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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Tobtorp said:
As i said earlier, the golds (and maybe the ambers) would probably recognize it but they also would keep quiet because they do the same thing.
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From what I understand not everyone is in the know about how the spell works, so I doubt every average Gold or Amber Magister would recognise the spell.

Also, I wasn't here when the skaven stuff was traded for knowledge on binding apparitions, but like... what happened? I don't think Mathilde has actually ever done anything with said knowledge ever since she got it.
 
Constenanto said:
Also, I wasn't here when the skaven stuff was traded for knowledge on binding apparitions, but like... what happened? I don't think Mathilde has actually ever done anything with said knowledge ever since she got it.
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We got it and iirc it wasn't quite what the thread hoped for it was. Iirc the threat wanted a way to give a spell sentience and the only spell we knew that had sentience were the hounds. But an apparations is not applicable to the ideas that were thrown around.
 
LadySerpentine said:
...Huh. I see where that confusion arose - it's because Gehenna 2: Modern Edition specifically asked what ones Ulgu has as though that's what we were going to bind - but yeah, I do appear to have gotten mixed up on that particular note then.
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There's also the fact that IIRC Boney mentioned that the Snek might have been a possible familiar, if we hadn't put it into eternal living death. Since the Snek is attracted to Ulgu, that implies there are ways of binding even those that are attracted to your wind.

Mind, one should be very careful about generalizing. A familiar is not the same as a bound apparition for one. And takeing something Boney said in one context and running away with it is a reliable way of annoying him.
 
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Tobtorp said:
We got it and iirc it wasn't quite what the thread hoped for it was. Iirc the threat wanted a way to give a spell sentience and the only spell we knew that had sentience were the hounds. But an apparations is not applicable to the ideas that were thrown around.
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Ah, okay.

A shame, honestly. The idea seemed pretty neat. At least people are considering it now (at least, I think people are... I just woke up so I have no idea if I derailed the topic - sorry if I did.)
 
Tobtorp said:
We got it and iirc it wasn't quite what the thread hoped for it was. Iirc the threat wanted a way to give a spell sentience and the only spell we knew that had sentience were the hounds. But an apparations is not applicable to the ideas that were thrown around.
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Yeah, we were hoping to give a spell autonomous intelligence without using daemons in order to do things like IFF for a "ward save" or an auto-mapping enchantment for Belegar.
Constenanto said:
A shame, honestly. The idea seemed pretty neat. At least people are considering it now (at least, I think people are... I just woke up so I have no idea if I derailed the topic - sorry if I did.)
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We've been considering it for a long while, it's just that the primary application of this knowledge is "it would make us deadlier in a fight." We've already got a "make us deadlier in a fight" project that we've been working towards for a long while (Branarhune), and there are a lot of avenues for Mathilde's self-improvement that aren't just about becoming killier that have gotten left on the table for a long time (like Arcane Marks). So, there's plenty of competition for self-improvement actions and plenty of competition for research actions, and the thread didn't vote to take a sabbatical when it had the chance, which means that we need to fit stuff in at the interstices of our real work.
 
picklepikkl said:
Among anyone who knows what it is, I assume that would be a selling point because it means that it will be especially effective when deployed against necromancers or chaos sorcerers. It's not made of necromancy and chaos sorcery, it's hungry for them.
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Yknow, that makes me wonder if it couldn't be used for a dhar clearing by binding it into something like a waystone.
 
silentorphan said:
Well, binding Drycha during the battle in Kislev was an option, but that vote lost.
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Attempting to bind Drycha during a fight was an option.

Important distinction.

Although that does open up some possibilities—spirits and sprites and spites all seem to be viable targets. I suspect we shouldn't do anything with spectres or souls because that would make Papa Morr unhappy with us, and we're already kinda in the doghouse with him because of the whole Libre Mortis thing, but everything else seems to be fair game.

Also I don't know why, but I seem to be alliterating a lot at the moment.

BurnNote said:
Yknow, that makes me wonder if it couldn't be used for a dhar clearing by binding it into something like a waystone.
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I think Caledor would object to that.
 
picklepikkl said:
Whispering Darkness seems mechanically ideal, insofar as you can very easily imagine deploying it via a mist-based spell (folks have proposed a death fog that is safe for allies and murder for enemies) and getting the bonus from our staff: we know that spells are easier to create when we stack multiple traits or skills that enable them, like both our Apparition understanding and our effectiveness with mists. So if we want to make the spell as spammable as possible, this seems like a good route.
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Honestly i am not sure it will count.

Since, you know, Whispering darkness isn't actually a mist but a being.

But there is only one way to find out.

picklepikkl said:
We can get more than one, and more than one kind, but I'm pretty sure we'd need to do separate development for each kind of Apparition we want to use rather than having a one-size-fits-all Ulgu binding+deployment mechanism.
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Reverse engineer Brass Orb with Aetheric Vitae as substitute to create pocket dimension that is both capable of eating everything in radius and then spit it out. Instant Pokemon quest. :V

Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Although that does open up some possibilities—spirits and sprites and spites all seem to be viable targets.
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We should find a Treeman thats feeling adventurous and adopt it as a grouchy grandpa.

EDIT: Actually, as an aside, are we sure that Whispering Darkness doesn't eat Ulgu? Part of its purview are psychology affecting spells, and uh... There are some. Well i guess that Hysh and Ghur would count then too but you know what i mean. Mental manipulation is kind of the Ulgu wheelhouse. I assume there is some list somewhere for viable apparitions but i dunno where. Hopefully its not threadmarked or i would feel dumb.
 
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pucflek said:
EDIT: Actually, as an aside, are we sure that Whispering Darkness doesn't eat Ulgu? Part of its purview are psychology affecting spells, and uh... There are some. Well i guess that Hysh and Ghur would count then too but you know what i mean. Mental manipulation is kind of the Ulgu wheelhouse. I assume there is some list somewhere for viable apparitions but i dunno where. Hopefully its not threadmarked or i would feel dumb.
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Boney's previously said that Mathilde thinks it's safe.

Boney said:
It's not a matter of never being allowed to have any of what they eat near them ever, it's that you're going to have a bad time if they straight up eat your magic raw and you try to use that magic to bind them. For Ulgu, that's only the case with the Asp and the Lost Child.

Nerdasaurus Rex said:
I've actually previously listed the Whispering Darkness as "unsafe" because I figured the psychological and hedge magic would mean that our ulgu wouldn't work very well on it.

I guess it's passed Mathilde's sanity check, so that means I was being too cautious with that assessment.
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That was a solid assessment at the time, Mathilde just has more information to work with now.
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That was after we got the library books on Apparitions as well.
 
Knight of the Dämmerlichtreiter: The Dämmerlichtreiter was a legendary wizard-knight who hunted vampires atop a magic steed. Speaking this incantation summons her shadow—horse and all—to your side. It is said that it holds a special hatred for oathbreakers, and will turn against any master who acts with dishonour. Some journeymen have taken to calling this spell "The Knight of Night".

Mathilde's Misty Hounds: Made of shadow and fog, these relentless hunters pursue their prey, passing through any obstacle, only solidifying as they lunge to bite and tear. Any similarities to Gehenna's Golden Hounds are firmly denied by both the Gold and Grey Orders.

Weber's Wrathful Witch: The soul of every wizard feels the tempting call of Chaos, but it is said that one Lady Magister of the Grey Order, following an encounter with a Lord of Change, excised that part of her in an arcane ritual and bound it to her will, setting the vengeful spirit upon her enemies instead.

Mathilde's Malicious Mist: With a single command, this dark, flesh devouring fog spreads out, seeping in through the gaps between doors and windows, before coalescing around its target. It is said that the last thing its victims hear is the whispered screams of all it has consumed, before their own voice is added to the silent cacophony.

Mathilde's Maddening Miasma: Those afflicted with this mind altering spell will suffer visions of decay and rot affecting all they behold, until their mind itself breaks from the torment. Buildings appear as ruins, fields become wastelands, and people wither into desiccated corpses.

Shadowworms: The target's own shadow rebels against them, twisting into a thousand writhing worms, consuming all they come into contact with.

Murder of Shadows: a flock of winged shadows darts forth from the casters hand, and descends upon the target, pecking and tearing at any exposed flesh. Shamans of the Amber Order have expressed interest in the workings of this spell, but the Shadowmancers hold their secrets tightly.

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Made some RPG style descriptions of the apparition spells.
 
I would prefer to make our soul bigger before we consider stuffing to much stuff into it. Unlik3 a pokeball, we have precisely one. And I do not think technically-not-daemon-smithing is something we should do.
 
Specifically, the Golds use Dark Hounds to make Golden Hounds, the Ambers might be using the Bleak Swarm to make Crows Feast, and the Jades might be using the Whispering Darkness to make The Dwellers Below.

Notably, the Amber spell isn't battle magic, instead being Moderately Complicated, but the other two spells are battle magic.
 
Nerdasaurus Rex said:
Specifically, the Golds use Dark Hounds to make Golden Hounds, the Ambers might be using the Bleak Swarm to make Crows Feast, and the Jades might be using the Whispering Darkness to make The Dwellers Below.

Notably, the Amber spell isn't battle magic, instead being Moderately Complicated, but the other two spells are battle magic.
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I'm personally on the interpretation that the stuff about Corvus the Crow Lord isn't just a complicated lie and the Ambers are applying similar principles as Apparition-binding to bind nature spirits instead, which accounts for the dramatically decreased danger of the spell. We know that the principles can be applied to bind multiple kinds of spirit to your soul, so it's plausible that they're actually telling the truth and made a deal with some kind of spirit-bird-flock.

The Jades are definitely up to some shit, though.
 
picklepikkl said:
The Jades are definitely up to some shit, though.
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From what we have seen every college has some shit going on. The jades do their druid thing a bit too hard, the golds probably are doing shady shit with the market if i had to guess, the light is doing their indoctrination thing with orphans, the ambers might be enslaving/worshiping a crow god, the brights have their seven keys and their ... Fire monster whose name i forgot, the celestial do future timey wimey stuff (which is always dangerous), the amethysts are willing to have their patriarch violently die beneath drakenfels town, and the greys are perfectly willing to kill a empress for the good of the empire.

Magic colleges be weird.
 
picklepikkl said:
I'm personally on the interpretation that the stuff about Corvus the Crow Lord isn't just a complicated lie and the Ambers are applying similar principles as Apparition-binding to bind nature spirits instead, which accounts for the dramatically decreased danger of the spell.
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I don't think nature spirits have to be involved to account for decreased risk; I would be shocked if the Wind of Beasts doesn't have an advantage in binding creatures with animal-level intelligence. The Beast Broken is a relatively simple spell that tames a creature on the spot, and while apparitions are more unruly than domesticable animals I wouldn't be surprised to learn that similar principles can be used to make a bound apparition more well-behaved.

Having said all that, I'm pretty sure that this discussion is based on a misunderstading, because the Ambers do have a battle magic spell that might include apparitions, The Flock of Doom, and it's possible that this is the spell Gehenna had in mind when she said she thinks the Ambers use similar methods. It's especially likely since that is the spell Boney mentioned in the first apparition related WoG:
Boney said:
Throttling and Roiling Shadows just need to do a set thing to what it encounters, Shadowsteed just needs to go in whatever direction Mathilde indicates. If you're looking for something that can move and fight independently, that's either a lot of programming you need to mentally encompass every time you cast a spell, or... you need it to be able to think for itself. Which isn't insurmountable, but it is very tricky, and the easiest answer (note: not necessarily best answer) is daemons. Or the souls of the dead. The harder answers are generally very closely kept secrets. The Golds aren't telling what the deal is with Gehenna's Golden Hounds, nor are the Jades about the Dwellers From Below. Ask an Amber Wizard about Flock of Doom, and they'll mutter something about 'Corvus the Crow Lord' and change the subject.
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