, its called Glimril, not Glomril.
 
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Humbaba said:
I'll be blunt. I do not feel that changing Mathilde's weapon in this way to be an indication of growth. I love the imagery you build up here about how Mathilde has grown as a person, but the conclusion of "So let's get a greataxe" doesn't follow in the slightest.

Mathilde's skills with a greatsword have been with her for a long time. She has been using one for around 7 and 1/2 years in story.

She sought out training from the Greatswords of Stirland. Recieved it from the Champion of Stirland, who became one of her best friends. Carrying her greatsword saved her life when she identified an undead infiltrator. She was so proud of her skills that she made her house banner show a greatsword.

She carried her greatsword into the battles in the Haunted hills and Drakhof. She held a greatsword when her liege was struck down (even if she did have to pick up a runefang). She carried a greatsword after Marcus died. She took her greatsword into the depths of Kharak Eight-Peaks, and used it when she forged the connection that would accidently allow her and Ranald to steal power from Mork himself.

Time and again, in the most important battles she has faced, in the most pivitol moments of her life, Mathilde has carried a greatsword.

To give that up simply because we want really nice Runic weapon feels cheap.
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Because she learned it first. Like, your applying alot of emotional attachment to this, when the fact of the mater is Matlida learned and used a Greatsword because it was the most practical option at the time.

Those moments you listed don't have weight because the greatsword was there, the greatsword has weight because it was there during those moments, which is a subtle but important distinction. At those moments any weapon could have meaning, but those moments are in the past, and Matilda has moved on. I don't see any reason not to take on a new weapon, for our new job, and the purpose We Chose, and have our actions in 8P's and beyond give it meaning.
 
I know it won't be as good as if we spent a bunch of favours on it, but it'd still be good, and we could use those favours on other stuff.
 
So here's the thing. We have access to the best smiths in the world. And two gold wizards. And wizards that can do life-y stuff.
Asking for an Axe is so small minded! If we go all in we can commission one he'll of a weapon!

A great sword, with a core of magically grown oak in the blade. Or we make a blade out of wood and then plate it with mythril or something. Theres so many possibilites! We can stab things with it, we can hack stuff apart with it and if we get into trouble casting we stab it into the ground and channel magic through the wooden core.
 
GreenTamm said:
So here's the thing. We have access to the best smiths in the world. And two gold wizards. And wizards that can do life-y stuff.
Asking for an Axe is so small minded! If we go all in we can commission one he'll of a weapon!

A great sword, with a core of magically grown oak in the blade. Or we make a blade out of wood and then plate it with mythril or something. Theres so many possibilites! We can stab things with it, we can hack stuff apart with it and if we get into trouble casting we stab it into the ground and channel magic through the wooden core.
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It's the 'two skillsets which do not intersect required, do it yourself' situation, only worse.
 
GreenTamm said:
So here's the thing. We have access to the best smiths in the world. And two gold wizards. And wizards that can do life-y stuff.
Asking for an Axe is so small minded! If we go all in we can commission one he'll of a weapon!

A great sword, with a core of magically grown oak in the blade. Or we make a blade out of wood and then plate it with mythril or something. Theres so many possibilites! We can stab things with it, we can hack stuff apart with it and if we get into trouble casting we stab it into the ground and channel magic through the wooden core.
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I'll be honest, I don't particularly like this idea from a conceptual perspective but also from a spending on a Killing Weapon perspective. I don't see enough reason yet to spend that much on our weapon when we're heading towards big things with magical study.
 
Humbaba said:
I would also point out that the Coat of Arms we chose is a Greatsword.

From Turn 8:
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Hmm. So it is. @BoneyM if it were to come up, is it possible for a noble of the Empire to change their coat of arms?

Equable said:
A symbol is a symbol. The symbol of the Grey Order is a sword, the Grey College offers swordsmanship classes, the EIC symbol is of three swords - Van Hal's, Markus', Mathilde's - Mathilde was taught by her now deceased friend Markus. There's a lot of weight to swords in Mathilde's life, and they've taken on a certain significance.

Other than abandoning the Grey Order, I suppose you could sell not using the sword as a rejection of sentimentality - the axe may be more convenient to get made, so the sword is dropped for practical reasons. Despite everything that the greatsword might mean, Mathilde abandons it due to pragmatism. That's a kind of watershed. Or a repudiation of everything she achieved in Stirland, it could mean that too - she's the last sword of the EIC, so if she drops it...

There's a lot that, symbolically, abandoning the sword could mean, but what it isn't is the equivalent of a generic hair-cut scene - a change for the sake of change.
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It could also mean that she wants less to do with Stirland, that's she's moved on (not necessarily repudiated it) but gotten over some of the events. Or that she has decided to have closer ties with the Karaz Ankor, that she's seeking to fit in there slightly better.

I know you said there were lots of reasons, but I wanted to give some more positive ones.

DarkLight140 said:
"Hey Belegar, since we're in Karaz-a-Karak anyway, do you think we could stop by the trophy hall full of things you've taken from dead elves? It's been a while since I was on a proper shopping trip..."
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I get you're joking, but I'm not sure the Dwarves took any of it. Looting their dead enemies isn't massively their style, and the only thing I think they'd have kept would be the Phoenix Crown, which has more to do with the symbolism than anything else.
 
jjffjhjf said:
Well, there is also Glomril, the stuff The White Dwarfs armor is made out of. So, that might match Ithilmar too. Too bad apparently no one has the slightest clue how to make it. :(
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I think that's the double refined stuff, I recall reading somewhere that standard Gromril is good stuff refined from warpstone crater impacts, two refinements are effectively what are used for national treasures of the Dwarfs, and three is stuff even the Ancestor Gods found challenging but it looks more like a living crystal than anything else.

But yeah, the top priority for our favors and gold needs to be establishing our tower I think, it's going to be expensive if we want it done right, but we should spare no expense to do so.
 
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BungieONI said:
I'll be honest, I don't particularly like this idea from a conceptual perspective but also from a spending on a Killing Weapon perspective. I don't see enough reason yet to spend that much on our weapon when we're heading towards big things with magical study.
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Personally I fully agree. I'm happy with our current gear. But I think IF were going to min-max our weapons, then at least we can figure out a unique and awesome weapon to needlessly sink favours in.
 
Learning some hand-hand combat, or how to kill someone with a T-shirt seems super important to me. I mean, if we are ever imprisoned and about to be burned on a stake, or executed, being able to stealth kill some guards with with small-clothes seems ideal. Then you can just walk out dressed as a guard. Mathilde Weber whilst a cool cat, lives in warhammer fantasy, and as such possesses a disappointing amount of ways to defend their person, and deliver death unto others. How bad ass would it be if she could assassinate other grey-wizards without magic. Gold in a pouch wrapped in a shirt would make well enough flail. And you could strangle someone with it. Learning some improvised weapons techniques and disarming skills would be useful, and with her connections to her god, perhaps she can hire some specialized instructors. Maybe learn some witch-hunter skills as well.
 
i mean
its a sword, vs an axe. theres only so killy either of them can be. any knucklefuck can kill someone with a weapon. The wielder is the important part.
what, exactly, do you guys think a "super killy axe/sword" is gonna do?
 
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deathofrats0808 said:
I get you're joking, but I'm not sure the Dwarves took any of it. Looting their dead enemies isn't massively their style, and the only thing I think they'd have kept would be the Phoenix Crown, which has more to do with the symbolism than anything else.
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At the very least, they did loot a lot of maps Barak Var navy uses - or traded for them/were gifted them, but later started claiming it was loot. And I sincerely doubt that is the only elvish thing they posess.
 
GreenTamm said:
Personally I fully agree. I'm happy with our current gear. But I think IF were going to min-max our weapons, then at least we can figure out a unique and awesome weapon to needlessly sink favours in
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This is true, though I know I'm mostly just bouncing ideas off the thread to see what sticks and to take a look at what they want/put in my own ideas haphazardly. I really want to spend as much as we can on the Tower. Which is from what I can tell going to be Quite A Lot.
 
Kornet said:
At the very least, they did loot a lot of maps Barak Var navy uses - or traded for them/were gifted them, but later started claiming it was loot. And I sincerely doubt that is the only elvish thing they posess.
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Maybe, but I'd find it entirely in the character of dwarves to copy what they needed (using their "clearly superior" craftsmanship) and then destroy the rest out of anger. Even if they have stuff left, I suspect they'd not want to give it to us, because they figure we're too good for it :V
 
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